Advice and guidance from my fellow Pendorians :)))

[Rad10]

I want to be King, of Pendor at least

I need help from experienced PoP players who have finished the game.

Let me start with describing my character, the state of the land etc.

I play on maximum difficulty, version 3.611
I'm a fanatic when it comes to challenges. Still don't mean I won't ask for help

Day - 850 - 900, can't remember atm.

Character is lvl 36, your typical knight - who likes using crossbows in sieges. I've got good armor, weapons and skills to use them, I don't need help there.

The important skills
Prisoner management - 7
Persuasion - 7
Leadership - 9, soon to be 10 once I start reading the great leaders of pendor book

Renown - around 4400
Honor - 300ish
Right to rule - 96, something like that.

Noldor relations - over 60

Party size - 328 at the moment

I am a vassal of the Kingdom of Sarleon.
I hold 2 cities, 2 castles and a village, with plans of expansion.
The fiefs are: Valonbray and Cez, Knuddar castle and Shieldstorm Keep, Kaveraid. Kind of stretched across the map, but it is not so easy to pick fiefs close to each other when you're fighting HUGE HORDES OF BLOODTHIRSTY BASTARDS - I love this game! You grab what you can

I have great relations with almost all the vassals of Sarleon, some at 100 (the most powerful lords, how convinient). I have friendly relations with the honorable lords of other kingdoms as well.


The Fierdsvain are gone.

Empire is down to 1 city. Janos

The D'Shar hold 6 cities. Ishkoman, Nal Tar, Singal, Torbah, Ethos, Laria, Javiksholm

Ravenstern hold 5. Rane, Senderfall, Ravenstern, Poinsbruk, Marleons - poor Marleons became a ruin after changing hands 5-6 times in the previous war with Ravenstern.

Sarleon has 5, 2 are my own. Valonbray *mine*, Cez *mine*, Avendor *friendly for rebellion, good relations with lord*, Sarleon *friendly for rebellion, 100 relations with lord, King Ulric no longer holds it*, Windholm *loyalist, King Ulric's fief*.

Castles: Ravenstern have 1 outside their original territories, Sarleon and the D'shar have divided the Fierdsvain castles, and Sarleon has the majority of the Empire castles.


Sarleon became a power and  the previous war saw us fighting against all the remaining 3 factions. It was a weird mix of pain and fun trying to fight on 3 fronts, spanning a time frame of 3-4 game months.
We managed to survive long enough to sign a truce with Ravenstern and the D'shar, so we could finish the Empire off. Empire went down to 1 city.

Now the truce has expired, and Ravenstern declared war on us, with the intention of curbing our (my) power. The D'Shar are surely to follow soon. I can win the war, or at least last long enough to grab a city or castle to be stronger in the next war.

Eliminating the other factions is not my primary concern here, it is founding my own kingdom. Of course, I plan to rebel at some point of time. I need help with the how and when

Should I wait until the other factions are at their dying breath or should I rebel while they still have life in them? I'm asking because they might potentially keep Sarleon at bay and be an asset, or kick me in the groin while I'm still weak and without bannermen to aid me.

Whom of the lords should I invite to join me? Will they bring their fiefs into my kingdom when they join? How do I recruit them? I've never done this... successfully. My last attempt ended up with my city constantly being attacked by everyone. But then I had no honor, a third of the renown, low leadership, crappy relations etc, etc, etc - basically, I was 10 times weaker.

I hope to read many replies with your experience and advice in them.

Many thanks in advance,


Rad

 

[Volja]

you will either lose valonbray or cez you cant defend em both . my suggestion is: you say
  0. garison at least 400hundred in valonbray, not for defending but for reinforcements, dont let them siege anywhere. hunt them down on field 1by1
  1. wait until sarleon is war against dshar, than siege javiksholm and rebel bye
  2. say bye to cez and shieldstorm keep. knudarr castle is semi close to valonbray if im recalling right. give knudarr to sir roland with its village, give fredderick 1city and village, give donavan 2villages
  3. you will have 3good vassals and pretty much hunt down any sarleon army around 500units maybe even more. dont go toe to toe against their full force.
  4. capture 2-3sarleon lords and turn them into vassals, give 1village to each
  5. you can always hire a merc company if you see things are going bad
  6. if sarleon starts to get pawned, go siege windholm or another castle. you have high surgery so go siege it and hide behind a tree or something, even if you fail 2-3days than you are full army again
  7.sarleon will wanna make peace with you accept and let your lords recruit more units give em 7-10days. mean while you should recruit too.
  8.put some pendor heavy bowman and swordsman they are super cheap to maintain and kicks a decent punch. you can train them to max tier in just 1 in case of danger if you have good trainers with you.
  9. castles give +10troop limit to vasssals
10. check out the lord personalities http://pop3.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_Personalities

