New player with a few questions

[vyyye]

Hey, first off I need to ask how the Hell this mod managed to be 90x superior to the actual game. I played M&B a bit while it was in beta, and recently started again. I had loads of fun until I reached the point where I could beat a few lords, take castles and I realized.. for what purpose?
In one moment it went from "man this game.." to "meh". Luckily I found PoP (isn't it PropheCy?), kudos to the developers! It's not the first game I've played that included mods, but it's not often you see a mod make such a drastic change, and all for the better.

Anyway, as I said I'm not too much of an experienced player so there's a few things I'm wondering about. I've looked through a lot of threads and used the search function, which ironically didn't lead me to answers, but rather people sitting on their high horse saying "Use the search function", "Mods please lock this thread, I've personally made the judgment call" and more spam in that manner. That gripe aside...

1) I'm wondering about the start of the game, which was .. painful. It's actually what's preventing me from creating another character to play alongside my current one. I realize the developers wanted it to be hard, but it felt more frustrating and annoying than anything. I run around looking for looters/rabble/outcasts to kill, and I could run about for an hour finding only a few packs while being chased by a million other things. Trading was a gamble as well, and I learnt about the Jatu's the hard way. But to the point, what should I actually do in the beginning? It wasn't fun running around hoping to find a looter and not some vanskerry raiders, I was unable to trade so my progress felt slow. I think I'm just missing something, there's got to be a better way to start out. I've read the early game survival tips threads but it didn't really tell me too much. I mean, it's obvious I should avoid fights but half the time they're faster than me and well.. You figure out the rest. How do you start out with new characters? Do you stick to specific areas, or is it just a case of "living through the annoying early game"?

2) Character building. I currently have about 70 men in my army, and it feels like the only way I can improve is by leveling charisma+leadership. Not to mention I don't really level very fast at the moment (level 18 IIRC) so I don't really have a million skill points to spend. Is the only way to progress by leveling charisma+leadership from start to finish? My companions have sorted most party skills, so for me I have the option of either improving my combat prowess or increasing my army size. Seeing that most lords run around with 100+ armies, and that minor faction armies are even bigger I don't think I can really hold a candle to them. Is it a waste to level strength, power draw and whatnot? I obviously got some points in it since the beginning, but it feels like I would've been better off if I just stacked charisma/leadership.

3) As I said I have about 70 men in my unit, they cost circa 3-4k/week, if that gives any indication of what tier they're in. I'd say the majority is between man-at-arms and knight level. I haven't got any knights of order X.
I'm currently a vassal to Sarleon who have been doing.. nothing. They were at war with the D'shar but since the peace treaty it seems they're just sitting about doing nothing. I'm spending my time running in circles around the map buying fur and iron in the north, selling it and coming back with oil, velvet and spice. Killing a few Jatu's on the way etc. Though that's all I'm doing and I'm not really progressing very fast (except money wise). Would I be better off joining another faction and waging war alongside them? I've been uncertain because my army is tiny compared to most others I see, so I'm not sure if it'll actually benefit me, I won't be taking a castle on my own at this point anyway (they have to garrison them with 200+ men...). What should I do at this stage in the game? I'm stronger than the random deserters, Jatu's, vanskerry's etc. roaming around but weaker than the faction lords. I've thought of joining up with a claimant but I'm afraid it might make me completely **** up my character if I don't manage it too well.

4) At what point should I start up my own kingdom? That's the goal I'm striving for, but I don't want to do it too early because I doubt I'll be able to fend off a million armies heading my way. Partly due to finances (I won't be able to trade as well if the Ravenstern declare war on me for example), partly due to me not being able to take a bloody castle on my own. How many men do you think I need before starting? Any other prerequisites? I'm asking because I don't want to end up sieging a castle, losing most of my army and then being at war with several factions leaving me in a bit of a sticky situation, being chased wherever I go and unable to finance another army.

That'll do for now, thanks in advance.

