Campaign advice

[Will Greaves]

I cannot believe I am actually making one of these threads, but I think I truly need it.  I am on approximately day 1000 of a campaign, and my character is level forty-something.  I am a rebel king; no lord will follow me, of course.  My party limit is about 350, but I only have 5 leadership skill so I can only feasibly have around 200, and only about 100 for more than a short amount of time.  Well, my real problem is that I seem to have run into a bit of a stalemate.  All of the kingdoms declared war on me long ago, and they refuse to make war on each other.  I have six cities, and in order to withstand the constant sieges of 1000 enemies or so, I determined that each of my cities requires a garrison of about 200 troops.  Of these, 150 must be top-tier soldiers.

Under these conditions, I am unable to make any progress at all.  I do not have time to besiege any more cities, because all of my time is spent running from one of my cities to the next, defending them.  If I do not, they fall.  I cannot afford to put any more troops in the cities, as I am already making only enough money to get by (my weekly troop cost is about 14,000 denars).  Once or twice, a faction or two has offered me peace, which I gladly took in hopes that this would relieve the pressure on me.  Instead, they declared war on me the very same day, meaning that the only thing accomplished was that I lost all of the nobles whom I had captured of that faction.  (I have been capturing every one I can and refusing ransom, in hopes of reducing the number of enemies which beset me.)  My luck is running out.  What can I do?

 

[Swadius 2.0]

It seems to me that you should cut your loses and draw back to a few defendable positions. Then try and wait until the AI declares war on each other. You could try making peace with them once you decide which properties are worth losing.

 

[Will Greaves]

When a rebel king, you cannot initiate peace; you can only accept it.  I must admit that relinquishing one or two of the cities does sound appealing, since my companions and I are the primary military force defending all of the cities.  However, if I did this, then surely the same thing would happen again.  Once they leave me alone and start warring each other, I could take the cities back; but I think that they would then once again make universal peace between themselves and attack me.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Sucks to be a rebel King I guess .

As far as I know, their ganging up on you isn't scripted.
It might be cheating, but perhaps if you could find the codes that deal with the AI's probability of declaring war, would you use it?

There are two other things I can see that you can bank on however, one is the capture of their lords and imprisonment of them for long periods of time. Two is the combat experience that comes with fighting lots of big battles, this would translate to you having a good number of higher tiered troops would it not?

 

[Anxe]

You could stop making peace with their nations and just continue capturing lords until they have no armies left.

 

[duracell]

You probaly did this but always keep the captured lords in castles where there is a prison tower.

(You can mod their escape chance from towers, I modded mine to 0%, I think thats the "realistic" value )

 

[Swadius 2.0]

You probaly did this but always keep the captured lords in castles where there is a prison tower.

(You can mod their escape chance from towers, I modded mine to 0%, I think thats the "realistic" value )

I also did that, it seemed unfair that I was always captured when I lose.

 

[Dorathor]

  The NPC lords tend to focus their attacks on a set of castles, generally the ones you conquered from them. If you must keep such big garrisons, check which castles are more prone to be attacked and reduce the garrisons on the others, since the enemy lords will problably only attack them on seldom occasions.
  In my game I keep 100 men in towns and 50 in castles, with the garrison divided 50/50 between high tiered troops and more weak troops. The more weak troops I use are swadian footmen, swadian skirmishers, rhodock trained spearmen and rhodok trained crossbowmen, since they cost between 8 and 10 each, and are relatively good meatshields.
  Anyway, cut the number of troops on less attacked fiefs, and I suggest you to let the AI keep the worst castles (like nordic Tehlrog castle) since it will make it easier to defeat them later on.

  Even then, I reckon being a rebel king basically resumes later on to going from one side to the other driving away enemy lords from fiefs.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

The AI usually rushes the least defended castle that you have (by least defended, I mean the one with the lowest number of troops in it, not necessarily the quality of them either), you could use this to your advantage if you can get them to wait outside a castle that needs a siege tower to be built as that would take a good amount of time to get up leaving you to pick them off while they're waiting outside.

