Really fun game, but a few points are really, really putting me off;

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Rutilant

Recruit
I don't know how many of these are par for the course or just a fluke of how these particular games ended up for me, but here goes. I'll summarize at the bottom for the tl;drs.

I started a new character and went about my business, levelling some Swadian knights and just generally having fun mowing people down. Eventually the Swadian king offered me vassalage, and the Swadians always seemed to kick sufficient ass to do well for themselves, so I accepted. A while later, they declared war on the Rhodoks. Alright, that's fine. Then they declared war on the Vaegirs. And then the Nords. The only people they HADN'T declared war on were the Khergits. At this point I was getting a little worried, but the other factions had kept mostly to themselves for a couple weeks and it didn't seem like it would be a problem.

Eventually, I was awarded a re-conquered fief, Reindi Castle and Emirin. Before I could even get my party there, it was sieged by the Rhodoks. Ookay, I only had about 65ish troops at the time and about half were Swadian knights, so I didn't like my odds defending walls since I was mostly built as a support/general rather than a warrior and couldn't do too much to help out my troops. It rather uneventfully passed into Rhodok hands again while I watched and got frustrated that the rest of the Swadian kingdom didn't care. Oh well.

I was passing by later on and noticed that Reindi only had about 30 garrisoned and most were Rhodok tribesman. Obviously, I stole it back and asked for it from the king, but had no luck. It was awarded to a Lord who was, for some reason, marked as my enemy on my relations page. Sort of a **** move, king. Not that it really mattered, because it was sieged less than a week later, this time by the nords, and fell because the lord it was given too was a useless jerk with 30 soldiers total.

So, later on, I stole it back AGAIN while it was low on troops and immediately went gathering as many recruits I could to stuff into it and train before it got attacked again. Well, of course, it did, and by a full army of 700 Rhodok soldiers just over a week later. Fun! Since I'd had no place to stage my troops and build up an actual army as opposed to a small warband, I had to sacrifice all my weakest troops and run away with my knights again, since your kingdom won't offer any assistance. Right next to Praven, even.

Obviously, by now this castle's had a lot of history and I'd been getting rather pissed off by my inability to progress in the game without it. Finally I managed to get a hold of it for longer than a day and filled it with 150 or so hastily trained Swadian Footman (the Training skill is a godsend), and was again sieged by the Rhodoks and their seemingly endless armies. No matter how many lords I'd smash and imprison, two more would take their place and after I released the lord or they escape, they'd have 100 troops again next time I'd see them. Lame.

Oh, yeah. Castle. So rather than leave, I huddle in my castle with all 250 or so of my troops, most of which only being swadian footmen, to see if I can hold them off. I didn't get the chance. Before the Rhodoks could commit to an attack, an even larger army of Vaegirs comes storming across the entirety of the Swadian empire straight to my little castle, and.. start fighting the Rhodoks for the right to siege my castle. They came ALL THE WAY across Swadian land, ignoring every castle along the way, to get mine that was nowhere near their territory. wat?

So  the Vaegir and Rhodoks are pretty deadlocked fighting over who gets to siege me next, and the Nords come rolling up. Again, my territory isn't anywhere near theirs. The Nords however were at peace with the Vaegir and war with the Rhodoks, so together they send the Rhodoks back home, but not before the Vaegir were reduced enough to not think they had an overwhelming advantage, so they abandoned the siege as well, leaving me with about 600 angry nordic warriors sieging me, now. By a stroke of pure luck, the Khergits and THEIR war party happen to cruise by and send the Nords packing with my help.


tl;dr

So. Things that are making this game difficult to enjoy for me:

1; I join a faction. They, who were winning their single war quite handily, declare war (not had it declared on them) on two more factions and get attacked from all sides, and begin losing all three horribly. This happened in two consecutive games in two different factions.

2; They give me a castle and IMMEDIATELY it's the focal point of all conflict on the continent. EVERYONE wants it and I usually don't even have time to get to the castle before it's sieged, let alone garrison it properly and stage my troops to hold off entire 700 man war parties.

3; The AI takes it and it's ignored for weeks until I can ninja it back, and right away it's set upon by every faction at war with mine. (See number 1)

4; My faction won't send assistance when I'm hopelessly outnumbered with no means of building an army up without my lone, single staging area being mercilessly raped and pillaged before I can store enough troops there to defend it.

