How to expand kingdom past first castle?

[LickyPocket]

I'm feeling a little stuck here

I went the path of starting my own kingdom rather than joining, and it was rough but I eventually took a castle with 120 men and quickly paid off the pissed off faction to make peace with me so I didn't instantly lose. Now I'm sitting here with one castle, and I can't figure out how to grow my kingdom without just sieging more castles. How do I obtain a city? Only way i've seen would be to grind out trading until I get the perk that allows me to trade settlements and try to buy one, because as far as I can tell you can't obtain cities by force? How can I get people to join me? Just looking for a little advice from anyone who has been in this position - what to do next? tyia

 

[mamastoast]

You can most certainly take a city by force.. I'd probably pass whatever laws that increase your max party size as a king and then make your companions have their own party... Wait a while and then form an army.. I'm guessing you'll be able to reach 400 men quite easily... THen just do then same thing with a neighbouring city that you did with your original castle.

 

[LickyPocket]

You can most certainly take a city by force.. I'd probably pass whatever laws that increase your max party size as a king and then make your companions have their own party... Wait a while and then form an army.. I'm guessing you'll be able to reach 400 men quite easily... THen just do then same thing with a neighbouring city that you did with your original castle.

So to take a city, do I have to do the same as castle and start a hostile action at a village, trigger a war, and then there will be hostile action options for cities?

 

[Nokturnel]

Well, first off while you're the only member of your Kingdom, go ahead and pass all the Policies that favor you as the ruler. Especially the ones that increase your Party Size so you can field more men.

And yea, you can use the Trade Perk to just straight up buy Fiefs from Neutral Lords. There's some Mods that definitely help that I would suggest.

BuyPatrols:Allows you to purchase patrols at your villages, so you don't have to constantly defend them from Bandits/Small Armies.

BuyPatrols

Hate bandits stealing all your villages' butter? Hire patrols from any settlement to help protect them! Customizable settings included!

www.nexusmods.com

Garrisons Don't Starve: Currently the Food management system of running your own Fief is very badly implemented shall I say. With this mod, you don't have to worry about your Garrison starving just because your prosperity gets high.It's balanced as even the AI's garrisons won't starve, everyone's militia still does though.

V's Garrisons Don't Eat Nor Starve - v2

Your precious garrisons will no longer starve when a passing army buys up all food in town. Donating to AI garrisons is finally worth doing. May also help against AI snowballing.

www.nexusmods.com

There's also a mod that allows you declare War/Peace from any Fief you own instead of having to track down someone to do so.

DiplomacyReworked

Adds mutliple options for basic Diplomacy which are completely missing from the game:-Basic&Advanced Politics(War,peace,passingFiefs,Paid wars,Truce)-Choose if you keep your own Fiefs(

www.nexusmods.com

To get people to join you, find Leaders of Clans and pass a Charm check with them to get them to join you, you may have to bribe them, but you may not.

If you want to create a bigger army than you currently can, besides maxing Stewardship and passing +party size Policies, you can have companions lead their own parties via the Clan Screen, then have them join your army by clicking on the Flag symbol in the bottom right of the map screen. Remember to add Cohesion when necessary via the same menu. You'll want party leaders to put some Focus Points in Stewardship to increase their own party sizes. (As well as some INT)

 

[LickyPocket]

Well, first off while you're the only member of your Kingdom, go ahead and pass all the Policies that favor you as the ruler. Especially the ones that increase your Party Size so you can field more men.

And yea, you can use the Trade Perk to just straight up buy Fiefs from Neutral Lords. There's some Mods that definitely help that I would suggest.

BuyPatrols:Allows you to purchase patrols at your villages, so you don't have to constantly defend them from Bandits/Small Armies.

BuyPatrols

Hate bandits stealing all your villages' butter? Hire patrols from any settlement to help protect them! Customizable settings included!

www.nexusmods.com

Garrisons Don't Starve: Currently the Food management system of running your own Fief is very badly implemented shall I say. With this mod, you don't have to worry about your Garrison starving just because your prosperity gets high.

V's Garrisons Don't Eat Nor Starve - v2

Your precious garrisons will no longer starve when a passing army buys up all food in town. Donating to AI garrisons is finally worth doing. May also help against AI snowballing.

www.nexusmods.com

There's also a mod that allows you declare War/Peace from any Fief you own instead of having to track down someone to do so. Someone will have to help me with the name of that one though.

I was definitely wondering about that starvation/prosperity problem with this first castle. Started starving and stayed there. Sucks I have to solve it with a mod, but if I have to I will. And thanks for the policy tips, forgot about all that completely

 

[LickyPocket]

Well, first off while you're the only member of your Kingdom, go ahead and pass all the Policies that favor you as the ruler. Especially the ones that increase your Party Size so you can field more men.

And yea, you can use the Trade Perk to just straight up buy Fiefs from Neutral Lords. There's some Mods that definitely help that I would suggest.

BuyPatrols:Allows you to purchase patrols at your villages, so you don't have to constantly defend them from Bandits/Small Armies.

BuyPatrols

Hate bandits stealing all your villages' butter? Hire patrols from any settlement to help protect them! Customizable settings included!

www.nexusmods.com

Garrisons Don't Starve: Currently the Food management system of running your own Fief is very badly implemented shall I say. With this mod, you don't have to worry about your Garrison starving just because your prosperity gets high.It's balanced as even the AI's garrisons won't starve, everyone's militia still does though.

V's Garrisons Don't Eat Nor Starve - v2

Your precious garrisons will no longer starve when a passing army buys up all food in town. Donating to AI garrisons is finally worth doing. May also help against AI snowballing.

www.nexusmods.com

There's also a mod that allows you declare War/Peace from any Fief you own instead of having to track down someone to do so.

