How do I keep my lords happy?

[Cornelius Constantine]

So, I'm king of my own kingdom, and Lords are flocking to me.

I give them castles, fiefs and win battles with them. Still, thy hate my guts.

My relation with them deteriorates by the day, and one even sent an assassin after me.

So, what do I do? Is this the point where I go King Harlaus on them, feasting them 'till they're dead, drunk or dead drunk?

 

[Ivan Khan]

1. Have feasts which helps a little.

2. Wait to give fifes out until the voting is in and give it to the winner, or the one with the highest reknown if a tie.

3. Avoid taking lords who do not match your 'style.'

Now, this is all based on advice I got, as my 1st kingdom became unmangable with many of my lords due to the same problem.

Here is what someone who knows better said:

Really isn't that hard to balance reputation while distributing fiefs, so long as you wait to ask folk, don't recruit all honorless lords, and give fiefs roughly by renown.

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,232330.0.html

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

Thanks, I'll throw a party then and see what happens.

But what you're basicly saying is that I'm screwed? So, any chance of recovering?

 

[Gilwe]

Don't accept lords with bad personalities. You'll have a hard time keeping them happy.

It's easier to hand out fiefs to lords by renown.

Also, some good-hearted lords are often supported by others when handing out fiefs. If you give a fief to a well-loved one, you can get some bonus relationship with the supporting lords.

 

[JosieJ]

Thanks, I'll throw a party then and see what happens.

Throw lots of parties; it helps a lot!

 

[SkyChef]

Thanks, I'll throw a party then and see what happens.

But what you're basicly saying is that I'm screwed? So, any chance of recovering?

Throwing party will not work if your relationship is already underwater so they will not show up at your party. If they are so slow with their troop, you can't set them up with bandits because they can't chase high speed bad guys. The only way you can save relationship is giving expensive gift (diplomacy mod), having a war then asking them to follow you then set them up in battle. If they are really deep underwater, it's a slow process to re gain relationship. See this thread, 89 lords under command, the lowest score is 12 pts and not all of them are sunshine.

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,231893.0.html

Rules should never be broken:

1) Never give a fief or accept any lords when the lowest relationship score with your lords is 3, unless you are pretty sure that those lords won't drop 4 pts on you (which 99.9% of the time, you don't)
2) when you have a lowest relationship score of 3 with your lords, only give fiefs or accept lords during a feast. And those low score lords have to be in the feast so you can jack up the rating before giving out fiefs.
3) Only end feast when the max possible majority of your lords (90%) is there to net 2 pts gain which means you might have to end the feast earlier than you want.
4) Only give far away fiefs from your capital to upstanding, good nature and martial lords. Keep those *****y, complaining lords close to home, so you can recover pts loss efficiently.

There are more to it to have a feast properly and building relationship with a huge base of lords but for majority of players, 18-20 lords made them happy, then it's adequate to cover the base.

 

[Lord Silvabane]

One word,
FEAST

 

[tzlop]

Attend Harlaus feasting school.

 

[JosieJ]

Thanks, I'll throw a party then and see what happens.

But what you're basicly saying is that I'm screwed? So, any chance of recovering?

Throwing party will not work if your relationship is already underwater so they will not show up at your party. If they are so slow with their troop, you can't set them up with bandits because they can't chase high speed bad guys. The only way you can save relationship is giving expensive gift (diplomacy mod), having a war then asking them to follow you then set them up in battle. If they are really deep underwater, it's a slow process to re gain relationship. See this thread, 89 lords under command, the lowest score is 12 pts and not all of them are sunshine.

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,231893.0.html

Rules should never be broken:

1) Never give a fief or accept any lords when the lowest relationship score with your lords is 3, unless you are pretty sure that those lords won't drop 4 pts on you (which 99.9% of the time, you don't)
2) when you have a lowest relationship score of 3 with your lords, only give fiefs or accept lords during a feast. And those low score lords have to be in the feast so you can jack up the rating before giving out fiefs.
3) Only end feast when the max possible majority of your lords (90%) is there to net 2 pts gain which means you might have to end the feast earlier than you want.