5; Speaking of levelling troops, knights are fast but I don't think they make the best foot soldiers and wall defenders. Swadian Sergeants are (i assume) better foot soldiers, but are slow.
Problem: I can't chase down people to level my foot soldiers because I go slowly with them in my party. I'd use less so they come to me instead, but a smaller force of Swadian Footmen (or below) don't exactly have the greatest survival rate.

6; Enemy lords seem to have an unending supply of troops and no matter how many times I decimate them in combat, they next time I see them they've got a full compliment of soldiers again. Frustrating but tolerable if I could keep a stable castle to build big, high level armies.


Granted I'm pretty new and don't know the ins and outs of how to efficiently level foot soldiers or garrison castles, so I'm sure a few pointers could alleviate a lot of this frustration.

By the way, interestingly, the village to this castle never once got looted.
 
Enemy lords will siege castles and towns which has a low garrison, having a large garrison will scare off lords, even if your garrison is filled with recuits, so it's best to fill it asap when you get it, also the lord on the same faction as you are hates you because the fief originally belonged to him but the king gave it to you, therefore he hates you.
Also I recommend you to keep a hold of lords and stuff them in a prison or so, although you'd lose honour it makes them siege less often due to the lack of troops.

Nevertheless you have in interesting game going on  :lol:
 
Rutilant said:
tl;dr

So. Things that are making this game difficult to enjoy for me:

1; I join a faction. They, who were winning their single war quite handily, declare war (not had it declared on them) on two more factions and get attacked from all sides, and begin losing all three horribly. This happened in two consecutive games in two different factions.

2; They give me a castle and IMMEDIATELY it's the focal point of all conflict on the continent. EVERYONE wants it and I usually don't even have time to get to the castle before it's sieged, let alone garrison it properly and stage my troops to hold off entire 700 man war parties.

3; The AI takes it and it's ignored for weeks until I can ninja it back, and right away it's set upon by every faction at war with mine. (See number 1)

4; My faction won't send assistance when I'm hopelessly outnumbered with no means of building an army up without my lone, single staging area being mercilessly raped and pillaged before I can store enough troops there to defend it.

5; Speaking of levelling troops, knights are fast but I don't think they make the best foot soldiers and wall defenders. Swadian Sergeants are (i assume) better foot soldiers, but are slow.
Problem: I can't chase down people to level my foot soldiers because I go slowly with them in my party. I'd use less so they come to me instead, but a smaller force of Swadian Footmen (or below) don't exactly have the greatest survival rate.

6; Enemy lords seem to have an unending supply of troops and no matter how many times I decimate them in combat, they next time I see them they've got a full compliment of soldiers again. Frustrating but tolerable if I could keep a stable castle to build big, high level armies.
Click to expand...

1.  I'm not sure but I think declaring war is part of the games random script so it really can't be controlled although there are quests from guild masters to end wars.

2. The computer hardly gets anywhere by themselves so if they take a castle its likely that their enemies will go for that castle.  Also, if its your castle and the other factions/lords don't like you they will attack it and your faction won't help to much in personal battles.

3.Like I said, nothing will really advance in the game unless the player intervenes.

4. Again the faction won't help you fight personal battles, but if a large army is strolling along and happens to see you then they might help if the factions are at war.

5. Check out my sig for a realistic order of good troops.  Vairgar marksmen are the kind of people you want in casltes. 

6. Enemy lords are able to build up an army extremly quickly which is why I suggest fighting them alot and throwing them in your dungeun whenever you can.  It keeps them out of play for a long time.

Hope this helps
 
Thank you both for the tips and replies!

Yeah, I figured the war/peace thing was random but it's still a pain in the ass. Apparently Harlaus is not the master tactitian..  I didn't really expect them to help me out, but it's a shame there's no way for them to help me get started.

Do you always start off with a castle that gets the **** sieged out of it or am I just uniquely lucky in this respect? If I do need several hundred people garrisoned in every castle I might receive to stop them from doing the same to other castles, how on earth am I going to afford it? Even if their wages are cut in half if they're not in my party, that's still gonna be an awful lot of money.
 
actually, mount and blade has a pretty complex warring lords system, where you have some lords who are warmongers, and will actively pursue ways to start a war with someone they deem to be too powerful, and the peacelovers, who wants their country to prosper, and improve trade.
 
