Hey folks, new player here.
I'm on day 175 (I've spent a lot of time as a prisoner) and am a level 14 Nordic Lord. I was given Jayek as a fief and have a mill almost completed.
Currently, I have a 48-man warband comprised of everything but Rhodoks, including Mercenaries. I heard Mercenaries are overpriced, but all my Mercs have horses, and since the last time my warband got wiped out (has happened over a dozen times), very few of my factional troops have wages above 26. Since I fight primarily Khergits, infantry tends to die a lot, and I've never had any Nordic troops reach Huscarl.
Even with so much cavalry, I have a hard time chasing down deserters, and can barely even outrun Sea and Mountain Bandits. I have 5000 gold and my army's weekly wages amount to over 1000, so money is starting to get scarce.
The Khergits are just to strong to face alone, and the last three times KingRagnar has called me to join his army, he's been out in the field in Khergit territory. All three times, I rushed out to join him, couldn't find him, backtracked all the way to a friendly castle, asked to his location, rode out to meet him, got ambushed by huge Khergit warbands, had to continuously retreat, losing 5-10 soldiers each time untill I made it back to a friendly castle, at which point I had to rebuild my warband.
So presently, I'm at the point where I'm too big to fight most of the raiders roaming around, but still too small and weak to fight the Khergits., who are down to three cities and two castles anyway. I've been tempted to agree with lords wanting to wage war on the Rhodoks, as the Swadians share too much of our borders and the Vaegirs have been weakened by the Rhodoks and Swadians.
Right now all of my income comes from the paltry taxes of my town, selling the weapons and slaves I take from the occasional clash with raiders, and collecting taxes for another lord. Collecting debts almost always costs me more than it earns me, atempting to persuade lord always drives up the cost of purchasing the debt.
So, I'm coming to a point where I may have to start getting rid of the Mercenaries that are the backbone of my army, aside from my six mounter Companions.