EDIT: Just remembered. I got Diev as a companion, and I want him to be an archer. He's got his longbow but if I equip him with a melee weapon he just stands in the infantry line and often he'll stand there with his shield rather than firing arrows. If I remove his melee weapon he'll still think he's infantry and end up throwing fists instead of firing arrows. Any way to change this?

 

[hgghg4]

Anyway, as I said I'm not too much of an experienced player so there's a few things I'm wondering about. I've looked through a lot of threads and used the search function, which ironically didn't lead me to answers, but rather people sitting on their high horse saying "Use the search function", "Mods please lock this thread, I've personally made the judgment call" and more spam in that manner. That gripe aside...

This mod was designed to be much harder then M&B, lower your settings if your getting whooped hard. Yes we know the search function is almost worthless but I bet that if you go to the wiki like stated in the

隐藏: Helpful Links Page

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,75089.0.html

it will answer your questions. ALSO we telling people to use the search function means that the question they asked has been asked repetitively. 

2) Use the Wiki for character building.

3) If they are elite units then go find something and kill it... and do not do the claimant quest... it is bugged...

4) After you take a castle and get a good army...

EDIT: Just remembered. I got Diev as a companion, and I want him to be an archer. He's got his longbow but if I equip him with a melee weapon he just stands in the infantry line and often he'll stand there with his shield rather than firing arrows. If I remove his melee weapon he'll still think he's infantry and end up throwing fists instead of firing arrows. Any way to change this?

Take his shield away, make sure you don't have them "Hold Fire" and you should be good. If that doesn't solve it, well I am not sure what to do as I never had this problem.

 

[vyyye]

This mod was designed to be much harder then M&B, lower your settings if your getting whooped hard. Yes we know the search function is almost worthless but I bet that if you go to the wiki like stated in the

隐藏: Helpful Links Page

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,75089.0.html

it will answer your questions. ALSO we telling people to use the search function means that the question they asked has been asked repetitively. 

2) Use the Wiki for character building.

3) If they are elite units then go find something and kill it... and do not do the claimant quest... it is bugged...

4) After you take a castle and get a good army...

Yes, I've seen the helpful links thread, but it didn't answer these questions, hence I'm asking them here. The Wiki, while giving a slight basis, didn't really tell me a whole lot. "Focus a bit on this, and level a bit of that and do your own thing" would work if I was a bit more experienced, but I am not. I read what I could find in the wiki, as well as every sticky. It only gets you so far.

Honestly most people would be aware of the option to "lower your settings". I could probably find some god mode cheat as well, it's not quite what I'm looking for though.

3) Sucks, the idea seems quite fun.

4) Oh right, I should've thought of that. Sorry, didn't realize I need a good army and a castle to create a kingdom. It completely slipped my mind!

Take his shield away, make sure you don't have them "Hold Fire" and you should be good. If that doesn't solve it, well I am not sure what to do as I never had this problem.

Hm, I'll try removing his shield then.. Odd considering a lot of archers are equipped with shields, suppose a bug is a bug.

 

[akuthia]

Well, obviously, everyone's playstyle will be different, so advice on how to build your character will only get you so far. As for me, i tend to play as a lancer character, so combat skills are, by and large useless to me, a couched lance, is for all intents an purposes, a couched lance, when it comes to kill ability, (you hit, you kill), and even a square thrusted lance will likely kill, as well, so i take the intelligence route, myself. Leadership will only get you so far, when it comes to troop numbers after all, it does reduce the amount you spend on troops though, which is always a good thing. But i never wanty to wander around pendor looking for just the right companion to be my trainer, so i do it myself from the get go.

Secondly, if you're able to beat the jatu w/o much difficulty, theres NO reason to be bothering with the scrub raiders/bandits etc, you should definately be able to help out with the lord battles your faction is fighting.