 

[Rad10]

Thanks for the advice
How good are my chances of getting the fiefs of the lords who join me to be joined to my kingdom? I'd rather not have to conquer Sarleon's 1000 strong  garrison - I've got 100 relations with the current lord anyways xD

 

[Volja]

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,194165.msg4650406.html#msg4650406

 

[Vahkn]

You're more than ready to go independent, so the sooner the better.

It's a coin toss whether a lord brings any fiefs with him. Frankly it's more fun when they don't, so no big deal either way.

Persuasion skill is a waste of time. It only works on the fickle lords, who are the ones you don't want. Its far more efficient to just defeat the lords you want in battle, capture them and then talk to them to recruit them. No persuasion needed that route. On the topic of lords, you don't want powerful ones, you want loyal ones. Using sarleon as the example, Brennus has knights of the lion, but is hardcoded to argumentative. You'll lose relations constantly with him once he's a vassal. You're better off with regular lords (only honorable or marshal personalities) who will follow your instructions reliably.

Put about 400 decent troops (armored longbows and men at arms for sarleon) in any fiefs you want to keep for yourself, then add 600 or so cheap low tier troops (sarleon militia). 1k total garrison is enough to deter most attacks, give you a pool of troops to train from in an emergency and keep the numbers fairly balanced if you get sieged by 2-5k of enemies later, all while being easily affordable. Meanwhile, i'd suggest taking a hard to siege fief (mobray castle works great for sarleon) to use solely as bait. Keep a very small garrison of say 50 men at arms and 50 longbows in it and you'll find most enemy attacks pick it as the first target. Join the defense when it gets sieged and you can hold it comfortably at 10:1 odds.

If you like a challenge I'd suggest avoiding the use of knighthood orders. If you get 2-300 members of a powerful order (shadow legion or knights of the ebony giblet for example) you can faceroll everything on the map so easily that all the challenge will be gone before you know it.

 

[Rad10]

OK then, I will try it soon. After I rest lol.
Been playing PoP for 2 weeks like a maniac, paving the ground.
Gonna get lvl 10 leadership, more troops in my cities, another city - Ethos seems nice, the D'Shar just declared war 3

And then I go solo.

All in all, a very interesting campaign. I'll post developments if anyone is interested in the story.

 

[Volja]

dont bother with leadership anymore , when you are the king you get +10 or more i cant remember, read the book +1 leadership, leave rest to the renown . than its time to capture a dshar castle/city than go rebel. sarleon cant handle both you and dshar good luck

 

[Lady Raubrey]

P.S. I'm tired so please excuse some of the rambling/typos.

There are different approaches -- I've won two games out of two Vanilla/PoP (not counting my combat only games) but don't play on hard difficulty out of simple preference. I have the hours in of about 10 games or more.  I'm thorough. lol

Listen to Vahkn on Brennus -- if he hardcoded then yes he is a pain.

Most my vassals were from Sarleon and there was a bit of a split with them, be it honorable/martial or what I'm not sure, but most were in a boys club and it worked out well. Feasts of course are essential, usually. 

I'll link to my lords if I get a chance...(I have a graphic for my AAR) and tell you my favorites. Offhand, I recall Aelfwine, Calderyn, Ealdr...(forget his name, good marshall), and Herewerd.

At least half brought centers.

I actually did better with the more powerful high renown lords otherwise -- the other ones were either getting captured too much or were too prissy, and tended not to go with the flow on granting fiefs. I took the quests to settle disputes. I ended up with a great D'Shar Marshall, who rarely complained (honorable)-- Kavian -- not sure if he's hard coded.

