Unsung Hero said:
Got some questions concerning kingdom fighting.
As a vassal is there any (other?) way to persuade peace towards your king or the enemy's king?
Not in Native. Or in Diplomacy, that I can remember--you can convince your king to go to war, but not to make peace.
How damaging is it to decline fief offers and being Marshall? I tend to ignore other fiefs and just ask for towns.
Not damaging at all: I do the same thing.
When recruiting lords, is there any benefit to recruiting anyone but the "good-natured" lords.
The martial, upstanding and good-natured lords tend to be the vassals that need the least managing. Calculating lords aren't too bad, either. Quarrelsome and debauched lords are trouble.
Is there any better ways to beat-down enemy lords? Its annoying to completely wipe them, then have them come seemingly within the same day with another full stacked army. If I catch them I imprison them indefinitely. I don't ever raid fiefs so that may help?
The lords may be back at you fairly quickly, but if you check their armies, you'll notice that they've got mostly lower-tier troops: because you keep beating them down, they aren't able to raise top-tier troops. As for keeping them prisoner, you do lose honor if you keep refusing ransom requests, however, if you can balance out the honor loss (at least to keep it over 300) by doing other things that gain you honor, it's a smart move. Every lord in prison is one less lord on the field. The absolute best thing to do is to capture both the king and the marshal: since the king's imprisoned, he can't choose a new one and the kingdom will be flailing, leaderless.
Is quantity the only thing the game calculates for auto-battles/sieges?
I think so, but I'm not sure about that one.
What are good skills to raise for your companion vassals and ones to avoid?
You mean if you're going to make your companions vassals later on? Don't bother with prisoner management. Leadership, pathfinding, tactics, spotting, and trainer are all good skills to raise, but you won't be able to raise all of them and companions will generally lag behind AI lords in several areas, notably army size. Enough pathfinding, though, and they
will move considerably faster.
Can I get some tips on helping a claimant to the throne? Such as a general run-down on when to rebel, what RP number is good to ask lords to defect with, and a general framework to work from.
I'm not all that familiar with this route, having only tried this a couple of times (and never finishing it). I do know that the claimant's right to rule is considered instead of yours when trying to talk lords into defecting. Having high honor and high persuade wouldn't hurt, either, and if you use many different reasons to convince lords to defect, they'll accuse you of telling everybody what they want to hear. Pick one, maybe two reasons and stick with them for everybody.
More than that, I can't say.