fief and taxation help

[ARSAS]

I am owning 8 castles, 2 villages, and 4 towns, however I'm losing money and suffering from tax inefficiency of 24%My castles are garrisoned with 220 units and towns with 420 units. I think my problem with my finances is that I am owning too many castles, I don't know how to solve this financial problem. why am I going through this type of financial problem can anyone please help me, I don't know how to solve this problem, my only solution that I came up with is to give up my ownership of some castles.

I am playing warband in the diplomacy mod

 

[michaelvillena]

You own way too much to be sustainable.  More so if you did not start enterprises in multiple towns (i.e. velvet dyeing, wool, etc.).  Unfortunately, this game runs on finances.  Having a huge army doesn't work if you can't pay for it's maintenance.  You will see the morale drop fast if you run out of money and your troops will start deserting.  Even your companions will also start to leave if you can't pay them. If you have already started your own faction, you need to recruit lords as vassals and start giving out the castles and fiefs.  Keep just one town and one village.  You can also start downsizing the garrisons or disband your elite troops in those garrisons and replace them with 2nd tier troops.  If you are still a member of a faction, you can approach your liege and offer to return some of your holdings.  Personally, I always start my faction with just a single town and village and very slowly expand from there.  I delay capturing another town or castle until I can recruit another lord to whom I will give the newly captured town or castle along with it's attached village.  That way I'm not stuck with paying the maintenance cost of the garrison.

 

[ARSAS]

Since I own 4 towns, is it wise that I keep all 4 towns ? The towns are money makers and I've already started enterprises in towns that the sarranid sultanate own, How many castles should I give up, I own 8, should I give up 5 and keep 3 ?

 

[michaelvillena]

You didn't mention if you are currently a member of the Sarranid Faction or King of your own Faction.  Industries will keep making money for you regardless of which faction owns the town that they are in UNLESS that faction declares war on: a) the Faction that you belong to or b) your own independent faction (i.e. you rebelled and started your own faction or you were a freelancer that captured a town thus started your own personal faction).  Your industry will then be closed temporarily and will appear on the weekly report as "sequestered".  You will not get any income until the faction that owns the town agrees to a peace or if your faction or another faction that is not at war with you captures the town. Castles are a poor source of income.  Unlike towns or villages, there is no way of influencing the local economy of a castle (as far as I know).  Get rid of the castles by either a) returning them to your liege lord if you are a member of a faction or b) giving them away to your vassals if you are king of your own faction.  You also have way too many troops in your garrisons.  If you look around most of the other faction's garrisons are around 100 to 150 and the garrisons are not entirely "elite" troops either.  Enemy A.I. factions will invariably besiege towns first before they attempt to take castles.  Factors to consider in deciding the number and composition of a garrison are: a) it's geographic location (how far to the enemy) b) how defensible the castle is and c) do you intend to hang around within a day's ride from the castle in case it gets attacked.
Having towns, castles and villages spread out all over the map makes it extremely difficult to defend them realistically.  This is where intelligent planning and preparation is crucial BEFORE starting your own faction.  Having towns, castles and villages in close proximity to each other makes patrolling and defending easier.  If you assign a patrol (through your constable) to a town, castle or village their patrol radius may overlap another town, castle or village effectively doubling your projection of force.  Patrols do cost money but are useful in keeping rif raf (bandits, looters, etc.) from interfering with your villages' farmers trip to the nearest "friendly" town which in turn drives the economy of a village which in turn has a direct effect on the amount of taxes that the village pays into your treasury.  Town economy is also affected by the amount of goods that your farmers are able to bring to market and how frequently the farmers can make the trip without getting delayed or intercepted. 
To sum it up, I personally don't own castles and I keep just one or two towns with their respective villages.  I also keep a smaller garrison (200 or so) of 2nd tier troops in the town(s).  I always build a watch tower in villages that I own because it takes any enemy force almost twice as long to raid it therefore giving me and any nearby patrols time to ride there and engage the raiding party before they can damage the village's economy. 

EDIT:  Corrected error in second sentence and elaborated further.

 

[ARSAS]

wait so if I'm not able to conquer anything and as much as I want, how am I supposed to enjoy warband, isn't the object of warband to conquer. I want my character to be known as a great conqueror in calradia. My character was as the story goes was supposed to conquer and own 3 castles, and owning at least 1 town and at least 1-3 villages. Can the story of my character be achieved and be financially sustainable ?

Or should I rethink my strategy and character story ?

Since owning 8 castles was a mistake and not advisible, what am I supposed to do after conquering fiefs that give me a good income ?

