So basically just an elaborate complaint about how buggy the Deluge quest is. Took it early not realising I was committing to a storyline, so now can't be a merc or vassal until I take Warsaw. Bear in mind, I'm supposed to be able to just show this letter from the king to some friendly nobles then head for Warsaw. I haven't even got to the bug other people have described where they all wander off at the last minute. At lewast there's no chance the poles will take the place without me, since they're now at peace with Sweden!
My letter from the king is useless because as far as I can tell (and the only way to tell since I'm not a vassal is find a warband and ask everyone what they're doing...) the king is marshall and nobody except the marshall will follow me with the letter, except the king is the exception to that and won't. Even though it's his idea. I took 100 elite mercenaries to have a crack at the 400+ garrison on my own, tried to poison the well to even the odds but got discovered. At this point I find I've gone into the enemy city without my weapons (apparently I took someone else's though...), shield or armour and am faced by a literal firing squad. I get captured and my weapons, the double-barrelled dutch pistol, balanced scottish broadsword, black armour and bespoke helm I apparently wasn't wearing in the first place get confiscated. First off, there's one dubious command decision that I should probably have had some choice in making. Send an underling! So anyway now that's like two weeks and almost half a million thaler spent on weapons and armour before I can even try again. When it does finally work, obviously I'll lose all my troops going in outnumbered (at least 60000 thaler to replace them all with well-equipped recruits and time taken to level up again...) probably be captured again, and morale will be crushed with each wave meaning the garrison will be replaced while I rally my forces for the next go. In Warband, I've found it gets pretty hard to get an army over around 150, so grinding won't fix this either. Basically there's no way for me to win, even with a income from my huge investments in Minsk, and being a decent level, well-renowned soldier and popular with the nobles and king etc. etc. Yet somebody could probably fix this pretty easily by coding in something that makes the nobles say "yeah, sure I'll follow you, if the king says it's important". FFS someone do that.