I completed a campaign (finally resorting to use the C-f4 cheat) recently with Lethwin and the Nords using advice from the above links. As a recap, I started my investigation with saving before requesting their oaths when I had 50% of the Nordic kingdom and 50% of the Vaegir Kingdom, 5 of my own companions made into Lords and 2 Lords that Harlaus had indicted for treason. That left about 14 viking Jarls to win over.
At the start of this quest, my RTR, Reknown and honor were extremely high. Perhaps 100, 1200, and 110. I did constant missions with my emissaries to other kingdoms to get RTR.
I deciphered the Lords' relation to their king with one of my ministers. Is there a way to get a numeric value for this?
Lords that were loyal to cooperative never budged from their oath, even when their King was down to 1 town.
3 of the 6 indifferent and grumbling Jarls never budged until I started taking other Jarls hostage. Isolation or non-isolation from other armies had little to do with the turnings.
1 indifferent, calculating Jarl who owned a castle turned on a land offer, even though my favor with him was only 7.
In the end, after mutiple entreaties, I fought and imprisoned every loyal to cooperative Jarl.
The 5 remaining Jarls were mostly angry with Ragnar (in my dungeon), but refused to talk with me when they were hold up in their town. When they sallied out, they came out in a group and wouldn't talk politics either.
I won over the Lord of the last town at try number 5 with a relationship of 40. Then the town became mine and the Jarls fled.
I intercepted all of 4 Jarls and 2 of them swore to Lethwin. The others kept their loyalty and I let go in hopes they would come back.
A day later, when Lethwin started his feast, all the vanished Jarls reappeared in a happy mood.
I found all the money I spent on caravans of oil and wine to improve my favor with Lords had little influence on the chances of defection or their dialog.
For example, even at 50, they would still say "I will be in a better political position in the court of my liege." Many of them admitted that they were more comfortable in my court. But no change in defection.
My advice: Get relationship levels to 20 for indifferent or calculating jarls, conquer at least 66% of the castles/towns, imprison their loyal Lords with a little help from TweakMB, release the Lords you want, and start lurking with an army size larger than theirs (I had 150). Take the castles and towns owned by loyal lords, otherwise, the unloyal ones will just sit in the capital forever. Watch with all lights on, and approach the Lords over and over again with the best line seeking their oath. Quit without saving after each rejection because they will never discuss the issue again.
I never figured out how to speak to the angry Lords holed up in the Capital until I finally took that city with cheats. They would never talk coming out nor going back, because they had no lands to patrol around. Their needs to be an option added to dialog with a Lord regardless of the presence of other allied Lords. Maybe a secret emissary.
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