 

[vyyye]

Well, obviously, everyone's playstyle will be different, so advice on how to build your character will only get you so far. As for me, i tend to play as a lancer character, so combat skills are, by and large useless to me, a couched lance, is for all intents an purposes, a couched lance, when it comes to kill ability, (you hit, you kill), and even a square thrusted lance will likely kill, as well, so i take the intelligence route, myself. Leadership will only get you so far, when it comes to troop numbers after all, it does reduce the amount you spend on troops though, which is always a good thing. But i never wanty to wander around pendor looking for just the right companion to be my trainer, so i do it myself from the get go.

Secondly, if you're able to beat the jatu w/o much difficulty, theres NO reason to be bothering with the scrub raiders/bandits etc, you should definately be able to help out with the lord battles your faction is fighting.

Of course, I'm not looking for a "THIS IS THE PERFECT CHARACTER GUYS!" but a few descriptions of different characters never hurts. I'll have to rethink my current strategy of playing passive and join a war mongering faction then, King Ulric doesn't seem to be interested in war at all for some reason. Just as well, been running about for far too long trading and killing useless foes..

 

[hgghg4]

I play more of an Archer/2hander character with a few meat grinders for companions. As far as character creation goes it all depends on your playing style...no one can say one way is better then the other... For instance, noosers plays with shields more then I do... he lives more with shields but I live more with 2handers...

 

[akuthia]

Well, obviously, everyone's playstyle will be different, so advice on how to build your character will only get you so far. As for me, i tend to play as a lancer character, so combat skills are, by and large useless to me, a couched lance, is for all intents an purposes, a couched lance, when it comes to kill ability, (you hit, you kill), and even a square thrusted lance will likely kill, as well, so i take the intelligence route, myself. Leadership will only get you so far, when it comes to troop numbers after all, it does reduce the amount you spend on troops though, which is always a good thing. But i never wanty to wander around pendor looking for just the right companion to be my trainer, so i do it myself from the get go.

Secondly, if you're able to beat the jatu w/o much difficulty, theres NO reason to be bothering with the scrub raiders/bandits etc, you should definately be able to help out with the lord battles your faction is fighting.

Of course, I'm not looking for a "THIS IS THE PERFECT CHARACTER GUYS!" but a few descriptions of different characters never hurts. I'll have to rethink my current strategy of playing passive and join a war mongering faction then, King Ulric doesn't seem to be interested in war at all for some reason. Just as well, been running about for far too long trading and killing useless foes..

actually, you don't, afaik, theres no penalty for your own faction, if you start a war for them, so go find a few juicy caravans for smacking, and get it on! also, check around with the lords, often enough, i get one of them telling me "This peace with the <blank> irks me, whatcha say?, or similar

 

[kekn06ab]

welcome to the PoP board, mate. I understand your frustration, I think we all felt the exact same way at some point.

I guess the best tip I can give you for the beginning is to amass elite troops. You don't necessarily have to train them from the bottom, you can for example capture rogue squires, hire them and upgrade them to rogue knights/adventurers (adventurers give access to hero adventurers). You can also ask the slavers for news and then once in a while (like 1 out of 10 times) get offered uber elite knight orders. I got quite a lot of knights of the dawn that way.
If you must train some troops from the bottom, train sarleon or ravenstern knights .

For money I tend to roam around the western coast, running after the smaller vanskerry parties there, they tend to drop decent loot.

I usually keep my starting party composition primarily archers (i.e. ravenstern rangers and grey archers), but thats' because I go for a castle first. Here the best strategy is to send vollies of arrows at the defenders until there is no one left (IMO). When exactly to do the assault is hard to say, because getting the castle isn't much of a problem, keeping it is. To hold off more than half a thousand angry huscarls you will need quite a bunch of troops. I'd say around 80 elite units is a minimum, once you have the castle, put them in there and start massproducing something like sarleon knights or fierdsvain armoured axemen (troops that does well in melee on top of the ladder).

Other people go with a faction first and then rebel once they have enough troops to withstand a siege... this is the sissy way

 

[hgghg4]

yeah the half of a thousand huscarls are just 1/4 of the angry fierdsvane mob... the other 1500 is other random meat...