 

[Dorathor]

The AI usually rushes the least defended castle that you have (by least defended, I mean the one with the lowest number of troops in it, not necessarily the quality of them either), you could use this to your advantage if you can get them to wait outside a castle that needs a siege tower to be built as that would take a good amount of time to get up leaving you to pick them off while they're waiting outside.

  Maybe so, but from my experiences, they seem to go to castles which you took from them. I remember when I was eliminating the Khergits, their last castle was one deep in their territory, near the mountains behind Halmar. I remember the Swadians conquered it with a massive force, and later on decalred war on me. Later on, somehow, the Vaegir conquered the castle, and I ended up taking it from them. After that I remember they, for some time, would cross my whole territory just to siege that particular castle. Other factions would do the same... they had as a main target the last castle I had taken from them. Maybe it was because they had less troops, but I think some times they had garrisons as big as other castles, and they were still attacked, so it seems void in that case.

 

[Will Greaves]

I keep approximately 150 Swadian sergeants and 50 other soldier in each of my six cities.  Six times 150 is 900, so I have about nine hundred Swadian sergeants plus an assortment of other infantry.  Raising troops is not a problem; I can raise about 50 Swadian sergeants in about two days (game time, of course).  The problem is the upkeep, which is killing me.

I do not have any castles, as they do not give you enough taxes to justify the cost of defending them.  Since I have six cities, and five factions solely fighting me, that means that all of my cities are constantly under siege.  They attack all of them without much preference.  I thus cannot afford to cut back on any of my garrisons.  I have been capturing their lords and, yes, keeping them in a prison tower.  But there are still so many enemies!

 

[Ludial]

keep persisting until you have all of their nobility rotting in your dungeons. Then you should be able to take all of their fiefs.

 

[Dorathor]

I keep approximately 150 Swadian sergeants and 50 other soldier in each of my six cities.  Six times 150 is 900, so I have about nine hundred Swadian sergeants plus an assortment of other infantry.  Raising troops is not a problem; I can raise about 50 Swadian sergeants in about two days (game time, of course).  The problem is the upkeep, which is killing me.

I do not have any castles, as they do not give you enough taxes to justify the cost of defending them.  Since I have six cities, and five factions solely fighting me, that means that all of my cities are constantly under siege.  They attack all of them without much preference.  I thus cannot afford to cut back on any of my garrisons.  I have been capturing their lords and, yes, keeping them in a prison tower.  But there are still so many enemies!

  I usually give more value to ranged units in garrisons than to melee units, because while you may have at each time about 4/5 melee units fighting, you have on the other side about 10 or more ranged units firing, so while combat goes slowly on top of the ladder, the fire the archers/crossbowmen provide over everyone who stands on the ladder makes many casualties.
  I'd suggest at least a ratio of 50/50 between melee and ranged, but I think it's better to have more ranged than melee, because as I see it, infantry are great at maintaining the the enemy on top of the ladder, while the ranged units fire on them, and you'll always have more archers firing, then infantry fighting at any given time. From my point of view, my archers and crossbowmen make a great difference on siege scenarios.

 

[Miroac]

My method for campaigning was to swap factions while claiming more territory... pretty much while fighting for a nation i would demand i get the castle/city and if they denied me i would leave, then go join another faction so it will neutral out a faction (when you do this you still keep ur towns/castles/cities that you had as a rebel).
I did this until I had the majority of the map, and kept pecking away at different factions to limit their sizes... was going real well until i opened my save file in word pad to see how i could edit it and it never worked again after i saved it (thought i could try to double my renown and troop numbers cause i was getting impatient).
So my theory for benny moore is to find a king while he is in his city and see if u are able to swear allegiance, i never got to the point where i was at war with everyone but u may be able to do it and still keep ur own towns/castles/cities... if that nation is at peace with everyone then u should neutral out with everyone as well.

