Stuck at one village

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I reached the point where I built up a warband and enough reputation to join a faction, and was handed the decrepit remains of a village for doing so.  After about half a dozen or more village quests and an improvement or two over a 6 month span, it's still in only about one small notch better condition: still poor and neglected.  Do I need to make more improvements, do more quests, or what?

I also helped a few of my faction's Lords in battles, and slaughtered (or captured) hordes of deserters and bandits, including assisting in a couple of successful sieges.  At that point, with a reputation in the 200-300 range, about 30 relations with the king, and around 50 men, I felt confident enough to conduct my own siege, and promptly did so twice, managing to eke out a couple of wins (not cheap in terms of manpower).  I requested each of the castles in turn as a fief, but was denied and handed the pittance of a few hundered Denars instead.

What do I need to do to reach the next stage, where I've got either a town or a castle and can garrison some of my troops, instead of needing to drag my entire force around with me?  I seem to be stuck at 50 or so men and one run-down village (with 50+ relations).  Do relations with the other Lords within the faction come into play (most are neutral, one likes me and one still dislikes me from the time I joined), or just with the king and faction?  The game guides really don't explain the concepts of what you need to do, they only list the missions and quests, and how to complete them, without telling you WHY you need to do them.  The tutorials and guides offer several ways to get to this point, but not what to do when you get here.
 
I think renown, relation with king, and how many fiefs you already have, are the only things counted when the king gives a fief.

Fight as many battles you can to increase your renown. You need to about double your reputation to start to have decent chance to be given a castle.
Also suck the king as much you can (always quest for him if he has a quest to give, follow him to join his battles, etc...) until you are as close possible to 100 relation.
Request every castle you conquer (not requesting only reduce your chance, there's no reward for the humbles).
Make sure your faction don't lose territory, as every noble with no fief has more chance to be given a castle than you.

About the village, I think buying their production help increasing prosperity (denar in merchant inventory are exchanged for prosperity increase). But it happens that a village lands are just poor and prosperity never goes past average (there's a random land quality factor you can do nothing against).
 
Thanks for the reply.  I've got renown pushing 300, and relations with the King in the 50-60 range, but perhaps they both need to be higher?  Guess it's time to practice both my "bootlicking" and "buttkicking" skills.

The faction already has about 2 castles more than when it started.  It was up by 3 (I took 2 of them), but the new owner didn't bother to place a garrison in the one, so it was quickly taken back.  Oddly, the King's excuse in both cases was that I already had extensive holdings while others didn't, yet I only have one poor village, and both of the castles I took, along with their attendant villages, were handed to Lords with a castle and one or two villages.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer; some things never change.

I've also joined in about 2 more fights to help out faction members, although my 45-50 troops were a small contribution to the 200-300 troops involved on either side.  At this point, lack of a place to garrison troops is placing a damper on further development of my forces, since it takes a long time to train up new recruits after a battle, and I've got to drag my whole entourage around everywhere I go (as well as pay and feed it at full price).

After a few more quests for my village, it's now up to "somewhat poor and neglected", and relations are in the 65 range.  At this rate, by the time I hit 100, it might be up to "average".

[ Update: It took about another 100 renown (just shy of 400), gained by sieging and retaking that one castle back two more times (both times, it was left practically undefended by the new owner from my faction, with roughly a 20 man garrison, whereas I had to fight 40-70 defenders each time to retake it).  After taking it for the third time, I was finally granted it as a fief.  Of course, the Vaegirs wanted it back, and showed up only 3-4 days later with over 700 men.  It wasn't pretty (I think my force got about 10 men on the field at a time, versus their 40-50), and my men hated me for losing, plus the faction disliked me for losing a fief, so I went back to an earlier save.

This time, after besieging and taking the aforementioned castle and NOT requesting it, I then took a different castle (in a much more convenient location), which I was granted.  The Vaegirs retook that first castle yet again, but it bought me enough time to raise a few defensive troops for a garrison, and then start picking apart their 700-man combined army in the open field, drawing out and destroying one warband at a time. 

After a few more days and a few more fights which saw the demise of several armies from both factions, around 300 Vaegirs showed up to besiege my newly aquired castle, but after I lured away and tore apart 2 of the 50-70 man contingents, and a friendly 75 man force showed up, the remaining 180-200 (mostly belonging to one Lord, who I assume is their Marshall) decided that they had more important things to do.  Taking back the "ping-pong" castle for the 4th or 5th time (not counting the 2-3 additional times I captured it in the abandoned save) added another layer of "insurance", since they seem to attack it first, for whatever reason.  Things have been remarkably quite lately around my recently acquired holdings. ]
 
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