 

[vyyye]

actually, you don't, afaik, theres no penalty for your own faction, if you start a war for them, so go find a few juicy caravans for smacking, and get it on! also, check around with the lords, often enough, i get one of them telling me "This peace with the <blank> irks me, whatcha say?, or similar

I went with it and wow, I definitely overestimated the other lords. My 70 unit army can take on 100-120 unit armies from other factions with only a few casualties (well, a lot of wounded but who cares), so I've been running around removing D'shar's from the map. On the other hand my fief is close to them so it seems the fief will remain a giant slum as I can't spend all time babysitting it. Oh well.
Ravenstein declared war on us (Sarleon) as well so I've finally got some campaigns to join. I wonder what they were thinking, as both Fierdsvarn and the D'shar's have been handing them their asses.. But whatever floats their boat.

welcome to the PoP board, mate. I understand your frustration, I think we all felt the exact same way at some point.

I guess the best tip I can give you for the beginning is to amass elite troops. You don't necessarily have to train them from the bottom, you can for example capture rogue squires, hire them and upgrade them to rogue knights/adventurers (adventurers give access to hero adventurers). You can also ask the slavers for news and then once in a while (like 1 out of 10 times) get offered uber elite knight orders. I got quite a lot of knights of the dawn that way.
If you must train some troops from the bottom, train sarleon or ravenstern knights .

Thanks!
And ah, didn't do that at all on this character. Will try it for the next one, I kept running around with 20-40 low tier troops and well.. 1 cobra knight = 20 dead militia's... I'll try to keep them alive and upgrading them, should probably invest in training earlier as well.

For money I tend to roam around the western coast, running after the smaller vanskerry parties there, they tend to drop decent loot.

I usually keep my starting party composition primarily archers (i.e. ravenstern rangers and grey archers), but thats' because I go for a castle first. Here the best strategy is to send vollies of arrows at the defenders until there is no one left (IMO). When exactly to do the assault is hard to say, because getting the castle isn't much of a problem, keeping it is. To hold off more than half a thousand angry huscarls you will need quite a bunch of troops. I'd say around 80 elite units is a minimum, once you have the castle, put them in there and start massproducing something like sarleon knights or fierdsvain armoured axemen (troops that does well in melee on top of the ladder).

Other people go with a faction first and then rebel once they have enough troops to withstand a siege... this is the sissy way

Seems I'm going for the sissy way then, well whatever works. I've been keeping my army composition pretty mixed, with about 1/3 cav, 1/3 inf, 1/3 archers, you reckon it's better to just mass knights? Or is that mainly for keeping hordes of enemies outside the castle walls?

 

[hgghg4]

Hoard Ravenstern Archers, Sarleon Longbowmen and Sarleon or Pendorian Knights (I prefer Pendorian Knights as they can be upgraded to most of the Honor Troops) If you do go with infantry, use the Huscarl Line of Fierdsvane... they are best pound for pound on the ground

 

[TimotheusTJB]

actually, you don't, afaik, theres no penalty for your own faction, if you start a war for them, so go find a few juicy caravans for smacking, and get it on! also, check around with the lords, often enough, i get one of them telling me "This peace with the <blank> irks me, whatcha say?, or similar

I went with it and wow, I definitely overestimated the other lords. My 70 unit army can take on 100-120 unit armies from other factions with only a few casualties (well, a lot of wounded but who cares), so I've been running around removing D'shar's from the map. On the other hand my fief is close to them so it seems the fief will remain a giant slum as I can't spend all time babysitting it. Oh well.
Ravenstein declared war on us (Sarleon) as well so I've finally got some campaigns to join. I wonder what they were thinking, as both Fierdsvarn and the D'shar's have been handing them their asses.. But whatever floats their boat.

welcome to the PoP board, mate. I understand your frustration, I think we all felt the exact same way at some point.

I guess the best tip I can give you for the beginning is to amass elite troops. You don't necessarily have to train them from the bottom, you can for example capture rogue squires, hire them and upgrade them to rogue knights/adventurers (adventurers give access to hero adventurers). You can also ask the slavers for news and then once in a while (like 1 out of 10 times) get offered uber elite knight orders. I got quite a lot of knights of the dawn that way.
If you must train some troops from the bottom, train sarleon or ravenstern knights .