How would I stop tax inefficiency ? Do I have to raise the taxes of my fiefs to get rid of that problem ?

I know you said I should keep my garrison to 100 - 150 units, but from my experience a garrison with those numbers are usually sieged by the enemy, I keep 200-220 units garrisoned in my castles because I've observed when having those numbers the enemy does not attack it. Towns are also the same thing except 2x the number of units must defend it, keeping a town garrison of at least 200 or over 200 (220-250 units) is  also something I can't do, due to my experience, the enemy will see my town as easy pickings and most of the time will seek to siege my town instead of going after  the other towns which are usually garrisoned with over 300 units. The enemy usually sieges castles that are 100-180 units and towns that are 100-350 units.

What would you advise after considering my siege experiences ?

 

[michaelvillena]

Conquering all of Calradia is not the same as owning all of Calradia.  The idea is to give out towns, castles and villages to your vassal lords.  The cost of maintaining a garrison falls on the owner of the town or castle.  If you give a town or castle to a vassal, they take over those costs (as well as the tax income) but the town or castle still belongs to your faction.  But in return they will also raise their own standing army and can be called upon to help defend and expand your faction.  Vassal lords are crucial to success in the game.  This is where the ability to attract, recruit and keep vassal lords is key.  That is why most of the forum members advocate spending a fair amount of time preparing before starting your own faction (i.e. raising your personal skill levels, attributes, honor, Right to Rule, etc).  In many ways the game mimics the economic, political and military aspects of real life in feudal times. 

I could be wrong but there is not much you can do about tax inefficiency when you own a lot of fiefs.  Either live with it or start giving them out.  You could try to negate the effects by ensuring that your towns and villages are prosperous which raises the base for taxes, but that can be difficult to maintain as the economy is driven by the farmer's ability to get goods to market and by the ability of your faction's caravans to make it to their destinations.  It really helps to be at peace with your neighbors and this requires a fair amount of Right to Rule and the ability to send capable emissaries to negotiate truces with the other factions.  Being at peace means that: a) your farmers and your caravans can safely complete their trips without being attacked by another faction thus improving the economy and giving you more in taxes  b) your fiefs won't be in constant and immediate danger of being besieged or raided which means that you don't need a million troops in the garrison which means that garrisons won't cost as much c) your enterprises in towns owned by another faction will continue operating thus giving you revenue.  Expanding slowly, cautiously and being willing to use diplomacy can make life a lot easier.  Diplomacy adds a lot of tools at your disposal. 

 

[ARSAS]

ok, but I don't want to start my own faction, I still and will always want to be fighting for the sarranid sultanate, and be known as a great conqueror for the sarranid sultanate, what can I possibly do when there is a limit to how much and how far I can conquer ? After I reached my limit in conquering, what else can I do in warband ? I know I can be a marshal, but the problem with that is I have to raise armies of over 200 units and garrison each army at one of my towns or castles, and from experience, I can only handle garrisoning 2-3 armies, each one staying at one of my castles or towns, the problem with that is it may hurt me financially and as marshal my controversy will quickly rise, and because of that I prefer to conquer solo. What would you do in my situation and you had my ambition to be known as a great conqueror ?

 

[JosieJ]

If you don't want to give up any of your holdings, one of the few other options open to you is to start more enterprises to get the money pay for them.  Start enterprises in towns of factions that are not at war with the Sarranids.  Eventually, once you pass a certain amount, you will be pulling in more money than is going out.  It will take a while to get to that point, though.

Big wall of text spoiler'd to make it more readable:

Spoiler

In the meantime, decrease your garrisons in your castles and towns.  220 is way more than is needed for castles and 420 is way more than is needed for towns.  I'd go with about 150-160 in castles, and about 200-250 in towns.  However, since castles are money sucks, I'd start the disbanding process with your castles, and worry about the towns last.  Also, you don't say what the level of your garrisoned troops are.  If you've got exclusively top-tier troops in your castles/towns, it's also going to be a money suck.  My practice is to put in a small amount of top-tier infantry at the "top" of a castle/town garrison, followed by a small amount of top-tier ranged troops, with the bulk of the troops being low-tier ranged troops (or Swadian militia, which tend to spawn with crossbows even though they're technically infantry).  So, in a castle with 150 troops, about 25 top-tier infantry, 25 top-tier ranged troops, and 100 Rhodok crossbowmen, Swadian militia, or other low-tier ranged troops.  In your case, you're at a bit of a disadvantage because Sarranid skirmishers kinda suck bad, and you don't get any really decent ranged troops until you get to Sarranid archers, and that's a tier-4 troop.  I'd use Rhodok crossbowmen or Swadian militia (whichever is closest to the castle/town in question) instead.  Remember that garrisoned troops don't suffer a morale penalty, so you can use troops from factions you're at war with, assuming you can still recruit them.