I made about 5 lords really powerful, stuck with low numbers <10 until I just got tired of fighting all the enemy lords.
I wish I'd gotten more Fierds earlier (for autocalc) but you have to be careful with relations, esp. if you have Sarleon lords that like each other.
I ended up with 30 lords at the end (when it didn't matter, other than to take on armies)-- only a few companions which I don't care for as lords too much. Relations were mostly great -- except with a couple companions and Brennus wavered in the double-digits.

Sarleon wasn't the beast I thought it would be to take over, nor was Javiskholm but I was OP by that time.

Janos/Ethos is a really nice base to have moving on to Laria. If I read you right I would hit those first, working east to west. If you go North first you'll have a lot on your hands with losing lords to the mystmountain tribes, jatu etc. while having the snake cult, dread, heretics...eventually singali/vanskerry to worry about. I would keep the D'Shar / Ravens at bay, keep them weak and kick their lords butts. They may make piece with you until you're ready to expand. Which one to go after depends on your game. Singal is a PIA though.

Cez sucks but most factions didn't mess with it, you could use Valonbray as bait -- I would try to keep it out of the hands of the more powerful/rich factions for too long though, for them to get a foothold.

Put about 400 decent troops (armored longbows and men at arms for sarleon) in any fiefs you want to keep for yourself, then add 600 or so cheap low tier troops (sarleon militia). 1k total garrison is enough to deter most attacks, give you a pool of troops to train from in an emergency and keep the numbers fairly balanced if you get sieged by 2-5k of enemies later, all while being easily affordable.

  Good advice, I spent a bit more money but I had it to spend.

Also in both vanilla and pop I felt it was easy to be Queen by attacking cities first and castles second. Or City castle castle City ...something like that.  If they only had a few castle left and they were difficult ones, say Almerra, I just waited on them and moved on to another faction's city.

Kudos on the Max Difficulty and good luck.

P.S. rereading who had what I would go:

Janos, Ethos, Ishkoman (or Laria), Nal Tar, Torbah, Singal, leave Javiskholm.  Would also get the fiefs around Emirin, Rala Keep etc. -- and Calderain (sp) castle, and Shieldstorm (for bait with the Noldor)-- and whatever your Sarleon lords may not bring that is strategic... (either before or after Singal).

Then hit the North including Marleons there when you can, and can defend it, just keep the Ravens busy (captured) and looted perhaps, unless they start expanding...I think   With any luck the Mystmountain tribes will keep some of them busy.

P.S. Morale can be really tough late game if you have enemy troops and run with high numbers. The fewer factions you have the easier (until they are eliminated).  This includes garrisons. I gave good D'Shar /Raven troops etc. to my lords when possible. I kept Pendor, Sarleon, Jatu, HAs and some mercs and my KO. Pendor troops aren't great but quick to train. If you're a berzerker/AA guy then adjust as needed.

P.S.S. Be Marshal first until the Kings war party is eliminated first, before sieges if possible, if you can't take him on yourself. If you're powerful enough you can split them up too. Otherwise get them while defending a City/castle -- just get them off the map.

All in all, a very interesting campaign. I'll post developments if anyone is interested in the story.

Indeed.

 

[Lady Raubrey]

dont bother with leadership anymore , when you are the king you get +10 or more i cant remember, read the book +1 leadership, leave rest to the renown . than its time to capture a dshar castle/city than go rebel. sarleon cant handle both you and dshar good luck

Sarleon can handle a LOT -- it just depends.
Have you won the game you were in asking basic newbie questions about already?
You sound to have learned quite a bit. 

 

[Alavaria]

I tend to like the Leadership skill for the +morale and less wages paid.

It's nice to be able to worry less about morale when taking a large force. Granted, after beating up lords, it gets to the point where you taking along another 100 soldiers isn't a deal breaker since you can have 2000 in your lords

 

[Lady Raubrey]

I tend to like the Leadership skill for the +morale and less wages paid.

It's nice to be able to worry less about morale when taking a large force. Granted, after beating up lords, it gets to the point where you taking along another 100 soldiers isn't a deal breaker since you can have 2000 in your lords

I was talking max leadership and while I didn't even travel with max troops most the time (thought I had 400 when I had closer to 475 capability, just rarely used it), I often ran with about 350 as it was all I needed with HAs, 5th-tier Griffons and Jatu lol. (P.S. I have a hunch higher-end troops take up more morale, I could be wrong).