Thanks!
And ah, didn't do that at all on this character. Will try it for the next one, I kept running around with 20-40 low tier troops and well.. 1 cobra knight = 20 dead militia's... I'll try to keep them alive and upgrading them, should probably invest in training earlier as well.

For money I tend to roam around the western coast, running after the smaller vanskerry parties there, they tend to drop decent loot.

I usually keep my starting party composition primarily archers (i.e. ravenstern rangers and grey archers), but thats' because I go for a castle first. Here the best strategy is to send vollies of arrows at the defenders until there is no one left (IMO). When exactly to do the assault is hard to say, because getting the castle isn't much of a problem, keeping it is. To hold off more than half a thousand angry huscarls you will need quite a bunch of troops. I'd say around 80 elite units is a minimum, once you have the castle, put them in there and start massproducing something like sarleon knights or fierdsvain armoured axemen (troops that does well in melee on top of the ladder).

Other people go with a faction first and then rebel once they have enough troops to withstand a siege... this is the sissy way

Seems I'm going for the sissy way then, well whatever works. I've been keeping my army composition pretty mixed, with about 1/3 cav, 1/3 inf, 1/3 archers, you reckon it's better to just mass knights? Or is that mainly for keeping hordes of enemies outside the castle walls?

Don't ever and i repeat don't ever just mass knights. The mod will get boring very quickly if you do that. My first character when i got bored of all the knights i disbanded that knighthood order and massed silvermist rangers. That's fun for a while but eventually gets boring. Personally i think that a good balance between cavalry infantry and archers such as yours is a lot funner to play. Even though you can totally dominate with 40+ honor knights such as knights of the falcon or whatever it gets boring after a while. If you want to defend your castle against a ton of lords then stack your castle with silvermist rangers. Find them a good spot at the back of the castle with some good protection from castle walls they will totally dominate and kill all the infantry before they even reach you and your men. If You have enough of them even the fierdsvain wouldn't stand a chance though they would probably have a few huscarls reach your men.

 

[kekn06ab]

@TimotheusTJB

It might be boring for some people, fun for others (whatever), but these are tips for those starting out in Pendor. I don't think vyyye was looking for ways to make this game any harder

That said, I agree with you totally that going silvermist only (or something similar) will get boring eventually, but until then you have got to start somewhere and starting a training program, knights or silvermist, is the best strategy! "Don't ever and I repeat don't ever just mass knights" is an advice I can't give any player, new or experienced in the mod.

#1 tip of all time: Get a TRAINING program started and FOCUS on it!

 

[noosers]

Well, I guess most of your questions answered themselves as you got another war going on (and thus, much fun) and quit the boring peaceful times where running around with 70 troops is definetly overkill.

I gave a few tips in the wiki how to cover the early stages of the game which are really difficult. Especially if you aren´t accustomed to PoP´s level of difficulty. Since I play it almost exclusively I don´t find it that hard anymore but I´m deadly spoiled for anything else as i consider it less shiny, ugly or not as funny as PoP.

For early start goes, just run away of fights you can win, and get roughly 20 archers. Not more otherwise you´ll get too little speed to run off the more fearsome parties. Pick up your companions at that stage and use the training grounds. You should travel over to Ravenstern at once, get some recruits, train them to skirmishers at the training grounds and start hunting Mystmountain Raiders, and bandit parties in the area between Ravenstern and Windholm. Once you got a nice amount of archers, start picking off Vanskerries - they´re perfect target practice for your ranged troops and give excellent loot.

Once you´re able to beat off the larger Vanskerry parties, start picking your fight with the Renegade Knights. You´ll lose a considerable part of your Rangers/Archers but you´ll start increasing your army anyways and replace the losses with recruits you train into knights.

