Plateau

[Insta_Buzz]

I've reached a point in my game where everything is just a stalemate. I'm playing as Khuzait. I'm on my 2nd character, the grandson of my original created guy so it's been going for quite awhile. I have 4 towns and 3 castles which aren't on the front lines and well manned. Money isn't an issue. Army of 250 Khans Guard and 50 mix and match other units.

Vlandia, Western Empire, and Khuzait pretty much have the map split into thirds. Any war just winds up moot, because whatever gets taken just gets taken back in the next war. Every so often the North Empire or the Sturgians will recapture a city because for whatever reason I cannot eliminate ANY faction.

Does this happen often? I've started a few games as different cultures. But this is by far my most successful and longest played. I just can't get over the hump. If I create an army and attack, wherever I advance and capture towns the enemy just does it on the other side. I cant be everywhere at once. I'll advance on the south, and get attacked in the north. I'll re-take our lands in the north and the enemy re-takes their lands in the south. It has grown quite frustrating and pointless.

 

[Hero07911010]

Have you tried removing some of the pawns lords from the map? You can execute them or just capture them and drop them in one of your towns. Build a Governor with the Perks to reduce the escape chances. You can make a Governor with 95% reduce escape chance. With lords out of the way, it makes their settlements vulnerable to you or other kingdoms.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

There's two solutions that come to mind; firstly, and it's the one that worked for me, is to ignore one front while going all-in on the other. Basically, the idea is to secure a corner--I'd recommend the north in your case to secure the northeastern parts overall, and then circle into middle Calradia via Omor while A.I. vassals handle it from the east. Once you have a corner secured (and ideally bought the loyalty of every clan head you can) overall victory should be inevitable, but, as you know, you can't be at two places at once so the idea is to file down the amount of places you have to be by completely unifying the quadrants of the continent. It's a little more awkward for the Khuzaits than it is for the western countries, but the idea remains the same. This is kind of an inevitable issue unless you're based in Vlandia/Western Calradia simply because the larger and more expansive your country is the longer it takes to reinforce one end of it from the other, so the solution is to decrease the amount of attackable angles by rapid conquest of each angle.

The other plan is slow and steady; make sure every castle/city has at least 200 non-militia troops and gradually expand at a rate of one castle/city per war. It'll take forever but, if you lack the strength to do the above, then patience becomes the name of the game until you reach the snowball point.

Arguably, the snowball point is when you rule ~33% of the continent with two dozen clans since, at that point, nobody can withstand you even if they all declare war on you simultaneously. Perhaps your country loses 2-3 fiefs in the time it takes you to take a dozen+ in Sturgia; it's a net win and continued conquest in the north and central Calradia will eventually secure the northeast and northwestern regions so that you can collapse down upon the south when the west is no longer a serious threat.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Does this happen often?

This is a problem since 1.1.0 beta, before this as long as you were making/recruiting enough clans (you can keep making them from wanderers even after normal clan won't join you anymore) you could over power the landless factions and hold them map as you expanded. The landless faction could not make meaningful come back because you had so many parties running around. However in 1.1.X+ the AI parties seem to just let them take stuff back OR maybe there is some other problem with the land less factions too, but they easily take back fiefs, even when you have a large amount of clans running around.

If you execute them it may cause some vassals to have negative relations with you and leave your faction, but I haven't tested it in current version, so not sure. You can imprison them, but eventually your faction will want peace and release them (you can say no if you have enough influence but it gets annoying), then they just re-build and attack again, which in the past was okay but now as I said, they seem to easily take stuff back.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

However in 1.1.X+ the AI parties seem to just let them take stuff back OR maybe there is some other problem with the land less factions too, but they easily take back fiefs, even when you have a large amount of clans running around.

I'm glad you're on the case with it--seriously, thank you for that--because this would be the most infuriating thing ever if I had to deal with it raw instead of just adopting the policy of "wait indefinitely for it to be patched up..." still makes me a little sad though lol. I hope you'll be on the case if it's ever fixed since stuff like this is pretty good justification to not even play (what's the point if sustainability is impossible without some hardcore builds/set-ups/patience or exploits?).

 

[NPC99]

However in 1.1.X+ the AI parties seem to just let them take stuff back OR maybe there is some other problem with the land less factions too, but they easily take back fiefs, even when you have a large amount of clans running around.

Definitely, my experience too. Currently, 42 years into a campaign started on 1.0.3 and now on 1.1.2. My character is still alive and kicking at 72 years-old without any loss of combat skills. Both sons 39 and 34 years old are leading parties and my grandson's 10, and plotting to inherit.

Spoiler

I've used geography to bottle up the other factions onto limited fronts, but they still run as many armies now as they did at full strength. Clearly, funded by magic and backed by minor mercenary factions. Landless factions continually grab back any castles or towns where you're not patrolling.

I just can't get over the hump.

I stuck with the same faction, first as a mercenary then vassal and was finally voted onto the throne for amassing more influence etc. than its other clans. Having a faction's starting clans certainly helps as they deploy up to three other armies and no-one seems to defect anymore even though they're all my enemies since I finally started executing every prisoner to see if that made any difference. Adding companion clans also helps but they all seem to start with just three members and never seem to grow to rival initial clans (maybe it just takes a lot more time than I've given them).
Cash is never a problem - my purse currently holds 13.5 million somehow. The problem is influence. From a high point of 52,600 influence, I'm now down to 5,420. It's very expensive over-ruling idiot vassals who want to fight multiple fronts on opposite sides of the continent. I can't afford to instil sense anymore, so, I'm generally at war with all factions simultaneously. Their weakness seems to have no bearing on their ability to bounce back with multiple armies - they just tend to be less than a 1,000 strong these days instead of 1,500 to 2,000 previously. Also, as long as there's no peace, the proportion of lower tier units in their armies increases with their defeats.
In perpetual war, it's tough to find recruits to fill losses from casualties and contributions to garrisons. Look out for any enemy castle or town with over 200 prisoners - even if you don't want to keep it, liberating them makes for fast large scale recruiting.

If you execute them it may cause some vassals to have negative relations with you and leave your faction, but I haven't tested it in current version

I don't think that's true anymore - no one seems to defect. My relationship with all nine of the original Sturgian clans is -97 or worse (five on -100) and none have defected. Whereas the other seven recruited/companion clans (with no executed relatives) are between +52 and +96.

As no-one ever makes peace, I now have 16 clans and 16 wars (having temporarily bought off the Aserai):

Spoiler