Once you've gotten your garrisons down to a manageable size, I'd think about setting up a "honeypot."  That's a castle (ideally) with a low garrison.  The AI is programmed to prioritize fiefs with low garrisons.  If you can lure the enemy into besieging an easily-defensible castle by keeping a low garrison there, they'll be more apt to leave your other fiefs alone (eliminating the need to keep large garrisons in them).  The trick is, the castle has to be easy to defend, and some castles are more suitable than others.  I tend not to do this with towns--it disrupts their economy when they're besieged, and since they're your true money-makers, that makes them unsuitable for honeypot duty.  It'd help if you posted which castles you have, but some that are really good honeypots are Jameyyed Castle, Durrin Castle, Uhhun Castle, Grunwalder Castle, Kelredan Castle, Almerra Castle--or any other castle with a double-courtyard set-up like Almerra, such as Ibdeles or Tevarin.  If you have any of these, you could take your garrison down to about 85-90, keep about 25 top-tier infantry there, fill the rest out with ranged troops (mostly cheap ones, as before), and lure the enemy into besieging them.  The ranged troops will shoot up most of the besiegers before they even get to the walls, and the infantry will hold the ones who get to the breach still for the ranged troops to pincushion them while they're trying to fight their way through.  The key, though, is that the castle be able to hold out until you can get there with your elite field troops to fight the defensive siege personally.  Some of the ones I posted earlier (Jameyyed, Uhhun, Kelredan) are siege-tower castles; Durrin makes you go all the way around the castle under fire; the double-courtyard castles make you cross both courtyards under fire; all of them take longer to besiege, giving you more time to get there.  No matter how tough a castle is to crack, though, if you're relying on the auto-calc, it's going down, so don't figure that the castle can hold out forever.  Pick a castle that's fairly central and that's easy to get to fast and change castles if you find yourself fighting further away more often.

I know what it is to want to conquer Calradia, not for yourself, but for a faction.  It's the way I've played most often, and I've done it with most of the factions (some of them more than once), using only their troops in my field party (although I still use other troops in my garrisons).  The only ones I haven't done it with at least once yet are the Rhodoks and the Swadians and, given that I don't play Warband much anymore, I may not ever finish--I think I've started and left Rhodok playthroughs 3 or 4 times now!  The key is not accepting the vast majority of castles and villages that are offered to you, since they're more useful to give away to vassals as an independent faction, and taking only towns.  It's also laying a lot of groundwork before joining the faction--like setting up enterprises in many towns while you're still independent and can come and go as you please.

Edited to add:

Oh, and don't forget that with Diplomacy, you have the fief trading feature.  You could trade away some of your under-performing castles for villages which, although they do tend to get raided a lot, aren't the money-sucks that castles are.

 

[michaelvillena]

I suggest one of two things:
Return some of your excess castles, towns or villages to your liege.  The only downside is that you will take a -2 relationship hit with your liege for each fief you return.  Here are some screenshots:




  But doing so might help your financial situation.  If you do decide to do it, be extremely selective as to which town and village(s) you will keep.  Choose those which are the furthest away from current and future potential enemies.  Do everything in your power to regain positive relationship points with your liege. 

  Ask for and complete quests for him.  Turn on cheat mode then hit cntrl T (true sight) so that every unit is visible on the map which will allow you to look for battles that your faction is engaged in.  Teleport (ctrl + left mouse click onto spot on map I think) to help out your faction's lords engaged in battle, especially if the lord is losing or is outnumbered.  This will earn you brownie points with your faction and with your liege (when you talk to him after the battle) and your fellow faction lords (when you talk to them).  The king might say something like: "I heard you saved my vassal from certain defeat" etc...

  Respond to when summoned by your faction's marshall. 

  You might also choose to engage in politics.  Talk to an upstanding or good natured lord and choose something like "Do you think we can work together to advance our standing".  If there is political dissent within the faction he might ask for your support or to denounce an undesirable lord who is causing the dissent.  You can also approach your wife and ask her the same thing.  She might give you quests such as reconciling two fellow lords.  Eliminating internal political bickering will help your faction and will earn you  respect among your peers along with honor points.