The Renegade parties give great loot - a couple of the most awesome items are dropped by them. Join fights of Lords against minor factions/neutral parties, help caravans. Once you got positive relations with a faction, you can help another faction against it and still keep positive relations with the first faction.

The more you fight, the easier this game becomes. Pick your fights wisely and strategically. Use the situation to your advantage.

If it is your first game and you have little experience with PoP, stick with a faction and toy around till you get the hang of the different troop types and how useful they are. Same goes for your character. Once you play more you´ll realise that leadership and charisma are important MAINLY for the lower upkeep. Which is their greatest advantage. Party size doesn´t matter because as you keep on fighting and increasing reknown, you´ll be able to field 200+ troops after the first 200 days, which is more than enough to defeat anything on the map execpt freshly spawned evil/noldor spawns.

As I said above, the easiest ways of early gameplay are described in the wiki. Play around with your current character, and with your next pick the looting 9 character and heed the early hunting grounds as described by a couple of players here.

Once you hit 50-70 troopers, preferably 1:1:1 archer:infantry:cavalry start looking for a centralized castle of a faction at war with at least one or more kingdoms. Chase a caravan of the nation and press them for money. The -1 relation will allow you to siege it and hopefully successfully take it. Declare your sovereignity and start to carve your own kingdom out of Pendor.

Fill it with mercenaries, rescued prisoners and the survivors of the siege and the make haste to train more archers. Once you got about 50-100 high tier archers you´re safe enough to further expand your empire.

Early game is tricky, but starting over a couple of times is most of the fun. It´s all learning by doing and no less than 100% difficulty!

There´s no fool-proof early game walkthrough, and it doesn´t really make sense as this is a sandbox game (which is the fantastic thing about it) and thus played differently by everyone. Just keep your good sense and stay curious!

Apart from that, 9/10 people are having epic failure experiences with this mod but they  keep struggling on and enjoy it greatly. The fantastic thing is there are no must do´s or have´s. You play it as you like. And if you prefer to run around as mercenary for a Empire forver, it´s great.

Play it the way you get most enjoyment out of it. Each to his own. That´s the most important thing. And if you look closely, you´ll find out the funny things. Like how vulvernable Sarleon Halberdiers are to ranged weapons but how deadly they´re in a siege defense. And once you got the feeling for those things, you´ll have to do a bit of thinking and learning.

After all, you already found the juicy trade routes from north to south which is vital for upkeep during times of peace. In times of war, your main source of income is loot. Loot will make you rich. Your fiefs will simply pay for your army but the real coin is made by the spoils of war. As it´s supposed to be!

If you got further questions, just keep them asking.

 

[vyyye]

[qoute]
Don't ever and i repeat don't ever just mass knights. The mod will get boring very quickly if you do that. My first character when i got bored of all the knights i disbanded that knighthood order and massed silvermist rangers. That's fun for a while but eventually gets boring. Personally i think that a good balance between cavalry infantry and archers such as yours is a lot funner to play. Even though you can totally dominate with 40+ honor knights such as knights of the falcon or whatever it gets boring after a while. If you want to defend your castle against a ton of lords then stack your castle with silvermist rangers. Find them a good spot at the back of the castle with some good protection from castle walls they will totally dominate and kill all the infantry before they even reach you and your men. If You have enough of them even the fierdsvain wouldn't stand a chance though they would probably have a few huscarls reach your men.[/quote]
Silvermist rangers? Not seen them yet, I'm going to go ahead and think there's some special way of acquiring them so don't spoil it just yet. I'll get some grey archers and raven fella's garrisoned then, don't feel like paying for the current upkeep that includes knight's and the lot anyway..
I can see your point about the knights, I tried it out and I pretty much steamroll all opposition (got 30-50 knights). I'll go ahead and try for bigger armies instead, been avoiding anything with 140 or more units, might be able to capture a king.. or lose all my knight's.

#1 tip of all time: Get a TRAINING program started and FOCUS on it!

What do you mean by 'training program'? An army composition of certain units I should aim for, stacking Trainer on all my companion's?

