Do you guys raid villages?

[samoja]

In my very first game i was raiding all up and down Calradia, i mean all other lords were doing it so i thought, that's what one should do to advance his cause, well, it bit me in the a** later, so hard in fact i never did it since, the thing is, that the AI rarely takes settlements, but if you are founding your own kingdom you will be taking a lot of towns and castles very quickly if you want to keep ahead of the AI that wants to crush you when you are still weak, and that means you will need to be able to get reinforcements on the go, both for garrisons and to reinforce your own party. It is generally very hard to recover lost reputation from a village, and most of all time consuming, and time is something you don't have when you are blitzing the enemy, so i don't consider a paltry sum of coin i can get from a raid worth it, i need all villages to be at the very least neutral towards me.

But that is just my opinion, what do you guys think?

 

[Lord Brutus]

A wise choice.  Raiding villages is almost never worth the trouble.

 

[Crossbow Pig]

If you want to raid villages you must choose a few and have them as your nemesis, always raid them, I generally choose 6, one for each faction.

 

[Seven of Spades]

Unless you are playing with only one or two faction troops, in which case all others are free game.

 

[Sop]

In my very first game i was raiding all up and down Calradia, i mean all other lords were doing it so i thought, that's what one should do to advance his cause, well, it bit me in the a** later, so hard in fact i never did it since, the thing is, that the AI rarely takes settlements, but if you are founding your own kingdom you will be taking a lot of towns and castles very quickly if you want to keep ahead of the AI that wants to crush you when you are still weak, and that means you will need to be able to get reinforcements on the go, both for garrisons and to reinforce your own party. It is generally very hard to recover lost reputation from a village, and most of all time consuming, and time is something you don't have when you are blitzing the enemy, so i don't consider a paltry sum of coin i can get from a raid worth it, i need all villages to be at the very least neutral towards me.

But that is just my opinion, what do you guys think?

It depends. If you want to recruit troops from the villages you better not, but if it's some village of a faction you never recruit troops from I shouldn't know why not, especially if you have money problems. A raid can get you easily a fat 2.5k denars. If you raid it should be one of the furthest villages from the centre of the factions, especially in early game, because lords will come and kick your ass. I've raided a lot and my Honor rating is still 5.

Your financial status should not rely on solely raiding, however. I advice selling prisoners, of course, and buying silk and dye (or another one if it gives more profit) enterprises. Start with one in one of your own factions towns and when you have enough and are financially stable buy more. If you already have one in every town of your faction, spread them over different faction's towns, because if your enemy faction is at war with yours you will receive no profit from an enterprise you have in one of their towns, so if you spread them you're always sure of receiving income from some place.

 

[samoja]

In my very first game i was raiding all up and down Calradia, i mean all other lords were doing it so i thought, that's what one should do to advance his cause, well, it bit me in the a** later, so hard in fact i never did it since, the thing is, that the AI rarely takes settlements, but if you are founding your own kingdom you will be taking a lot of towns and castles very quickly if you want to keep ahead of the AI that wants to crush you when you are still weak, and that means you will need to be able to get reinforcements on the go, both for garrisons and to reinforce your own party. It is generally very hard to recover lost reputation from a village, and most of all time consuming, and time is something you don't have when you are blitzing the enemy, so i don't consider a paltry sum of coin i can get from a raid worth it, i need all villages to be at the very least neutral towards me.

But that is just my opinion, what do you guys think?

It depends. If you want to recruit troops from the villages you better not, but if it's some village of a faction you never recruit troops from I shouldn't know why not, especially if you have money problems. A raid can get you easily a fat 2.5k denars. If you raid it should be one of the furthest villages from the centre of the factions, especially in early game, because lords will come and kick your ass. I've raided a lot and my Honor rating is still 5.

Your financial status should not rely on solely raiding, however. I advice selling prisoners, of course, and buying silk and dye (or another one if it gives more profit) enterprises. Start with one in one of your own factions towns and when you have enough and are financially stable buy more. If you already have one in every town of your faction, spread them over different faction's towns, because if your enemy faction is at war with yours you will receive no profit from an enterprise you have in one of their towns, so if you spread them you're always sure of receiving income from some place.

But sometimes you just need a quick boost in your troop count, and you don't care where it comes from, the only faction i tend not to recruit from are Khergits, and even then it's only because there is usually a better option, but in a pinch even Khergits will do, the payout tends to be too meager for me to basically forever ruin my ability to recruit from that one village, there are better ways to make money, slower granted but much less devastating to your later gameplay.

 

[Gwrfelling]

In general, I do not raid. The potential long-term negative effects outweigh the momentary financial boost, so I find.

That being said, I will occasionally "roleplay" a bandit or murderously fanatical monk and butcher villagers to my heart's content. Lol.

 

[LeChat]

I do not raid villages nor caravans. I find it unethical ^^

(I have just done it once to get the steam achievement)

 

[Gwrfelling]

(I have just done it once to get the steam achievement)

I understand this impulse.