  You might also consider helping Arwa the Pearled One who is the claimant to the Sarranid throne.

 

[ARSAS]

josie,

well for my garrison I have 20 units of each troop type 20 sarranid guards, 20 sarranid master archers, 20 sarranid infantry, 20 sarranid archers, 20 etc. I place infantry and archers at the top of my garrison list, strongest troops at the top and weaker ones at the bottom, also some cavalry units I leave at the bottom, the cavalry units in the castle or town is there to replenish my cavalry strength should I need it, when playing warband I do not travel with my full army, I travel only with cavalry and horse archers and leave the infantry and archers at the castle or town, it goes like this when I want to conquer a castle or town I'll travel with all, cavalry, infantry, and archers, keeping infantry and archers at the top of my army list, after I've conquered the castle or town I leave my infantry and archers behind to garrison my castle or town with a few units of cavalry (3-5 units) of sarranid mamlukes, sarranid horseman, sarranid horse skirmishers, sarranid horse archers, and sarranid master horse archers. (I modded my Diplomacy game and gave the sarranids 3 horse archer troop types, the sarranids should have had horse archers at the beginning of the game, middle eastern factions particularly iranians and turks, not sure about arabs, used horse archers.) Usually I fight my battles with 20-40 units of each cavalry troop type roughly 100 - 120 units of cavalry (I do this because most npc lord armies are small with mostly infantry and few cavalry and archers). The only time I fight with my full strength with infantry and archers included is when I need to siege a castle or town or if I am facing a lord or king with an army of over 150 units, please feel free to give me advice about how I should fight my battles because really I'm fighting based on my instincts rather than actually fighting based from medival warfare military standards and teachings.

As for which troops to use, I plan to stay at purely using sarranid troops only, even in siege defenses however I will use a small amount of foreign troops to defend my castle or town, but majority will be sarranids.

As for castle or town garrison defenses, I've tried garrisoning castles or towns with the numbers you have suggested in my past playthroughs of warband, and most of the time the enemy sieges my castles or towns when they have the numbers you suggested, it is through play and testing that I now station my castle garrisons with 200-220 units, and towns with at least 420 units. Based on those playthroughs, not once does the enemy attempt to siege my castles or towns. Unfortunately because of this evidence I won't be able to stop garrisoning 220-420 units.

I play with 2 sarranid characters:

Character A = rules at least 3 castles, being = asugan castle, uhhun castle, and jamiche castle, towns = halmar, tulga, and curaw
Character B = castles = distar castle, malayurg castle, and ibdeles castle, towns = halmar, narra, khudan

 

[JosieJ]

As for castle or town garrison defenses, I've tried garrisoning castles or towns with the numbers you have suggested in my past playthroughs of warband, and most of the time the enemy sieges my castles or towns when they have the numbers you suggested, it is through play and testing that I now station my castle garrisons with 200-220 units, and towns with at least 420 units. Based on those playthroughs, not once does the enemy attempt to siege my castles or towns. Unfortunately because of this evidence I won't be able to stop garrisoning 220-420 units.

I play with 2 sarranid characters:

Character A = rules at least 3 castles, being = asugan castle, uhhun castle, and jamiche castle, towns = halmar, tulga, and curaw
Character B = castles = distar castle, malayurg castle, and ibdeles castle, towns = halmar, narra, khudan

Remember, a key part of the strategy of reducing your garrisons is setting up a honeypot castle to take the pressure off your other properties.  The enemy will besiege that one and tend to leave your other properties alone.

I'd leave the Guards and Master Archers in your castle garrisons, and then stuff them with cheap tier-2 ranged troops, ideally Rhodok crossbowmen or Swadian militia (they're technically infantry, but most of them spawn with crossbows).  I'd move most of your other Sarranid troops to your towns and use them to replace units killed in the field.  This will reduce your castle garrison costs; your towns are your main moneymakers and should easily cover the costs of their garrisons, even if you have quite a few top-tier units in them.

For character A, you couldn't ask for a better honeypot than Uhhun Castle: any enemy attempting to besiege it will have to build a siege tower, which will take longer and allow you to get there and throw your field crew into the defense.  The enemy siege tower starts a l-o-n-g way from the castle and moves very slowly, giving you ample time to shoot the enemy to death.  The enemy troops frequently get caught in the geometry, a glitch you can exploit to shoot them to death while they're stuck!  The castle lends itself well to a mostly-ranged party: 10-15 top-tier infantry, like Sarranid Guards, and 65-70 ranged troops, which I'd split equally between crossbowmen (great against shields) and archers (fast, fast, fast).  Uhhun Castle is one of my favorite defensive siege situations, especially if I'm playing a ranged character myself.  Melee characters are at a bit of a disadvantage, simply because with a mostly-ranged party, you will shoot everyone to death long before they can get anywhere near your walls! 

