Could use some advice attracting Lords to my cause and morale issue.

[BoogieMan]

I started a new game with Floris mod pack (which is beyond awesome I might add), but imported my level 30 character's stats and started the game off at Swadia. I basically went around and grabbed companions and filled up my army and by day 8 I took a Vyincord castle, and for some reason when they offered peace shortly after and I demanded Haringoth Castle in return, they agreed so by day 8 I had two castles and two villages. Some time later I have eliminated Swadia and have all their territory. But I still haven't attracted a single lord and it's just blind luck the other factions have yet to realize there is no way I could effectively defend my empire if they attacked me. I have fair to good relations with most of the Swadian lords, but none of them will join me even though they have nothing and plenty to offer. Not even the ones with -20 relations with their liege sitting in my cell.

 I have about 1000 renown and like 97 honor. I assume my right to rule is still fairly low despite my accomplishments. Is that the majority of the decision if they will join you?

 This has been a reoccurring issue for me game after game. I always end up with more territory than I have vassals for, which stalls the game as I can no longer effectively defend what I take and still make progress and it get so very hard to attract vassals.

In my last game, when I eliminated my first faction, most of it's lords which had good relations with me came and offered their services without me seeking them out. This time I eliminated one and not a single person has come.

 Any advice would be immensely appreciated.



My second issue is I seem to be a little unclear on exactly how morale is working for my troops. Now that I've finished with Swadia, I'm commonly getting a few troops leaving at night. And of course it's always my rank 5 and 6's. My force morale shows at 99 and most of my troops show "Excellent". None of them were previously prisoners I recruited, they are ones that have trained up in my army. I have a vast selection of quality food and high leadership and whatnot. How can I stop the desertions? This had never occurred for me before Floris and I am playing basically the same way I had previously, so I assume it might be related to this mod?

[Bankoleva]

My understanding is that if you destroy a kingdom none of their lords will opt to serve you.... atleast not for a while. They will run to the other kingdoms. for that reason i usually leave them in one castle and let some other faction strike the killing blow. Last time i did that i picked up 8 lords for the vaegirs. My biggest problem was making sure they didn't have political issues with each other.

You get a negative morale hit if your at war with the faction that troop is from. So if you have predominantly swadian troops and your wiping out swadia, they aren't real happy with you. The problem here is that its not blantantly shown in all the usual places you see morale. The marale you quoted are the army wide morale not unit specific one. Army wide really only reflects impact to losing battles and food.... I honestly don't think if shows if the majority of your troops are mad at you because your pillaging their home towns. Go into the reports tab and on the right side you should see something along the line of "swadian troop morale: -50". The number is sporadic and i have no idea how its calculated.

Your not suppose to establish a kingdom over night.... What your running into is the glass ceiling designed to slow and limit the player from conquering calradia within 100 days. Money is one way. Between tax inefficiency and sheer financial needs to secure just a castle much less a town, means you can never do it alone. The capital system forces you to higher lords or your own centers will rebel against you. Lords have to like you, hate their kings, have no land and you have to have land to give for the AI to run a calculation on whether they'll joing you or not. Then based on AI personalities factors of honor, renown, right to rule and even your wealth can play into the calculation. The AI personalities that are easy to get are the ones you really don't want because their flaky. Those are the lords that highly disloyal, lose relation quickly and could rebel taking your land with them. The good lords are almost impossible to get.... needing high numbers in the factors i mention above just to have a chance.

You could make you companions lords and that would help you for a little while but long story short you grown a little too big too quick to support yourself.

[BoogieMan]

Is there a way to alter how morale works in regards to troops of the same type fighting each other? The reason I'm losing so much is I reloaded to an earlier save and left Swadia with one castle and they keep trying to raid my towns and apparently my troops would rather let the towns get burned to the ground than stop the raiders simply because they are from the same nation. The only way to avoid this would be to constantly swap out my army which isn't reasonable, and it's not a problem for my enemy and it's just gimping me. Where is the pride for defending your homeland? I played pretty much the same way before and didn't have this bad morale issue.

[Hanakoganei]

You can check out the Morale reports under the Reports to see what's affecting your morale. I'm guessing though that you have a lot of Swadian troops (or even recruited some other troops who were once prisoners). These will have big impacts on your troop morale. Also note that having too many companions will also impact morale a little (-1 per companion).

For the lords, it's a chance thing. Scores are calculated under the hood with a lot of factors. Their personality and your relationship to them, and the reason you present them for joining you are really big factors (perhaps even moreso than renown and right to rule?). Also, don't just say what you think they'll want to hear because they'll complain about that and it can affect the outcome. Consider which lords you want in your kingdom and make sure they're all similar in personality and don't have outstanding issues with each other. Write it down in a notebook if you have to.

It's generally easier to get lords that are honorable and upstanding, because just raising your Honor rating will make them like you immediately. However it also means that their current lords probably have a good relationship with them too, which is a different challenge.

If you're not playing hardcore, save before talking to them if you really want to get that particular lord. If what they say sounds even remotely positive, you can reload your save and try again. Or just wait a week and try again.

Again consider carefully who you want in your kingdom. You don't really need a lot as long as they're all rich (they get rich if they have a lot of fiefs), like you a lot, and never fight with each other. I think you can run a whole kingdom with only 5 lords that have huge armies of high-tier troops. You can conquer the whole of Calradia with them if you really know what you're doing, especially by taking advantage of other wars.

[BoogieMan]

Thanks for the advice, that will definitely help.

 I removed the -1 for companions since I couldn't come up with a good reason other than minor game balance, they all get paid regardless of how many there are and that's good enough for me.

Two final questions, if I may. I now have about 9 lords and each has a castle and a village. From what you said, that sounds a little low individually. Is there a loose average for how many fiefs would be serviceable per lord? Does the money they get from splitting plunder with them actually help them beyond morale - do they actually earn money that they need to spend or do they just sort of "get" the number and quality of troops based off of time and their holdings?

[Windyplains]

Lords have a stored wealth value that is used to purchase reinforcements.  They simply buy reinforcements in "mixed groups" as opposed to a player buying fresh recruits.

[Bankoleva]

As far as fief and wealth generation... the formula i use and it seems to work fine is 2 villages to each castle. Castle don't really generate wealth and having to garrison and pay for them they take your money. My thought is 1 village supports the expense and the second village is the income for buying new troops. Although 1 rich prosperous village can do all that by itself. Towns based on old MB stats had the population  and worth of 1 castle and 6 villages. So I keep them for me or give them to my most trusted and generally that would be the only property that lord has since its valued more than 3 times 1 village and castle. Wish that would be taken in to account for relations or something. Anyway that's what i've been doing and its working.

[Hanakoganei]

I tend to just give the castle closest to the front lines to my vassals. Then I give the villages closest to the castles to them. I haven't given more than 3 villages to a single vassal so far, and it seems to work. If you leave them to their devices (as in, not call them to help you with a campaign) they can raise some huge armies by themselves. I had a few with 250+ without my intervention. Their villages were pretty prosperous and I think they've been earning a lot of money that way. Bandits couldn't harass the farmers because they kept patrolling their castle areas, and I send a few tough patrols to their villages too via the Constable. It costs some money but it's worth it if your vassals can raise big armies that is obviously useful later when you need them for a big campaign.

Check up on them regularly and make sure they aren't getting overwhelmed.

It gets harder and harder to manage your kingdom if you have too many vassals. That was my mistake in my first Warband single player game. I tried to get everybody, so I had like 25 lords that all fought with each other, many of them ending up hating me too and even defecting.

I'm not in the late-game yet but I think I may end up just sticking with maybe 5 or 6 vassals that I really trust.