There are more to it to have a feast properly and building relationship with a huge base of lords but for majority of players, 18-20 lords made them happy, then it's adequate to cover the base.

You also want to pick lords with good personalities.  The first ones to show up at your door once you start your own faction are usually Debauched or Quarrelsome personalities, who argue with everyone, want every fief for themselves (no matter how many they own), and have probably faction-hopped through all 6 factions before getting to you.  It's a mistake to pick these lords: you'll never be able to satisfy them, and they'll always sow dissention in your ranks.

Try aiming for Martial, Upstanding, or Good-natured lords.  They're tougher to woo away from their original faction--they tend to be loyal, which is a good thing if they join you.  Also try recruiting relations: sons, uncles, fathers, nephews, etc.  They tend to hang together and to be pleased when you give a fief to a relation of theirs.  Calculating lords are OK, too, but you have to work harder to keep their relation up.  Having high honor is a great help with honorable lords, as you will gain 1 pt of relation with them for every 3 pts of honor you have.  So maintaining 300 honor will max out your relation with honorable lords.

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

Okay. So how do I know there personalities? Click on them while talking to them?

 

[Ivan Khan]

Okay. So how do I know there personalities? Click on them while talking to them?

I use the Diplomacy mod, which has a lot of nice add-ons without greatly changing the regular game. It does not use much memory and works with the latest versions.

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

So do I. Still, my question stands.

 

[Alyiakal]

Under "Reports" you can view a List of Lord Relations. Clicking on the individual lords gives a wealth of information, including their relationship with you, their relationship with their liege, and their personality type.

A more roundabout way to do this is asking your Chancellor to give you information about a lord, and he will give you a description which includes the lord's personality. This is identical to the information you get when you ask a lady about one of her relatives, which is the non-Diplomacy way to find out a lord's personality (very annoying as you must chase down a related lady.

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

Point is, that information is not available when I'm in my keep and a Lord's about to swear allegiance to me. Then I only have the dialogue window.

 

[SkyChef]

Point is, that information is not available when I'm in my keep and a Lord's about to swear allegiance to me. Then I only have the dialogue window.

There is no way you would know if he shows up at your door because then all of his info is blocked. The info shown in his report only available to you if you met him before and he is belonged to a faction (yours included). Once he is in transition, you have no way to know if you play uncheat. Just follow my rules (I'm the expert, don't you think  ) not to be broken then you should be fine. One more thing about giving fief and relationship building, is only giving far away fiefs from your capital to upstanding, good nature or martial lords and keep those *****y lords close to home. You will find out why later when you expand your kingdom and it should be another unbroken law by me.

 

[SkyChef]

...
You also want to pick lords with good personalities.  The first ones to show up at your door once you start your own faction are usually Debauched or Quarrelsome personalities, who argue with everyone, want every fief for themselves (no matter how many they own), and have probably faction-hopped through all 6 factions before getting to you.  It's a mistake to pick these lords: you'll never be able to satisfy them, and they'll always sow dissention in your ranks.

Try aiming for Martial, Upstanding, or Good-natured lords.  They're tougher to woo away from their original faction--they tend to be loyal, which is a good thing if they join you.  Also try recruiting relations: sons, uncles, fathers, nephews, etc.  They tend to hang together and to be pleased when you give a fief to a relation of theirs.  Calculating lords are OK, too, but you have to work harder to keep their relation up.  Having high honor is a great help with honorable lords, as you will gain 1 pt of relation with them for every 3 pts of honor you have.  So maintaining 300 honor will max out your relation with honorable lords.

Come on. Out of 89 lords I command, at least 1/2 of them are belonged to the group you said it's a mistake to recruit them and I still keep everybody happy. The point is it's not a mistake to recruit these lords, it's a mistake to take them and don't know how to handle them.

In general, since you don't know lord's personalities when he shows up at your door and if you need them at the early stage of your kingdom like you have 2 or 3 wars at once and you don't cheat, you have to take them regardless of their personalities.

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

@ Skychief: I think I've sofar broken each and everyone of your rules... So, what now?