As for character A's other properties, Jamiche Castle is very contested between the Rhodoks and the Sarranids.  It's kind of out of the way of your other properties, too, which puts you at a bit of a disadvantage coming to its defense.  I'd try to trade it for another, safer castle if you can, before the Rhodoks try to take it back!  Remember, Diplomacy has fief trading.  The key is that the castle you're trading has to equal or exceed the wealth of the one you want.  Maybe go for Samarra Castle?  It's right smack in the middle of Sarranid territory, as opposed to on the edge of Rhodok territory like Jamiche Castle.  I don't remember it ever being besieged that much in any of the games I've played. 

For your character B, you could try making Malayurg Castle your honeypot.  I don't like the defensive siege situation as much as Uhhun Castle, but it is a siege tower castle, and it's close to both Narra and Halmar.  Ibdeles Castle is a pretty strong honeypot, but it's far away from all of your other properties, so it's not as good for your purposes.

 

[bonez899]

http://forums.taleworlds.com/?topic=101731.0

Go ahead and tweak M&B and by doing so you can change it so that tax inefficiency becomes 0% or greatly reduced solving your problem if you don't want to give up your properties.

If you don't want to mod the game I would suggest listening to JosieJ

 

[ARSAS]

josie, sorry for replying late, life gets in the way of fun,

if I were to set up a honeypot castle, how many units should be garrisoned in it, the numbers that come in my mind are at least 100 - 120, these numbers are definitely, from experience, attract the enemy to siege my castle, I don't know if you want me to garrison it lower than the numbers that I came up with. From what your telling me it seems the castle should be defended with few units, but not too few that it would result in a quick siege. I gave up 5 of the 8 castles that I conquered and gave it to sultan hakim to award a vassal with, I'm playing as character B, and kept distar castle, malayurg castle, and ibdeles castle. I conquered towns as you advised, provided they were close to territories of the sarranid sultanate. I own all 3 rhodok towns jelkala, veluca, and yalen, and 2 khergit towns halmar and narra. Through this, I'm gaining revenue instead of losing it. However, there are times I lose money too. I started enterprises at non-sarranid controlled towns as you said, in some way it has helped, but alot of times the weekly pay off depends on luck, there are times I lose or gain money, gaining money has not been consistent, however would it help if I lower the garrison of malayurg castle from 220 to 120 ? Also all the castles that I own are engulfed in sarranid territory, none of them border other factions, but the urge to conquer more castles wants to be satisfied since castles are more numerous than towns, owning 5 towns and 3 castles looks great, but I want more maybe owning now 6 castles, 2 from each nearby faction specifically from the khergits, vaegirs, rhodoks, and maybe swadians, except the nords. I don't want anything to do with the nords, the way they defend castles is monstrous, even if you outnumber them, there is still a chance they might win or at least take out 3/4 of your army. The only thing I would do concerning the nords is defend my castles against them, would you happen to know through using the sarranids which units I should rely on closely ?

 

[a farmer from Nomar]

one good advice to conquer nordic towns or castles is to get someone to besiege them with your suggestion. there must be lords in your liege that you have high point relationship with. The ideal person will be your king, destroy nordic army on campaign or well at least destroy the army of their general, and go to sultan hakim and suggest him that he besiege a nordic castle, maybe  you may ask one more strong army lord, they together besiege the castle, when they besiege for a day go again to talk, their option may i suggest action, if you click, there will be an option, you and i together can take ... castle we must assault immediately, they will say to the walls and go inside the castle they besieging, you dont have to go in just  hang around the castle to keep enemy lord trying to help the castle defenders, dont let anybody in, after a day your liege lords will either conquer the castle or get defeated but if they get defeated they will still have reduced much of the defenders of the castle, so you have a honeypot castle to conquer right after them.
two things to keep in mind. first your liege lords with only besiege the castle when they have enough army they usually go around, for example, u cant ask sultan hakim with 100 soldiers to besiege a castle, he refuses  your suggestion by saying he doesnt have enough troops and is resting, so if he has 250-350 soldiers with him, it is ripe time to get the foolish king to some action.
the second thing is if your lords conquer the city or castle you asked them to do, it is not guaranteed that you will get the fief, if u want to get the fief, u have two options, first always keep an eye on soldiers battling inside a castle, once u see your lords are winning go inside and suggest your lord to flee by saying the enemy is coming with a force, the dumb lords will stop the almost complete siege and flee leaving you an easily defended enemy castle, or the second option is a bit risky, you wait till your lords conquer the castle they usually leave the castle weakly defended with some 20 or 30 troops, soon after that an enemy lords besiege the castle to take it back, if he succeeds he also leaves the castle weakly defended, which is the right time to conquer them.

