Right to rule

[baldwin of jerusalem]

Im just wondering about how to speed the gaining of right to rule up. By the time I have gained enough of it to realistically begin my own kingdom, the other factions will be unassailable.
I know that making speeches in towns occasionally gives you one point and that sending companions on propeganda missions gives 3. What other ways are there?

[SirPumpkin]

I believe that the only one left is.... Your kingdom making peace with another, or destroys another and Marrying a babe.   

Convincing lords to join you might give you some as well, but I'm not sure.

[Glycerius]

If you suborn a lord to desert to you, you definitely get right to rule in native and most mods I've seen. Hitting weak factions, taking, say, a castle, and asking for peace immediately can help. Sending companions off helps.

[baldwin of jerusalem]

Thanks for the info guys...it just confirms that gaining right to rule is a slow process that can't be rushed.

[Aethelflaed]

How much right to rule do you need by the way to start a kingdom and beeing recognised by other kings? Got about 30 and loads of renown and honour and still everyone is refusing to even make a truce with me...

[EuchreJack]

It could be that they detect weakness.  How strong are you?

[Aethelflaed]

Sorry... was on hollyday... My strength is 18...

[Aethelflaed]

Or do you mean my faction strength? I own Caer Badan with about 250 troops and got about 200 troops in my party.

[nox]

Your methods may be different but I gain right to rule by sacking a city and then crushing all opposition.  Going to war with me is given me license to destroy without consequences.

When they come crawling to me begging for mercy, that is defacto a right to rule, by might.

What I did in bryt was choose a faction that had no allies and then wait until they are on their last city while building up a siege worthy force in my lair. 

Then I started cutting off trade, but building up my faction with their villages. 

The next step was to engage in attrition, which I did by :
- Engaging in their patrol forces aggressively
- Urging villages around the city to light bonfires and lure out lords
- Capturing and holding (not releasing) lords
- Luring lords out by creating a 'weak' caravan and dragging it near the city as a trap.

I stocked up on archers and loaded up mercenary captains with them and had them follow me to the siege camp.

I assaulted the city, but held back my guards and aides de camp.  I withdrew as my forces were whittled down.  Afterwards I talked to my mercenary captains and took fresh troops and gave them my wounded as I prepared for another assault.

after that, I just fed men into the meat grinder until I had an enemy small enough for a final assault on. 

In the final assault, I led my units from the front, and helped to push to the top of a ladder so we could flank the enemy.   I tried to hold them there so they had us coming from the side and the bottom, and wore them down.  I tried to get my archers positioned up on the wall to shoot down into the enemy with mixed results.

It was insanely brutal, incredibly expensive in manpower and preparation but I took the last city from an unpopular culture and am now scrambling for the inevitable assault.  If I do get war declared on me, I have to go out and attack the enemy's units in the field.  You can't wait to be sieged - you have to hit them in the knees.

[Hypno Toad]

Convincing lords to join you might give you some as well, but I'm not sure.

This one especially. Befriend lords from other factions by gifting them high qaulity troops, then convince them to leave their own faction. Quite easy to take over the entire map this way by targeting lords who own a lot of land.

Likewise if you get lords who already have a lot of land, they won't constantly be asking for land and you wont lose as much rep when giving out fiefs.

[nox]

Also, one of the best ways you can blunt a faction that is winning early is to support their claimant.  They end up in complete disarray and you can engage in wholescale attrition and wear down their forces immensely, leaving them wide open for wars with other factions. 

This helps you so that you don't end up with the biggest bully syndrome of getting war declared form the guy with 3/4 of the map on day 200 (been there)

[nox]

Ok so here is how I bootstrapped my RTR this game :

I took cantwaraburh because it had no allies and a few enemies and was down to one city.  I wore them down by basically pouring men into a meatgrinder and then took the city.

I had trained up two companions as envoys already.

Then I found two very small kingdoms that were at war with one another and no alliances to anyone else.

I sent nonaggression treaty offers to both, and when they refused I broke their dicks off.  I smashed the sieging army of one, and then the other immediately sent me an offer for a non aggression treaty.  After crushing a few more armies of the first guy, I offered him a peace treaty which he accepted.

Now that I've got peace treaties, and both of these guys have accepted me as a sovereign I start sending them things they will respond to., thereby building credibility.

In the middle of this, the biggest bully on the map attacks one of the only two nations that I have any recognition with, so once more into the breech we go. 

I get alerted that the faction that owns the whole center of the map is sieging my little puppet state.  I'm actually out in the field recruiting guys so all I have on me is a massive army of peasants, so I ride down and kill his main force with an army of 300 peasants + my followers.  Bloody battle, and many peasants gave their lives for a chance at the easy life of a mercenary.

While I was looting the first army, the second army jumped me and I honestly have no idea how I managed to pull that one off.  I limped away with almost every unit wounded.  I won only because the enemy finally routed after taking fire arrow barrages. 

Long story longer, my peasant army fought 5 battles just getting back home and then defeated two more pissant armies that were trying to ravage my peasant villages.  By the time I got back to the garrison my recruit army was full of pirate captains, heavy infantry, franks, townspeople and every other sort of character you ever find as a prisoner.

Once I was back 'home', sipping mulled mead in the safety of my medieval hovel, I dispatched messages to the puppet factions informing them that I request a mutual defence pact.  Considering I'm the one saving them from a larger opponent...

If the bully faction comes down on me and takes out my one city I am going to find their claimant and tear them to shreds and leave the pieces for the crows.

[Aethelflaed]

Thanks for so much help nox and Hypno Toad. 
I had already figured out, that it is sometimes better to loose reputation and therefore keep enemy lords as prisoners. At least your villages aren't raided the whole time. I am on day 450 and after taking my first castle about ten nations declared war and no one, even after I had beaten their armies over and over again accepted a truce. That was why I was asking. But I will continue with your bully strategy now and see what is going to happen.
Thanks again for those answers.

[nox]

Well, as you know nothing is guaranteed.  Sometimes it works and I'm flush, and sometimes I'm crushed.

I'm getting a little heat in my current game because I've got a few places that just barely dislike me, and when they ally I end up with new enemies.  I'm trying to clean that mess up before it gets out of hand.