DiplomacyReworked

Adds mutliple options for basic Diplomacy which are completely missing from the game:-Basic&Advanced Politics(War,peace,passingFiefs,Paid wars,Truce)-Choose if you keep your own Fiefs(

www.nexusmods.com

To get people to join you, find Leaders of Clans and pass a Charm check with them to get them to join you, you may have to bribe them, but you may not.

One more question in regards to policies: How can I gain influence as a solo kingdom in order to propose them? I had around 500 with Vlandia before I left and made my own, but it was all reset to 0. Can't seem to gain a single point since, even winning fights and stuff.

 

[Nokturnel]

One more question in regards to policies: How can I gain influence as a solo kingdom in order to propose them? I had around 500 with Vlandia before I left and made my own, but it was all reset to 0. Can't seem to gain a single point since, even winning fights and stuff.

There's actually multiple policies you can pass to increase your Influence daily, there's also Skill Perks, but I don't think most of them even work yet. All the policy ones do though far as I've noticed. Best way to get influence is donate Prisoners/Troops to allied Prisons/Garrisons you don't own, so go out and get some Vassals, you can also get some fighting enemies. If you're not getting them from fights yet, it might be due to you having no Vassals yet.

Just a heads up btw, I've always helped a Kingdom out before starting my own Kingdom, makes the transition a lot easier. It's going to be rough for you if you didn't level up your clan and kill off a lot of enemies before starting your own Kingdom.

 

[LickyPocket]

There's actually multiple policies you can pass to increase your Influence daily, there's also Skill Perks, but I don't think most of them even work yet. All the policy ones do though far as I've noticed. Best way to get influence is donate Prisoners/Troops to allied Prisons/Garrisons you don't own, so go out and get some Vassals, you can also get some fighting enemies. If you're not getting them from fights yet, it might be due to you having no Vassals yet.

Just a heads up btw, I've always helped a Kingdom out before starting my own Kingdom, makes the transition a lot easier. It's going to be rough for you if you didn't level up your clan and kill off a lot of enemies before starting your own Kingdom.

Would you suggest I start over? I am clan tier 4 right now, and western empire is almost killed off, though not by my hand. Main problem is i havent made any relations so I can't get any vassals...I also have a save a long time back where I still have the banner and haven't left Vlandians yet. Could revert there and build relations and fiefs/kill off factions if I had to...

And if I did that, should I keep my holdings upon finally choosing to leave and just let the war ensue with Vlandia, assuming i'd be powerful enough and have some connections by then

 

[Nokturnel]

Would you suggest I start over? I am clan tier 4 right now, and western empire is almost killed off, though not by my hand. Main problem is i havent made any relations so I can't get any vassals...I also have a save a long time back where I still have the banner and haven't left Vlandians yet. Could revert there and build relations and fiefs/kill off factions if I had to...

And if I did that, should I keep my holdings upon finally choosing to leave and just let the war ensue with Vlandia, assuming i'd be powerful enough and have some connections by then

Up to you. It's just going to be more challenging having to deal with so many enemy Lords being alive, but you can turn anyone into a Vassal currently even if they're at -100 Reputation with you by succeeding at a charm check. Though, I've run into the problem of certain Lords wanting way too much to switch sides.

Like one Western Empire guy was still alive, hiding out in a City I actually owned, but there was no option to capture him even though I was at War with them and he was in my city. So I tried to do the only thing I could and Convert him instead. Problem was even when succeeding at the charm check, the bribe afterwards would never allow me to offer enough. Offered him like 16 million denars and all my fiefs (20+) and it would never even light up to allow me to finish the bribe. Definitely another problem that needs to be fixed/modded.

There's also the problem of Lords, once they're apart of your Kingdom, will switch sides no matter how well you treat them, seemingly at random. Think there's a mod that fixes that though, making it so that they'll only leave your Kingdom if at Negative Reputation with you. Don't have the link though sadly.

 

[Havada]

A little advice about bribes for the lords to switch sides: I guess that auto-offer is bugged in this case, many times I offered like 50k to a lord who wanted 10kk with success.

And about gathering giant army with only one castle and your own kingdom: at first, take care of your influence income. Do it by passing the right policies (just read them all and pick the ones who will give you the most influence), very soon you will have few thousands of incluence. Then pass the policies that will increase your party size (you will have like +120 or something party size from the right poliicies). Also in the meantime create new parties from your companions (ideally from ones with high steward), give them some good troops on the beginning (~25 good troops and ~20 recruits should be okay). Then fill your party and get all the units as high as possible, don't stop until most of your troops is at least T3 and none of them is T1. To seal your chances of winning the incoming war, hire at least 2 mercenary clans (each of them will cost you ~2.5k daily so make sure you have a proper gold income and savings). At this point you will have an army of 1000 good men.

 

[Nokturnel]

A little advice about bribes for the lords to switch sides: I guess that auto-offer is bugged in this case, many times I offered like 50k to a lord who wanted 10kk with success.

Wasn't talking about Auto-Offer, the button to complete the trade wouldn't even allow itself to be pressed even with giving him everything I had, bugged no doubt.

Never use auto-offer, just scroll the denars right until you can actually complete the trade. (The UI in that part is pretty jank even so, due to how it scrolls, you can't pick exact sums very well)

 

[Capillati]

So to take a city, do I have to do the same as castle and start a hostile action at a village, trigger a war, and then there will be hostile action options for cities?

Not necessarily, you can just attack a lord from the faction you wish to steal conquer the city from...