 

[JosieJ]

josie, sorry for replying late, life gets in the way of fun,

if I were to set up a honeypot castle, how many units should be garrisoned in it, the numbers that come in my mind are at least 100 - 120, these numbers are definitely, from experience, attract the enemy to siege my castle, I don't know if you want me to garrison it lower than the numbers that I came up with. From what your telling me it seems the castle should be defended with few units, but not too few that it would result in a quick siege. I gave up 5 of the 8 castles that I conquered and gave it to sultan hakim to award a vassal with, I'm playing as character B, and kept distar castle, malayurg castle, and ibdeles castle. I conquered towns as you advised, provided they were close to territories of the sarranid sultanate. I own all 3 rhodok towns jelkala, veluca, and yalen, and 2 khergit towns halmar and narra. Through this, I'm gaining revenue instead of losing it. However, there are times I lose money too. I started enterprises at non-sarranid controlled towns as you said, in some way it has helped, but alot of times the weekly pay off depends on luck, there are times I lose or gain money, gaining money has not been consistent, however would it help if I lower the garrison of malayurg castle from 220 to 120 ? Also all the castles that I own are engulfed in sarranid territory, none of them border other factions, but the urge to conquer more castles wants to be satisfied since castles are more numerous than towns, owning 5 towns and 3 castles looks great, but I want more maybe owning now 6 castles, 2 from each nearby faction specifically from the khergits, vaegirs, rhodoks, and maybe swadians, except the nords. I don't want anything to do with the nords, the way they defend castles is monstrous, even if you outnumber them, there is still a chance they might win or at least take out 3/4 of your army. The only thing I would do concerning the nords is defend my castles against them, would you happen to know through using the sarranids which units I should rely on closely ?

1. Re: Honeypot castle garrison.  As long as your honeypot garrison is smaller than most other castle garrisons, you should attract constant notice from the enemy.

2. Owning more castles would definitely look impressive, but if you're struggling with income, this will only make your situation worse: castles are money sucks.  They don't earn an income in the same way that towns or villages do--their wealth depends on the village connected with them.  Yet you still have to pay garrison costs for them.  I'd stabilize your income situation first.  If you don't feel comfortable reducing the size of your garrisons, I'd at least take out most of the expensive troops and substitute cheaper tier-1 or tier-2 troops.  The AI doesn't differentiate between tiers of troops in garrisons, only going by sheer numbers.  Also, what types of enterprises did you start and how many do you have?  Dyeworks work best most anywhere except the Rhodok towns, where you're competing against an already-established velvet industry; oil presses and/or tanneries work better there, especially in Jelkala.

3. In my Sarranid playthrough, I found the Guards very underwhelming.  I tended to use large numbers of Mamlukes and Master Archers in my field armies: about 50/20/30 Mamluke/Guard/Master Archer ratios.  Pretty much the Guards were only there to keep enemy attention away from my archers.  Mamlukes are also very handy for taking hostages instead of killing enemies, since they can be told to use only blunt weapons, giving you a source of easy income.

 

[macethump]

Just my two cents, from my *vast* experience!
Castles were sucking my income away, so I assigned them to my lords, after removing any troops I wanted to keep (especially Mamlukes and Lancers).  I only kept the towns, since they at least pay for themselves.  Dyeworks really bring in the cash, and it seems the farther away for Yalen the more they bring in, so I establish lots in Vaegir and Nord cities.  Now, instead of losing 1000 dinars each payday I bring in 8000.

