Need a little help with character build/overall strategy

[Parsidius]

Hi, I've really been enjoying this mod enormously. However, I've hit a wall recently that I really cannot seem to overcome. After building up my army as far as I can afford by hunting down pilgrims, I've tried to go rogue and establish my own kingdom. Unfortunately, whenever I attack a castle, all of my soldiers end up getting massacred. Right now, my army is basically all Nord warlords, about 100 in total, with 23~ warlords and 2 veteran warlords, and about 20 assorted huscarls/berserkers/warriors, with the rest being Nord recruits. Is there any way to make a better siege army with Nords? Or should I use different culture units; I think Goliaths and Reyvadin Rangers might be useful.

In addition, right now I've been using a wandering barbarian as my character. My stats are as follows, but I'm wondering if I might need to start from scratch to make a character that would be able to take castles/towns and lead a kingdom.

strength = 42
agility = 9
intelligence = 15
charisma = 10

trade = 0
leadership = 3
prisoner_management = 4
persuasion = 0
engineer = 0
first_aid = 2
surgery = 1
wound_treatment = 5
inventory_management = 4
spotting = 1
path-finding = 5
tactics = 0
tracking = 1
trainer = 0
looting = 3
horse_archery = 0
riding = 0
athletics = 2
shield = 0
weapon_master = 0
power_draw = 0
power_throw = 9
power_strike = 14
ironflesh = 12

Thank you for your time and help!

 

[Pladio]

I'm not sure about Nords, but I'm playing with Swadians and I can quite easily capture castles with about 40 high-level troops. Things like Hired Blades, Ironclad Knights of Swadia and so on. Well those and another 50 other units.

You should try focusing on Castles that other kingdoms just captured recently, they will have less troops and less of them. I would recommend attacking castles with the least amount of top troops.

So a castle without Scourges, Ironclad Knights, Goliaths, ... are the best bets. Or with as few of them as possible.

 

[freakin wat]

Yeah, what he said.
Rangers of Reyvardin are a massive bonus when siegeing a castle, as they have such a high rate of fire, range, and damage. Just line them up at the bottom of the castle to pepper the troops on top with arrows. Also, recruits arn't really worth ****, as they die really easily. They might be ok in a field battle when numbers matter, but at the top of the siege tower/ladder you only really want good troops, as fodder will just get in the way.
Damn, off I go to play EGIII again...