For early start goes, just run away of fights you can win, and get roughly 20 archers. Not more otherwise you´ll get too little speed to run off the more fearsome parties. Pick up your companions at that stage and use the training grounds. You should travel over to Ravenstern at once, get some recruits, train them to skirmishers at the training grounds and start hunting Mystmountain Raiders, and bandit parties in the area between Ravenstern and Windholm. Once you got a nice amount of archers, start picking off Vanskerries - they´re perfect target practice for your ranged troops and give excellent loot.

Sure beats my tactics of sending my newly recruited infantry to a certain death and myself to the bandit cage's over and over again. Wouldn't even have thought of trying on the Vanskerries before I was way ahead of them quantity/quality wise, no wonder early progress felt slow.

If it is your first game and you have little experience with PoP, stick with a faction and toy around till you get the hang of the different troop types and how useful they are. Same goes for your character. Once you play more you´ll realise that leadership and charisma are important MAINLY for the lower upkeep. Which is their greatest advantage. Party size doesn´t matter because as you keep on fighting and increasing reknown, you´ll be able to field 200+ troops after the first 200 days, which is more than enough to defeat anything on the map execpt freshly spawned evil/noldor spawns.

I knew I was wasting time but.. damn. I think I'm 280 or so days into the game and I can field 100 units, and that's with me focusing quite a bit on charisma. Suppose it's cheap for me at least

Once you hit 50-70 troopers, preferably 1:1:1 archer:infantry:cavalry start looking for a centralized castle of a faction at war with at least one or more kingdoms. Chase a caravan of the nation and press them for money. The -1 relation will allow you to siege it and hopefully successfully take it. Declare your sovereignity and start to carve your own kingdom out of Pendor.

Fill it with mercenaries, rescued prisoners and the survivors of the siege and the make haste to train more archers. Once you got about 50-100 high tier archers you´re safe enough to further expand your empire.

I've really been focusing too much on quantity, rather than quality. Think I'll start a second character quite soon, and try that one with an early resurrection of Pendor.. Never thought I could take a castle with 50-70 men, I have a feeling character #2's life might just be a bit more eventful than my current one lol.

There´s no fool-proof early game walkthrough, and it doesn´t really make sense as this is a sandbox game (which is the fantastic thing about it) and thus played differently by everyone. Just keep your good sense and stay curious!

Yeah, was looking for a Morrowind quest description rather than the quest-compass of Oblivion, so to say. You provided exactly the kind of info' I was hoping for, so thanks a lot! Will definitely have more of an idea of what I'm doing once I create my next character, less running around like a headless chicken...

After all, you already found the juicy trade routes from north to south which is vital for upkeep during times of peace. In times of war, your main source of income is loot. Loot will make you rich. Your fiefs will simply pay for your army but the real coin is made by the spoils of war. As it´s supposed to be!

If you got further questions, just keep them asking.

While we're on the subject of fiefs and questions...
I've been trying to keep my fief up and running but it feels like bit of a money sink without any rewards. Basically, we (Sarleon) are at war with Ravenstern so while I'm up there campaigning the sneaky D'shar's loot my fief (Belmonfaire or something, it's south of Avendor) and there isn't a whole lot I can do.. My newly finished building's get damaged which kind of kills the point of me building them in the first place. Would I be better off ignoring it until I start conquering the D'shar's? It's what I'm doing now, but feels like such a waste of a.. well, fief.

 

[akuthia]

For the most part, i think you should ignore your starting village, yes, for a couple of reasons. One, if you're in a faction, and then declare pendor, it doesnt go with you (i think only if you also own the connected castle/city would you own it), two, it seems entirely impossible to actually protect it (i think bandits can invade "just because" although i'm not positive on it) and three, i dont think the difference between a poor as **** village, and a prosperous as hell village, is all that great of an amount, as i understand it.

