This game was played with diplomacy mod, my character was a single non noble woman.
After several days playing as mercenary (about 700) I finally feel that was the right moment to start my own kingdom. I conquered a small castle to sarranids surrounded by Veagirs lands. I proposed the peace to sarranid if they give me another castle. They accepted.
When created my kingdom I selected the domestic policies which give relations bonus with my lords despite earning less money, I supposed that most of them will be happy.
After a while my castle was full of nobles that wanted to join to my kingdom I accepted immediately, it looked as a nice option to easy expand my kingdom. Without any other fight I added two towns and a few castles more to my lands.
More and more nobles come to my "house" so I could deploy a good kingdom army about 800 men. All the time I was training top tier troops to have a good reserve.
Later on sarranids declared the war again, I conquered another town and defeated many of their armies, it might sound that I was on the right path with 3 towns, about 8 castles and many villages under my crown but I didn't feel it.
The problem was that my "kingdom" was really scattered around the map, accepting any Lord that came to me granted lands around all Calandria. My army can protect it, so I really didn't know what to do, there wasn't a clear front line, I though that if I keep attacking I will force enemy to retreat to protect their home lands. Even with this tactic my kingdom’s villages were raided often.
Not sure why but some of my Lords started to hate me even before the war started despite my domestic policies but it went worse after the firsts fights, when I tried to ask them why they didn't tell me a clear reason through the dialogs so I didn't know what to do. Also I feel absolutely ridiculously that I have to go to the other corner of the map to ask someone why is he annoyed when the sultan army was knocking at my castle doors.
I had free fiefs to grant but it was a bit chaotic knowing which lords currently have lands and which not. I check it at the notes screen but due the continuously new lords arriving it was a hard to keep the track without a lot micromanaging.
Also my minister didn't tell me all the unassigned fief, she just give me the option to assign the next one. So it was a bit harder to plan a good distribution. Also I wanted to consider the Lords opinion but check it one by one was a nightmare.
Perhaps it was due my lack of experience, I always played as vassal but I feel that I hadn't the right tools to manage the kingdom, I missed for example:
* A screen (similar to the kingdoms relations of the diplomacy mod) were you can check all your lords in one view, their relation with you, why is he going happy/unhappy, their fief, their army, etc, to avoid losing time at the notes screen or asking to your minister.
* A screen which summarize your kingdom, fiefs-owners, fiefs free.
* Being able to sent emissaries to your lords to ask, request things to them without having to go across half map seeking for them.
Maybe is just me which have been overwhelm by all the new task to do, or maybe I am losing some features, so I will appreciate if someone can share some tips.
Finally sorry for the long post.
After several days playing as mercenary (about 700) I finally feel that was the right moment to start my own kingdom. I conquered a small castle to sarranids surrounded by Veagirs lands. I proposed the peace to sarranid if they give me another castle. They accepted.
When created my kingdom I selected the domestic policies which give relations bonus with my lords despite earning less money, I supposed that most of them will be happy.
After a while my castle was full of nobles that wanted to join to my kingdom I accepted immediately, it looked as a nice option to easy expand my kingdom. Without any other fight I added two towns and a few castles more to my lands.
More and more nobles come to my "house" so I could deploy a good kingdom army about 800 men. All the time I was training top tier troops to have a good reserve.
Later on sarranids declared the war again, I conquered another town and defeated many of their armies, it might sound that I was on the right path with 3 towns, about 8 castles and many villages under my crown but I didn't feel it.
The problem was that my "kingdom" was really scattered around the map, accepting any Lord that came to me granted lands around all Calandria. My army can protect it, so I really didn't know what to do, there wasn't a clear front line, I though that if I keep attacking I will force enemy to retreat to protect their home lands. Even with this tactic my kingdom’s villages were raided often.
Not sure why but some of my Lords started to hate me even before the war started despite my domestic policies but it went worse after the firsts fights, when I tried to ask them why they didn't tell me a clear reason through the dialogs so I didn't know what to do. Also I feel absolutely ridiculously that I have to go to the other corner of the map to ask someone why is he annoyed when the sultan army was knocking at my castle doors.
I had free fiefs to grant but it was a bit chaotic knowing which lords currently have lands and which not. I check it at the notes screen but due the continuously new lords arriving it was a hard to keep the track without a lot micromanaging.
Also my minister didn't tell me all the unassigned fief, she just give me the option to assign the next one. So it was a bit harder to plan a good distribution. Also I wanted to consider the Lords opinion but check it one by one was a nightmare.
Perhaps it was due my lack of experience, I always played as vassal but I feel that I hadn't the right tools to manage the kingdom, I missed for example:
* A screen (similar to the kingdoms relations of the diplomacy mod) were you can check all your lords in one view, their relation with you, why is he going happy/unhappy, their fief, their army, etc, to avoid losing time at the notes screen or asking to your minister.
* A screen which summarize your kingdom, fiefs-owners, fiefs free.
* Being able to sent emissaries to your lords to ask, request things to them without having to go across half map seeking for them.
Maybe is just me which have been overwhelm by all the new task to do, or maybe I am losing some features, so I will appreciate if someone can share some tips.
Finally sorry for the long post.
and made the worst mistake possible when building a kingdom(namely, conquering stuff that is all over the place)? seriously, you should read up on history or economics or what have you before you whine about that kind of stuff.
