Please Mister, Don't Give Me Any Castles; I Can't Afford them!

[LordOfAll]

I am doing well financially UNTIL I help the Clan Leader as a vassal and he insists on giving me a castle. Please give me the option to say "thanks, but no thanks" to a castle.
I run into serious monetary issues trying to support a garrison and my main party. I am not 'wealthy' enough yet in the game. I usually have to abandon the castle.

 

[armodilo]

Same, castle/village positives seem a bit low, i get about 150 from the castle and 100 per village and 25 from land tax but need a garrison of about 300 to stop it being attacked which costs 2k.
I was wondering if maybe there's a point after you've upgraded it and have enough militia that maybe they expect you to take the garrison out.

But I'm struggling to figure out the point of owning a castle, are there any positives?

 

[fasthd97]

A place to store men? I mean why own a castle if it costs you 1000s a day. No matter how many cities & workshops and caravans you own always seem to be bleeding money from cities and castles.

 

[MishaQ]

I personally have 700K, 3 caravans, 2x pottery 2x grain workshop cause I fight for Empire and we can't affort better workshops without beeing constantly at war with those factions where I have had my profitable workshops. And I have 2 castles... my income is about 2 - 2,8 K which is ridiculously low and my expensies are with 177 men army + 2 castles around 3,5 K.... so I am wondering if this gets any better cuz im just loosin money. Everyday cca 2K and it just bothers me. When the sun praises me I can make profit about 99 gold a day...

 

[LordOfAll]

Yes to all ... it seems like just having a castle is a losing proposition. I think that a castle might be beneficial if the entire clan has 'policies' in place that maximize the income, in taxes etc, from the villages. But when you first get a castle, you usually do not have enough 'influence' to affect the clan policy decisions.
The bottom line is that I would like the ability to say 'no thank you' to getting a castle.
There is a mod I was using under e1.4.1 called 'Diplomacy Fixes' which among other great features, allowed you to immediately possess or REJECT a castle you seized. Unfortunately, not yet working under e1.4.3 beta

 

[mexxico]

Yes this can be a problem sometimes especially if your castle's village(s) are weak in terms of production and hearth. If you upload your save games I can examine your situation and try to make things better.

 

[LordOfAll]

Mexxico,
Thank you very much for the kind offer, but I would not want to take up your valuable time just for me.
I am doing much better since I acquired a large city (actually two now) and revenue now is in the positive.

I am not sure how this can be fixed or balanced appropriately without making things 'too easy'. There is a fine line between 'too easy' and 'challenging'. Like I really notice the difference in battles if I go from the easiest to just one level up as the enemy will not route easily just one level up and battles are challenging. People will complain about either extreme.

Under 1.4.2 I had installed 'Diplomacy Fixes' (from Nexus) which one benefit of allowed me to either refuse or force acceptance of a castle or town that I conquered. Sometimes the second castle was way too far removed from the first, and I would have to 'shuttle' back and forth to keep the enemies at bay. This rather ruined the whole experience as I could do nothing else in the game but fight to hold what I had. The mod gave me the option to decline the 'gift' (this time I have two adjacent cities and castles).

The other mod I used under 1.4.2 was 'Improved Garrisons' (Nexus). This is a really feature-rich mod that let me do all kinds of things with garrisons including forming a defensive roaming party of troops that would 'patrol' my area. The problem though was that they still cost as much Denar as a garrison so there was/is no advantage there.

All in all, it would seem that the player has to be 'rich' in order to really expand (or I am not very smart at playing, a definite possibility).

BTW, I recognize your name from one of the YouTube commentators who passes on a lot of info. I watch them daily, 'Italian Spartacus' and 'Stan'. I really enjoy playing this game and admire the dev teams way of handling things.

 

[LordOfAll]

Rather than upset the entire strategy of the game, it would be best to simply allow a refusal of the grant of a castle or other property. I think that this gives the player an option at the time to assess whether it is a good strategy to accept or decline at the time.