As far as making money, i disagree that loot is you're big money maker, for me, it's prisoners, but again, this comes down to a play style, i use blunt weapons only (ok, so i cheated,and i changed most of the lances to be blunt, as well as my horses damage type... i also made a few of the horse types faster, because i honestly just enjoy the faster movement, before everyone gets on me about that, it also affected the noldor, and snake bands, as well, since those were the horses i think i changed )

One question that is semi pertinent to this discussion, when do you consider a garrisoned fief "safe"? I hate having to answer EVERY distress call i get about a castle getting attacked, but right now, with my City (ethos) having about 200 troops in it, one other castle, and a castle i gave to one of my lords, i feel like if i dont answer every one, that i'm likely to lose each one, even if i'm attacking something else at the time it happens.

 

[noosers]

Well, akuthia.

You´re right there. Prisoners ARE a great source of income but not the best. (May be for your modified game though as you tweaked it that way). Unless you changed the amount of prisoners you can carry around as well you´ll have to drop them every so often at your preferred town till the slaver shows up. Since you ordered all your Lords carrying around prisoners  to visit your town as well you´ll get their prisoners to sell as well.

Big cashday once Mr.Moneybox shows up.

Still, loot´s the best source of income, especially if you went the loot 9 +3 starting chap. (which I highly suggest to do, as the hardcoded loot routine is ****ty as hell).

I consider a fief save once no minor spawns start running around chasing or pestering the farmers. The occasional Lord trying to raid it isn´t a threat at all since you´ll turn up in time chasing him off.
Once your farmers are save though, everything will really start to prosper. If you own a town, it´s even more important.

When are your farmers safe?
When little minor/bandit spawns are around. This is best achieved by a town of Manhunter parties running around and supporting your farmers if they´re caught by the occasional Red Brotherhood Party. And of course you need a sheriff.
So, in order to achieve that, you´ll have to MANAGE your village. The difference between a rat infested, poor, plague ridden village (net income: 400 denarii a week) and a thriving, fully upgraded, rich one (net income 4000 denarii a week) IS significant but it takes a long time. It pays off though. Rich villages tend to have good relations with you. Good relations and rich means a hellish LOT of recruits or average amounts of high tier troops.

As example: My best village (read - the one I own longest, attached to my first castle as I went Pendor), has a relation of 80ish something just started to be upper average rich. I can get 30 recruits a shot off them or the best I´ve gotten so far, 5 Pendor Squires who are tier 4.

The random bandit infestations are just great and cheap ways to improve your relation with the village. A good indicator it occured is if a village drops a wealth rank without beeing raided. You should do that quest at every possible occassion - it´s cheap, it´s easy and it doesn´t take long.

Your Lord´s castle will soon be garrisoned adequately enough given it has got enough time to draft. This rougly means 72 hours without siege status. Once that´s over and they have about 100 troop AI garrison they´re safe enough to hold out till you can support them in times of need.

Royal Household Strongholds or Crown-Towns (read: my property) is considered safe if i hit about 200 (150 archers, 50 heaviest infantry) troops for towns, and 100 (75/25) for castles.

Together with your party you´ll be able to defend off anything up to 1500 angry Fierdsvains without much annoyance or epic failure experience. And as your game progress, you´ll get better and better relations with Lords (apart from a few dickheads) they will like you more and more. And the more honor you pick up, you will get better and better relations and earn TONS of reknown

And guess what - yeah! AI Lords dislike raiding villages of honorable pals of theirs, especially if the pal isn´t raiding villages as well and has like 5k reknown, is a living legend and invincible. The occasional dickhead who tries it though usually hates you which mean´s he´s a volunteer for a new quiet mouldy dark basement apartment, 2 m^2 with running water, provided by your courtesy.

 

[SCGavin]

Is this thread something for the compilation? If yes, what should the summarisation read?

And by the way: If you get to day 500 or so, you wont have to ask yourself "Which good units do I employ so that I can beat the enemy", but rather "Which units do I employ - if any - to have fun while beating the enemy?". In the final stage I usually just had my companions with me and it was fun dominating 100 enemies (albeit often low-tier units) with my ~20 companions.