I cannot believe I am actually making one of these threads, but I think I truly need it.  I am on approximately day 1000 of a campaign, and my character is level forty-something.  I am a rebel king; no lord will follow me, of course.  My party limit is about 350, but I only have 5 leadership skill so I can only feasibly have around 200, and only about 100 for more than a short amount of time.  Well, my real problem is that I seem to have run into a bit of a stalemate.  All of the kingdoms declared war on me long ago, and they refuse to make war on each other.  I have six cities, and in order to withstand the constant sieges of 1000 enemies or so, I determined that each of my cities requires a garrison of about 200 troops.  Of these, 150 must be top-tier soldiers.

Under these conditions, I am unable to make any progress at all.  I do not have time to besiege any more cities, because all of my time is spent running from one of my cities to the next, defending them.  If I do not, they fall.  I cannot afford to put any more troops in the cities, as I am already making only enough money to get by (my weekly troop cost is about 14,000 denars).  Once or twice, a faction or two has offered me peace, which I gladly took in hopes that this would relieve the pressure on me.  Instead, they declared war on me the very same day, meaning that the only thing accomplished was that I lost all of the nobles whom I had captured of that faction.  (I have been capturing every one I can and refusing ransom, in hopes of reducing the number of enemies which beset me.)  My luck is running out.  What can I do?

 

[Will Greaves]

keep persisting until you have all of their nobility rotting in your dungeons. Then you should be able to take all of their fiefs.

This seems to be the best solution.  Unfortunately, at the current rate of things, I will run out of luck before this happens.  The nobles almost always evade capture after the battle (blasted dice rolls!) and those who are taken often escape even from my prison tower.

  I'd suggest at least a ratio of 50/50 between melee and ranged, but I think it's better to have more ranged than melee, because as I see it, infantry are great at maintaining the the enemy on top of the ladder, while the ranged units fire on them, and you'll always have more archers firing, then infantry fighting at any given time. From my point of view, my archers and crossbowmen make a great difference on siege scenarios.

I use almost no ranged units because I have noticed that they die more than infantry in sieges.  I am almost always outnumbered five to one both in sieges and on the field of battle, with the enemy siege force usually consisting of 500-1000 men and my own 150-200.  When I use archers for defense, I usually lose 25 or so per siege.  With infantry, I usually only lose about 10.  So it is not efficient for me to use archers in my current game.  (Khergits give me the most trouble, by the way.)

So my theory for benny moore is to find a king while he is in his city and see if u are able to swear allegiance

I am a thrall to no man!

 

[Miroac]

I am a thrall to no man!

Lol, you dont ally urself to serve them, they are just a dupe to give you an advantage... may sound corny but keep ur friends close but ur enemies closer... all you'll be doing is allying urself to one in order to claim more territory for your cause... once they refuse, declare ur independence and then ally with ur enemies enemy against them to claim more territory on ur behalf... its the art of war at its finest.
Just be sure to pick the underdog... when trying to manipulate u want to be fighting with the smaller nation against the last otherwise you leave to big of an enemy at your back

 

[Will Greaves]

As a more practical reason not to join a faction, would I not lose all of my cities to that king if I swore an oath to him?

 

[Miroac]

copy ur save file just in case.. when i did it all that happened was ur kept ur cities and towns as that kings vassal... so when ur leave the faction again u keep everything, even the newly conquered towns... but then my game could be completely mental

 

[duracell]

This seems to be the best solution.  Unfortunately, at the current rate of things, I will run out of luck before this happens.  The nobles almost always evade capture after the battle (blasted dice rolls!) and those who are taken often escape even from my prison tower.

AI lords have 80% chance to escape after defeat, for me thats just too high, if I personally beat someone unconscious than I stand on his body in the rest of the battle I highly doubt he should have 80% chance for escape.

I modded that percentage to 50%, fifty-fifty chance for capture after battles and there is no chance (0%) to them to escape from my tower, I mean its just stupid to give them ANY chance to escape, its a PRISON TOWER damn it, NO ONE supposed to escape from a prison tower...

I advice you to mod this values, the native default values make it almost impossible to fill your prison, in the native game there is 5% chance for the lords to escape from the towers which means when you have more than 20 captured lords some of them will always escape in every 48 hours (when the escape-chance check happens)