[Idea] Perhaps the ability to pass the castle on to another that would grant 'influence' points might be a way to accept the gift but still receive benefit.
This grant to another clan could perhaps be done in the Kingdom screen without much in the way of upset.

 

[Dabos37]

Yep, refusing settlements should be an option but for the moment we can just vote against ourselves (having to waste influence for nothing).

Plus I think that making castles' garrison cheaper could help and make this settlement a bit more appealing.

Concerning negative income, I have been losing 3K daily in some moments due to Kuzhaits raiding all my villages but I have been able to still getting more and more money. We can still get an insane amount of money from selling loot after defeating lords. Once the war against Kuzhaits has stopped, now I am getting 500 daily while having a +260 party and decent garrison in my settlements (two towns with 3K prosperity and 1 castle with 1,2K prosperity).

Once caravans get fixed and useful again, the passive income will be on a perfect spot IMO. On the other hand, the amount of money we get winning battles is still insanely high due to most of equipment being too overpriced.

 

[Dybra18]

Yeah...quite hard to get there...caravans seems totally broken, they not even shows up correctly in the "balance window" anymore...workshops seems to be 30%-50% nerfed but work though. I am not going "vassal" because I won't be able to afford several parties in my clan, so still in the mercenary phase...

 

[Phactos]

Rather than upset the entire strategy of the game, it would be best to simply allow a refusal of the grant of a castle or other property. I think that this gives the player an option at the time to assess whether it is a good strategy to accept or decline at the time.

[Idea] Perhaps the ability to pass the castle on to another that would grant 'influence' points might be a way to accept the gift but still receive benefit.
This grant to another clan could perhaps be done in the Kingdom screen without much in the way of upset.

Instead of refusing the castle it would make more sense if, before the poll, we got a message like this: “You’ve been selected as a candidate for the fief do you want to keep your application , indicate another person, or reject the offer?”

This way you can have the option to either attempt to get the fief, add a friend clan for the poll (and gain some relation points from it), or simple ignore the poll and let the AI select all the candidates.

 

[Dybra18]

Hey guys i don't think refusing a castle is the way to go...sure with the bug about the financial side of the game that could have seem an option too. Well, the DEVS (great as usual) already made an hotfix and I am already back to be a rich guy, so, probably letting the game run, you'll see things will get better. Besides, I did made so much money with just 1 city and 2 castles that I did recall all my companions from caravan duties. The important stuff are all about "irrigation" and "gardens" which will solve the food problems and indirectly will have villages to grow, this will bring more prosperity and both FIEFS and their bound villages will increase the amount of money they pay to you. After that, militia is important, again "feeling safe" will help, while the actual stuff about taxes (like collector, etc) are the last you want to build, just to add on top of the rest. So focus on food-security-prosperity and then taxes...the same city almost double its tax rate in 1 in game year. (I am not there yet in 1.4.3, but after the hotfix I am confident it will work just fine)

 

[hamletsdead]

Hey guys i don't think refusing a castle is the way to go...sure with the bug about the financial side of the game that could have seem an option too. Well, the DEVS (great as usual) already made an hotfix and I am already back to be a rich guy, so, probably letting the game run, you'll see things will get better. Besides, I did made so much money with just 1 city and 2 castles that I did recall all my companions from caravan duties. The important stuff are all about "irrigation" and "gardens" which will solve the food problems and indirectly will have villages to grow, this will bring more prosperity and both FIEFS and their bound villages will increase the amount of money they pay to you. After that, militia is important, again "feeling safe" will help, while the actual stuff about taxes (like collector, etc) are the last you want to build, just to add on top of the rest. So focus on food-security-prosperity and then taxes...the same city almost double its tax rate in 1 in game year. (I am not there yet in 1.4.3, but after the hotfix I am confident it will work just fine)

I just went on a war binge with 3500+ troops in my army, and I like the idea of refusing the castle, but the default that you get with Diplomacy Fixes -- i.e., the castle reverts to your lord -- is a tad annoying. I'd like to be able to reward them to one of the assisting parties in my army for valor, etc. Though I suppose technically that's not my call since even as a general I'm just a lowly vassal.