 

[ARSAS]

josie, sorry for replying late, life gets in the way of fun,

if I were to set up a honeypot castle, how many units should be garrisoned in it, the numbers that come in my mind are at least 100 - 120, these numbers are definitely, from experience, attract the enemy to siege my castle, I don't know if you want me to garrison it lower than the numbers that I came up with. From what your telling me it seems the castle should be defended with few units, but not too few that it would result in a quick siege. I gave up 5 of the 8 castles that I conquered and gave it to sultan hakim to award a vassal with, I'm playing as character B, and kept distar castle, malayurg castle, and ibdeles castle. I conquered towns as you advised, provided they were close to territories of the sarranid sultanate. I own all 3 rhodok towns jelkala, veluca, and yalen, and 2 khergit towns halmar and narra. Through this, I'm gaining revenue instead of losing it. However, there are times I lose money too. I started enterprises at non-sarranid controlled towns as you said, in some way it has helped, but alot of times the weekly pay off depends on luck, there are times I lose or gain money, gaining money has not been consistent, however would it help if I lower the garrison of malayurg castle from 220 to 120 ? Also all the castles that I own are engulfed in sarranid territory, none of them border other factions, but the urge to conquer more castles wants to be satisfied since castles are more numerous than towns, owning 5 towns and 3 castles looks great, but I want more maybe owning now 6 castles, 2 from each nearby faction specifically from the khergits, vaegirs, rhodoks, and maybe swadians, except the nords. I don't want anything to do with the nords, the way they defend castles is monstrous, even if you outnumber them, there is still a chance they might win or at least take out 3/4 of your army. The only thing I would do concerning the nords is defend my castles against them, would you happen to know through using the sarranids which units I should rely on closely ?

1. Re: Honeypot castle garrison.  As long as your honeypot garrison is smaller than most other castle garrisons, you should attract constant notice from the enemy.

2. Owning more castles would definitely look impressive, but if you're struggling with income, this will only make your situation worse: castles are money sucks.  They don't earn an income in the same way that towns or villages do--their wealth depends on the village connected with them.  Yet you still have to pay garrison costs for them.  I'd stabilize your income situation first.  If you don't feel comfortable reducing the size of your garrisons, I'd at least take out most of the expensive troops and substitute cheaper tier-1 or tier-2 troops.  The AI doesn't differentiate between tiers of troops in garrisons, only going by sheer numbers.  Also, what types of enterprises did you start and how many do you have?  Dyeworks work best most anywhere except the Rhodok towns, where you're competing against an already-established velvet industry; oil presses and/or tanneries work better there, especially in Jelkala.

3. In my Sarranid playthrough, I found the Guards very underwhelming.  I tended to use large numbers of Mamlukes and Master Archers in my field armies: about 50/20/30 Mamluke/Guard/Master Archer ratios.  Pretty much the Guards were only there to keep enemy attention away from my archers.  Mamlukes are also very handy for taking hostages instead of killing enemies, since they can be told to use only blunt weapons, giving you a source of easy income.

Well since I'm playing as character B, I did establish enterprises in all towns owned by the sarranid sultanate and some owned by rival factions

durquba = wine press (wanted to have at least 1 wine press), Wine sells very high in the sarranid sultanate, original price of wine is 220 denars, shariz pays 250 denars, no more than that, but durquba, ahmerrad, and barriye pay up to 280 denars for wine
The other sarranid towns = dyeworks
All khergit towns = dyeworks
veluca = oil press
jelkala = iron works
yalen = tannery
reyvadin = dyeworks
praven, uxkhal, dhirim = dyeworks

since my income fluctuates between gaining and losing, its unpredictable, winning tournaments, ransoming lords, and selling slaves (captured troops) has been my alternative source of income, and selling slaves seems to be what I'm doing most of the time,

for some strange reason in diplomacy, the sarranid sultanate is at war with at least 2 factions instead of one, in native it was only at war with 1 faction, and now that the sarranid sultanate has conquered all of the khergit khanate and most of the kingdom of rhodoks, the sarranid sultanate is now in constant war with all remaining factions and getting little to no peace, was diplomacy purposely set up that way, that constant war would become normal in the game, native wasn't like this, except for swadia ?

to solve my income problem(owning 5 towns, 3 castles and 2 villages) would I have to conquer another town, the closest towns to conquer are dhirim and uxkhal.

dhirim is owned by the kingdom of swadia, and it has a garrison of 396 units, having heavy amounts of swadian infantry and man at arms and sharpshooters and crossbowmen

uxkhal is owned by the kingdom of nords, and it has a garrison of 308 units, with 1/3 of its garrison being made up of nord warriors, over 100 nord warriors,
from my experience, nord warriors are powerful infantry even though their not top tier if you have 30-40 of them, you don't have to worry about higher tier infantry or cavalry, there is a good chance the nord warriors can take those units down and in siege battles, this is when they are the most dangerous, they can kill off higher tier troops despite not being at their level and it seems because of this, nordic lords have high amounts of nord warriors defending their castles and in their warband.