Still, even with a ton of food and variety, my morale would drop one level just going from tavern to tavern, often sooner. Between taverns and Stewards, the money I forked out was insane, but the hassle was the worst part.

It was a huge drag -- a lot, not all, of the problem though was I'd stuffed garrisons with every faction I laid my lands on that were decent (and ended up fighting 2-3 of such at the same time, often)...never having a morale problem, really, until late game.

But yes I agree about leadership. My character was originally full-on Charisma build, she's beefed up a bit in combat now.

P.S. And I'm talking to when you're soloing to clean up the map (or run errands) while your NPC marshal does sieges etc. With a party, yes, it's less an issue if you bring less troops. Still the modifiers get nasty and if you don't have variety food access, really ugly.

Too -- it may not be noticeable when you lose an AA but an HA or good Jatu is very noticeable. If my morale wasn't Excellent I would/could lose one and a griffon or two against the Fierds and sometimes others, even in smaller groups.

 

[Volja]

dont bother with leadership anymore , when you are the king you get +10 or more i cant remember, read the book +1 leadership, leave rest to the renown . than its time to capture a dshar castle/city than go rebel. sarleon cant handle both you and dshar good luck

Sarleon can handle a LOT -- it just depends.
Have you won the game you were in asking basic newbie questions about already?
You sound to have learned quite a bit. 

im playing on max difficulty without anymods %135 with saving disabled. i believe i have 8leadership, +1 from book and +1 from achievment or something cant remember with 2200 renown i can carry around 230 troops with me. which i never take more than 190 to be able carry around rescued troops from the enemy and for some extra map speed.
i was steamrolling everyone until i got bored. non of the ai declared war against me once 80 RtR 220honor or something. i declared war against sarleon when they started fighting against ravenstern, i took laria and 2 castles near it + seven cross keep, and annihiliated their 700man army with me and + sir roland's 280 troops. they even couldnt raid a single village.
so

Day - 850 - 900, can't remember atm.

Character is lvl 36, your typical knight - who likes using crossbows in sieges. I've got good armor, weapons and skills to use them, I don't need help there.

The important skills
Prisoner management - 7
Persuasion - 7
Leadership - 9, soon to be 10 once I start reading the great leaders of pendor book

Renown - around 4400
Honor - 300ish
Right to rule - 96, something like that.

Noldor relations - over 60

Party size - 328 at the moment

im not much experienced with minor factions but with 400army cap i believe you can solo everything (noldor i dunno )
at the end u just need to kill 200jatu lancer,anaconda knights or other stuff rest is fodder with 150xbow skill aka snakecult 300armsman :p

 

[Lady Raubrey]

Winning battles and winning the game are two quite separate things. Less so in PoP, then some games, but there is a fair amount of strategy to it, along with dumb luck, such that AI can be.

And if I recall you hadn't had fiefs before, at least independently as of last week. So difficulty level and not saving is great and all but it's not the same as a full playthrough. Also some of your answers, like "say bye to cez " didn't make sense. I held on to Cez from early game -- beat the legion to a pulp (in siege defense) and they didn't come back for long while.

Also didn't get the

"give fredderick 1city and village, give donavan 2villages"

thing but if it works for you, good deal. I just wouldn't proclaim it as a "become king" strategy.

I wouldn't say you would want to solo all the minor factions with 400 troops, if you could. Unless you can easily replace what you lose. Those who run with the Fierds etc. and fewer knights would have it easier. 

My end game had 10 armies ...the myst mountains alone were 1200 ea.X 3 + 1200 or so Wolfbade army. Heretics can be a real pain with a lot of DMs as well the Dread Legion. I did solo Maltese but her numbers weren't as high (e.g. not the 2000+)  when I did.

And I'm the last one to say I have all the right answers but just found it curious you suddenly did -- so it seemed.

 

[Lady Raubrey]

Winning battles and winning the game are two quite separate things. Less so in PoP, then some games, but there is a fair amount of strategy to it, along with dumb luck, such that AI can be.

And if I recall you hadn't had fiefs before, at least independently,as of last week. Not an issue but the advice is for winning the game.