Like was mentioned the war/peace thing is very very random.  In fact if you have the game saved a second before the notification you can reload and it will change. 

The game does have some issues in regards to taking and defending property.  AI lords will only gain troops at a certain rate, they never surge troops into a castle or city.  Also there is no AI to defend property, they just allow an attacking party to take what is theirs without a fight. 

Enemy lords seem to be able to see the status of all towns and castles on the map.  If you rip out all the troops from one they'll immediately head there and attack it.  In essence, they cheat and there is nothing that can be done about it. Their hatred towards you will influence where they will attack as well, but they can still see which of your properties is the weakest and attack that one. 

I think a lot of your problems are coming from trying to do too much too soon.  Owning a castle or city requires some depth in resources to maintain, at a low level when you are struggling to keep up morale, pay your bills, and just train troops you will struggle to keep any defensible property.  The very best thing to have is just a small fief that you can improve and collect money from until you are ready with a healthy raiding party.  Enemy lords have very deep pockets and can constantly recruit troops, it takes a constant pounding for them to start to weaken.  You'll notice they seem to come back in slightly lower numbers, and lower troop quality eventually. 

As for moving too slow on the map to gain experience.. Well there is a lot you can do about that.  Your party skills, and the number of mounted troops is key, but don't bloat your party with large numbers of low rank troops.  Take a reasonable number and work them till they gain a horse, then recruit more.
 
After a while i got tired and cheated,raised all my stats to 63 (they would go any higher for some reason) all my traits to ten and my weapon skills to 300... I still find it fun though.. It means i dont have to wait and i can raise a big army to conquer all of calradia..
 
I only had about 65ish troops at the time and about half were Swadian knights
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With 30 Swadian (or Vaegir) Knights you can crush pretty much any single Rhodok or Nordic lord, especially if you use your remaining 30 footsoldiers wisely (though a King will overwhelm you with sheer numbers). With only 65 men you should be faster than the all-foot Rhodok NPC lords, so draw them off one at a time, engage and defeat, repeat. Oh, and use mostly ranged soldiers (militia, skirmishers, etc.) to defend your castle - they'll wreak bloody murder on enemies climbing the ladder/siege tower. Keep some infantry to hold the wall against the enemies who make it to the top. I usually go with a 2:1 or 3:1 archers:infantry ratio.

I've nothing more to add that the others haven't already, save to say good luck and hang in there - you'll be trampling your enemies underfoot before you know it.
 
I noticed somewhere that you said you were more of a support character than a warrior. I strongly recommend "updating" your character by converting him into at least a decent warrior (use the character export file to reassign your stats). A warrior character is substantially easier to play as, unless you're a merchant (which is quite boring), or you're a high enough level that you can be primarily a general and still have decent combat stats. If you're playing as a footman, I recommend you switch to a horseman as it's much easier.
In case you hadn't thought of it already, you could also try reducing the damage to player/friends.
 
AA0 said:
I think a lot of your problems are coming from trying to do too much too soon.  Owning a castle or city requires some depth in resources to maintain, at a low level when you are struggling to keep up morale, pay your bills, and just train troops you will struggle to keep any defensible property.
Click to expand...

Definitely quoted.
Don't take it the bad way, it's perfectly normal to want to do more. Just try to build up your troops / finances / character / heroes (you do have heroes in your party, right?  :D).

Suggestions:

1) talk to guild masters as you travel across the country and hope someone gives you the peace quest. It's definitely much harder to defend against multiple enemies as you well could see

2) chose as your objective a castle easy to defend. Castles with breach in the wall and slopes are definitely the easiest to take. Without a breach and with a narrow ladder the attackers will come up one by one while the defender are well protected. In that case it should be possible to defend against armies ten times bigger than yours. I don't remember right now how Reindi is.
Of course taking such castle would be harder for you. But you can exploit the fighting among factions. For instance if the Nords take a Rhodok castle like Etrosq or Ibdeles (excellent defensive positions) they will usually leave back as garrison "ten recruits, four peasants and three chickens". Just intimate them to surrender and they will. No blodshed involved.