I can command an army of up to 600 units, however those high amounts of top tier troops the swadians have in dhirim bothers me, dhirim is besieged through siege tower, and with their high amounts of crossbowmen and infantry, could mean that a big chunk of my army could be wiped out

uxkhal could possibly be the worst, but its less garrisoned, but through my experience when dealing with the nords through a vaegir and sarranid playthrough, the nords would be the toughest to face, in a vaegir playthrough despite outnumbering them 2-1, most of my vaegir army was killed off and failed to take the castle from the nords,
with the sarranids, my entire army was not killed off, but more than 1/2 of my army was killed off, the castle was taken, but very few troops remained to garrison it, and a few game days later, the 2 nordic armies besieged my nordic castle forcing me to take what was left of my sarranid army and abandon the castle, my confrontation with the nords hardly ends well for me, which is the reason why I want nothing to do with them

but this is my dilemma, what would you do in this situation, the swadian top tier troops are tough and siege battles with them are not as nasty as the nords, but still can give heavy casualties.

Although I don't want to fight the nords, I do want to stop them from entering the lands of other kingdoms, they hold all 3 of their original towns, and have conquered praven and uxkhal from the swadians, if this continues there may not be anymore towns to capture if they are all conquered by the nords, I want to keep them at their original territory and borders, out of the lands of other kingdoms

sarranids = shariz, durquba, ahmerrad, barriye, tulga, ichamur, narra, halmar, jelkala, veluca, yalen

character b =  narra, halmar, jelkala, veluca, yalen

swadians = suno, dhirim

nords = sargoth, wercheg, tihr, praven, and uxkhal

vaegirs = reyvadin, curaw, khudan, rivacheg

what should I do in this situation ?

 

[Cheezeninja]

If I were you, I would slowly work my way towards the Swadian lands, taking it both from the nords and swadians. This will be much easier if you are only at war with one of the two factions with land in that area. My suggestion would be to take the Nord's advances at Praven and Uxkhal. They are both pretty far from their original territories and will be closer to yours. Once you take those two cities, go for all the castles the nords have in that area. If you can take enough castles, the nords offense might be diverted towards taking back as castle instead of a city. Once the nords are out of the area, it will be probably time for Sultan Hakim to agree to peace terms.

Once you make peace with the nords, then ask Sultan Hakim to declare war on Swadia, and precede to annihilate them completely. That way, the nords will be at a truce to not attack you, and it will just be you and swadia. It sounds like they are the weakest faction, so take them out quick to strengthen your control of that territory. It's alright if you can't take all the nord or swadian castles, but take all the cities before you make peace. You can finish em off later!

Meanwhile, the vaegirs will most likely declare war on you, because you are becoming too powerful. I think it is in your best interest to avoid trying to take lands from them, so you can focus on beating the swadians and the nords. Try to avoid going to war with the vaegirs all together, but if they delcare war, then go over and defeat their main army, so they won't attack. You can't have multiple factions attacking you on different fronts. that type of fighting will almost guarantee that you will lose territory. It is better to focus the fights in one area so you aren't racing across the map to stop a siege.

So, if everything goes to the plan, Swadia is dead. NOW, it gets real tough. You're next goal is to take Tihr, Jelbegi Castle, Hrus Castle and Chalbek Castle. This will suck mainly because they have probably never been besieged before and have multitudes of Huscarls waiting to axe you in the face. First, take Jelbegi, then Tihr, then Hrus, then Chalbek. This will take enough time that peace will be made by the time you finish that campaign, if not before. Once that area is down, its time to incite wars between the vaegirs and the nords. Declare war on the Vaegirs, and take Dramug castle and Reyvadin. (SIEGE TIP) Vaegirs are really easy to take castles from once their archers are dead, so aim for them first. Once you have taken these fiefs, travel along the border between the nords and vaegirs, and partially siege all the vaegir castles. That way, if the nords are at war with them, they will complete the sieges FOR YOU. Then, the vaegirs will likely take them back, to which you take them easily as the garrisons are probably pretty weak.

After that, it's up to you. I would kill the Nords first simply because they are harder. Save the Vaegirs for last and close in on them from both sides, and you will probably finish by taking Rivacheg. Then Calradia is yours my friend.


BTW: This is only a template. I can't predict exactly when factions will declare war on you, and there are so many variables that I just cannot rule out. Just do what works for you. Just remember to avoid going to war with the vaegirs while you are attacking the swadians. They will both attack your fiefs which are too far spread out to defend both.


In my opinion, the best way to increase your income is to give up your castles so other members of your faction can have them. The faction will benefit more, if all the lords have lots of fiefs, not just one.