Now, only a number of the multiplayer achievements elude me.

I attack caravans only when playing as a Khergit.

 

[Vengt037]

The game really does not reward raiding or really any kind of "black hat" playstyle. It's a shame because it's so fun.

 

[Skorpion]

Raid villages? No. Not worth the time spent tied down in one place, not worth pissing off the locals, not worth the loss of potential food or trade good supply for when peace breaks out.

Caravans? Yes. Every one I can catch. Totally worth it for the loot and to disrupt the enemy's trade routes.

 

[Captain Obvious]

YES! The riches are tasty.

 

[LeChat]

Raid villages? No. Not worth the time spent tied down in one place, not worth pissing off the locals, not worth the loss of potential food or trade good supply for when peace breaks out.

Caravans? Yes. Every one I can catch. Totally worth it for the loot and to disrupt the enemy's trade routes.

If you have towns nearby you lose income (tariff)

 

[Looter]

Enemy Caravans generally don’t visit towns owned by the opposing faction (unless it was already traveling to x location when the war broke out). And you can’t lose tariff income on caravans that won’t visit anyways.

 

[Drunk B@st@rd]

If you've got a half-decent force that can defend itself, but are hard-strapped for cash, it's the only logical thing to do. Imagine you have built lots of lovely enterprises when all of a sudden the faction in which they are is at war with yours. You've got expensive, elite troops with high wages that need paying. Course' raiding a village or two's worth the trouble. If there's only five or six villages in the game that aren't recruitment hubs, it won't kill you. I just wouldn't want to exceed that number, especially if they're clustered close together.

 

[samoja]

If you've got a half-decent force that can defend itself, but are hard-strapped for cash, it's the only logical thing to do. Imagine you have built lots of lovely enterprises when all of a sudden the faction in which they are is at war with yours. You've got expensive, elite troops with high wages that need paying. Course' raiding a village or two's worth the trouble. If there's only five or six villages in the game that aren't recruitment hubs, it won't kill you. I just wouldn't want to exceed that number, especially if they're clustered close together.

Most villages will be raided in wartime, AI lords don't need villages to recruit new armies, you do. How many times did this happened to you? You just took a new town or castle after a heavy battle, you lost some troops but even if you haven't lost that much you can't spare troops for the garrison because you have to keep moving, you just need something to put into the new fief so the enemy can't simply take it back 10 seconds after you leave. The rest of your kingdom is a few days riding away both ways, and possibly a lot of your villages have already been raided or you already recruited from them. So you just want to recruit some troops from the villages you just took but nope, you were a **** to them at some point in the past so now none of them want to join you and you are left hanging. Because for me it happened A LOT, in my first play trough, and that's why i stopped doing that, if i need money i will go attack a lord and sell off all that sweet gear, i don't tend to hae any money problems at that point in the game either way.

 

[Honved]

If you've got a half-decent force that can defend itself, but are hard-strapped for cash, it's the only logical thing to do. Imagine you have built lots of lovely enterprises when all of a sudden the faction in which they are is at war with yours. You've got expensive, elite troops with high wages that need paying.

If you've built all of your enterprises in a single faction, you've got nobody to blame but yourself for putting all your eggs in the same basket.  If I raid at all, it's only in one faction that I have no interest in recruiting from.  Normally, I'll even occasionally assist enemy villages against bandits, in order to boost my popularity with them, which comes in handy later if/when you take a nearby castle or town and need a garrison in a hurry.

 

[Drunk B@st@rd]

If you've got a half-decent force that can defend itself, but are hard-strapped for cash, it's the only logical thing to do. Imagine you have built lots of lovely enterprises when all of a sudden the faction in which they are is at war with yours. You've got expensive, elite troops with high wages that need paying. Course' raiding a village or two's worth the trouble. If there's only five or six villages in the game that aren't recruitment hubs, it won't kill you. I just wouldn't want to exceed that number, especially if they're clustered close together.

Most villages will be raided in wartime, AI lords don't need villages to recruit new armies, you do. How many times did this happened to you? You just took a new town or castle after a heavy battle, you lost some troops but even if you haven't lost that much you can't spare troops for the garrison because you have to keep moving, you just need something to put into the new fief so the enemy can't simply take it back 10 seconds after you leave. The rest of your kingdom is a few days riding away both ways, and possibly a lot of your villages have already been raided or you already recruited from them. So you just want to recruit some troops from the villages you just took but nope, you were a **** to them at some point in the past so now none of them want to join you and you are left hanging. Because for me it happened A LOT, in my first play trough, and that's why i stopped doing that, if i need money i will go attack a lord and sell off all that sweet gear, i don't tend to hae any money problems at that point in the game either way.

Sure, sure, but don't forget about raiding caravans, less long term consequences there. You hurt the prosperity of the towns (which will be negatively affected in other, different ways anyhow), but you suffer no relation loss or honor loss if you're at war with the faction. It's also much, much lower risk than raiding villages is. 2-3 Caravans are likely to yield the same amount of wealth as a decent village.