3) don't wait to be attacked. If you have many swadian knights and more in the process to be built try to fight in open ground using evading tactics to avoid / scatter your enemies. Make them follow you until they stumble on other Swadian parties. Try to be faster (invest in pathfinding!!!! with a hero of course) the enemy will pursue you but the slower bigger parties will be left behind...

4) money is hardly an issue in M & B save for the very first weeks. There are plenty of ways to make it.
Also make sure to give one of your heroes (one with high agility) high looting skills. It will give you a better loot after each battle.

It once happened to me to have one allied castle (Culmar) attacked by 28 Rhodok lords. About 2800 total troops. I joined the siege and with a total of about 280 troops we were able to hold them back... it took a lot of wacking with a morningstar. It wouldn't have been possible with a breach in the wall, the defenders are just too exposed to arrows.
 
Reindi Castle, I would say, is the worst possible castle for you to have as a minor lord whilst at war with the Rhodoks. Its the first Swadian Castle outside Jelkala, so bad luck there. Anyway, In your situation I would make an attempt to stabilise faction relations. Use guild masters to make peace with atleast one faction. Also, whenever a king pisses me off by being an idiot or denying me a property I have worked very hard to get I just renounce my oath, sit tight for a while and raise some troops, then if I feel like it join up with him again or attach myself to his claimant. There are so many fun ways to resolve your problem, heh. Still, look on the bright side, atleast you arent at war with the Khergits yet. At one point, whilst supporting the claim of Valdym the Bastard, I had taken all of the Vaegir towns apart from Reyvadin, was preparing for the final strike, when three thousand Khergits unexpectedly march over Sungetche Castle way, straight down to Curaw which was under my direct command and had a handful of huscarls and marksmen in. It took a long time and it was very close, but through a mixture of evasion tactics and constant sieges I managed to beat them back with only 200 guys. None of the cowardly vaegir lords would go near them no matter how hard I tried to force them to.
 
To help you:

First, you can tweak the game so that nearly every town/castle you personally capture, the king will ask if you want it.  That way you can turn down the ones too near the enemy territories.  The tweak thread is here:
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,46290.0.html

And no, it is not cheating, in case you are a person who wants to play without using cheats.  I am likewise.  It is not cheating because if you read the part about awarding fiefs, the calculations of probability are heavily skewed towards you not getting one.  So it's better to tweak it so you are more likely to get the ones you personally take.


If you want a strong army, have all your companions mounted.  Train at least 5 Swadian knights (better than Vaegir knights, because Swadian knights have shields).  I hope you know how to recruit recruits from villages.  Also, when you make prisoners (you make prisoners by getting a "iron staff" at the weapons dealer, it's a stick made of metal, then you use that as a lance to knock people out), try to knock out high-tier units, so you can camp and ask them to join you as a unit.

Currently, you can only request prisoners to join you, once every 24 hours.  Again, you can tweak the game so that you can recruit from prisoners several times a day, in case they refuse once, by probability some will eventually join you.

About keeping a castle:  the AI is less likely to attack a castle that has a high numerical count of garrison.  But it doesn't check what type, so 50 recruit is same as 50 knights, as far as AI decisions.  That means, you go to every village around, get 50+ recruits, put them in the castle.  The AI will then stay away from it.

Try to play your character always as honorable as possible:  you help farmers, you don't take rewards from them since they are poor enough already (you can get money by taking down bandits and selling their gear, and from buying items at one place and selling at another).  Also, when you defeat a general, unless you have a quest to capture one, let the general go free, because that's what chivalrous people in medieval times did.  You gain honor.  You also gain honor by refusing to falsely accuse people, when given such a mission by another vassal, or by the king.
And fight lots of battles, better if odds are against you (but not too much, so as to avoid losing), you gain renown.
Your honor and your renown, you can see in your character's profile.
With high honor you are much more likely to be nominated as the marshal of the kingdom.
When you become marshal, you can give orders to another vassal, even when he is leading an army of 100+.  So then you can order one or more vassals to patrol around your castle/town.  That way you can safeguard it.

best traders' guide!  http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,46386.0.html

Just helping you, so that you aren't turned off from Mount and Blade by small annoyances.
 
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