So difficulty level and not saving is great and all but it's not the same as a full playthrough. Also some of your answers, like "say bye to cez " didn't make sense. I held on to Cez from early game -- beat the legion to a pulp (in siege defense) and they didn't come back for long while.

Also didn't get the "give fredderick 1city and village, give donavan 2villages" thing but if it works for you, good deal. I just wouldn't proclaim it as a "become king" strategy -- besides anyone I give a city to, I give a castle to and then some, ultimately.

I wouldn't say you would want to solo all the minor factions with 400 troops, if you could. Unless you can easily replace what you lose. Those who run with the Fierds etc. and fewer knights would have it easier. 

My end game had 10 armies ...the myst mountains alone were 1200 ea.X 3 + 1200 or so Wolfbade army. Heretics can be a real pain with a lot of DMs as well the Dread Legion. I did solo Maltese but her numbers weren't as high (e.g. not the 2000+)  when I did.

And I'm the last one to say I have all the right answers, but just found it curious you suddenly did -- so it seemed.

at the end u just need to kill 200jatu lancer,anaconda knights or other stuff rest is fodder with 150xbow skill aka snakecult 300armsman :p

Say what? lol

 

[Volja]

I hold 2 cities, 2 castles and a village, with plans of expansion.
The fiefs are: Valonbray and Cez, Knuddar castle and Shieldstorm Keep, Kaveraid

Winning battles and winning the game are two quite separate things. Less so in PoP, then some games, but there is a fair amount of strategy to it, along with dumb luck, such that AI can be.

And if I recall you hadn't had fiefs before, at least independently as of last week. So difficulty level and not saving is great and all but it's not the same as a full playthrough. Also some of your answers, like "say bye to cez " didn't make sense. I held on to Cez from early game -- beat the legion to a pulp (in siege defense) and they didn't come back for long while.

you will either lose valonbray or cez you cant defend em both . my suggestion is: you say
  0. garison at least 400hundred in valonbray, not for defending but for reinforcements, dont let them siege anywhere. hunt them down on field 1by1
  1. wait until sarleon is war against dshar, than siege javiksholm and rebel bye
  2. say bye to cez and shieldstorm keep. knudarr castle is semi close to valonbray if im recalling right. give knudarr to sir roland with its village, give fredderick

i was creating a possible scenario and we are talking about his gameplay arent we? not yours

i appreciated your answers earlier for my questions(if you did so) however you dont need be an arrogant prick and please try not to be self-centered instead give examples according to the guy's topic not yours

wel whatever i do not enjoy looking at this topic anymore its your alone my liege

 

[Lady Raubrey]

i was creating a possible scenario and we are talking about his gameplay arent we? not yours

i appreciated your answers earlier for my questions(if you did so) however you dont need be an arrogant prick and please try not to be self-centered instead give examples according to the guy's topic not yours

wel whatever i do not enjoy looking at this topic anymore its your alone my liege

How about avoiding the name calling and read the question he was asking.

I need help from experienced PoP players who have finished the game.

That you didn't answer it as requested, doesn't make me arrogant, much less a prick. If you actually read my answers (including to your questions, you would know that I am neither). I just sometimes get bugged when people give advice (and no caveats about experience) for a game that takes a LOT of hours to finish, when just days ago the most elementary of  questions was being asked, by you.

 

[Something unusual]

I tend to like the Leadership skill for the +morale and less wages paid.

It's nice to be able to worry less about morale when taking a large force. Granted, after beating up lords, it gets to the point where you taking along another 100 soldiers isn't a deal breaker since you can have 2000 in your lords

This is what I do too. I don't really take more than 250 soldiers because I always worry about food and morale. Also I just take very top tier troops with me so I can steamroll everything, and give prisoners to my lords. Usually it's the marshal armies leaded by a martial lords that do the main damage while my force goes around picking off lords and taking individual castles and towns.


@rad you should definitely go rogue now.if you truly have near 100 relations with all sarleon lords you can recruit all of them by capturing them and talking to them in the prisoner dialog. They will offer you an oath of fealty. You have more than enough right to rule to do this. Since sarleon is becoming too strong, I recommend you stop helping them and let them lose some cities and castles. Helping them is not a good idea because they are going to become your enemies too. I don't know if you mentioned it but maybe start your own knighthood order too? You should have an army being able to steamroll everyone by now.