@ SkyChef: so, how do you keep 'em happy then?

 

[SkyChef]

@ Skychief: I think I've sofar broken each and everyone of your rules... So, what now?

@ SkyChef: so, how do you keep 'em happy then?

If you are asking about salvage your current relationships then more information is needed such as number of lords underwater and their rating with you. The point is now you are in a such horrible mess, whatever you do to rid yourself the worst offenders will send the so so offenders into the downward spiral faster, and the borderlines to the door of the downward spiral. I bet you did that too.

So what you do with cancer late stage 3 or early stage 4? In general, the answer is you're a walking dead and/or expecting miracle. The best you can do is saving those with rating -10 and less and forget those with lower rating, even if they have castle & town. Using gifts, take them to hunt sea raiders, having wars, protect them by tell the negative ones to follow you etc, you know the drill. If those having castle & town defect, let them. You can get your territory back later and it's not a big deal. You are a player, not a stupid AI, don't you forget that. Once you take care that group, look at the next group to see if you can salvage their relationships. War battle set up is the fastest way to gain back relationship but declaring war will drop relationship pts too, so make sure don't declare war when the lowest positive lords are less than 3.

So assume you are taking your losses and start rebuilding with whatever you have. Out of 120 plus lords in the game, you only need 20-30 lords to control everything. Contrary to popular thinking, renown is only about maxing your  army size and having nothing to do with relationship. So max out the army with your lords by giving castles or towns to lords with at least 800 pts in renowns. Under 800 renowns, get village (yep, that's my other rule). When your kingdom getting big and you are running out lords with high renown then relax your rule. I never give out any town to any lord because a big renown lord only need 1 castle & 1 village to run his army w/o being broke so a town is unnecessary.

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

If you are asking about salvage your current relationships then more information is needed such as number of lords underwater and their rating with you. The point is now you are in a such horrible mess, whatever you do to rid yourself the worst offenders will send the so so offenders into the downward spiral faster, and the borderlines to the door of the downward spiral. I bet you did that too.

Yep, guilty.

Well, at the moment I own all of Rhodok country (took most of that with me when I declared independence from Nords), most of Khegit and all of Swadia.

Sarranids have two or three towns (one of theirs belongs to Nords), Vaegir are down to two. Nors are my biggest thread, but they're on the loosing site of the war.

I have about 10-15 lords, and I think two of them don't despise me. I guess I handed out fiefs to much, to soon. I'll see where it goes.

 

[JosieJ]

...
You also want to pick lords with good personalities.  The first ones to show up at your door once you start your own faction are usually Debauched or Quarrelsome personalities, who argue with everyone, want every fief for themselves (no matter how many they own), and have probably faction-hopped through all 6 factions before getting to you.  It's a mistake to pick these lords: you'll never be able to satisfy them, and they'll always sow dissention in your ranks.

Try aiming for Martial, Upstanding, or Good-natured lords.  They're tougher to woo away from their original faction--they tend to be loyal, which is a good thing if they join you.  Also try recruiting relations: sons, uncles, fathers, nephews, etc.  They tend to hang together and to be pleased when you give a fief to a relation of theirs.  Calculating lords are OK, too, but you have to work harder to keep their relation up.  Having high honor is a great help with honorable lords, as you will gain 1 pt of relation with them for every 3 pts of honor you have.  So maintaining 300 honor will max out your relation with honorable lords.

Come on. Out of 89 lords I command, at least 1/2 of them are belonged to the group you said it's a mistake to recruit them and I still keep everybody happy. The point is it's not a mistake to recruit these lords, it's a mistake to take them and don't know how to handle them.

OK, fine, I overstated.    It's still a lot easier to avoid the contentious ones. 

In general, since you don't know lord's personalities when he shows up at your door and if you need them at the early stage of your kingdom like you have 2 or 3 wars at once and you don't cheat, you have to take them regardless of their personalities.

You do know their names before you speak to them; it's easy enough to leave them standing there and ask someone before engaging them in conversation (obviously a lot easier to do with access to a Chancellor).