Supreme power, without war.

[Antaeus]

As an experiment, I decided to see how many cities I could obtain without declaring a kingdom, or going to war, or joining a faction, as a way to flesh out a trade focused play through.

It took 700 game days for me to spot the first rebellion. By that stage the Khuzaits and Asari had split most of the Southern Empire.

Onira rebelled, and with only 80 defenders and me being quick, I could declare my intentions and capture the city with my 180 party. I put an Empire wife in command of the city, loaded up the garrison with recruits and mercenaries, set the fairgrounds playing and went back to my trading.

Myzea rebelled, and with only 50 defenders, I quickly pounced. Placed one of my companions as governor, set my brother up with a party nearby to improve security, set the fairgrounds playing, did a couple of quests, and went back to trading.

Phycaon rebelled. Hey there... now things are going well. I had to dump a companion to get another Empire one, sorry Blah of the two swords, you've outlasted your usefulness. My sister gets a party to work the looters and I'm back to trading.

The Asari have just taken Danustica. I'll be "trading" in that vicinity for a while I think. As the three way war between the Khuzaits Southern Empire and Asari bounces back and forth, I'm setting up a non-aligned trade focussed empire in between them, and there's nothing they can do. It's much better for the people anyway - uninterupted growth and prosperity for ever - only I can provide for them like this, they love me, flags and parades etc... Eventually I'm going to run out of family members and companions to govern my new empire, so it will reach a natural limit of expansion unless I pick up a few Asari cities that I can leave governorless (my character is Asari)

By the time I feel like declaring a kingdom, I'm going to have close to 300 trade, and already own as many cities as I can find in the time it takes for the last 50 trade points grind. I'll already have thousands of influence points from all those cities and their forums going unused. I'll already have a full army's worth of family parties patrolling and questing as they see fit. Unfortunately, I wont have subverted any castles yet.

Two questions come to mind:

• Now that I can conquer cities without fighting any factions other than battle hardened rebels in fancy robes, has anyone thought of a way to subvert castles without becoming a kingdom and trading for them?
• Is there any point to me becoming a kingdom other than being able to develop policy, take on pesky nobles and form armies?
• A third question for free... this kind of subversion isn't really legit. Is it something the devs should nerf in some way? or will the natural limits of my companion size ensure rebellions will prevent me slowly taking much of the map?
• A fourth question edited in because I thought of it... will anything happen to all my pointless influence points if I declare kingdom or join a faction?
• A 5th question... what happens to my cities if I become a mercenary?

 

[guiskj]

I think capturing a rebelled city as an independent clan should trigger a countdown that, when over, would automatically force you to creat a kingdom.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Back in good old 1.5.7 I took 8-10 towns from rebels kinda like you, but in that version rebellions happened much more, usually by day 100 somewhere was ready to pop. I think it was maybe day 400 so I had gotten 8-10 towns and moved on to a new update. I think there would have been less rebellions after that point because I had gobbled up all the frequently sieged border towns, the ones deeper in seem to be more resilient. It was really fun though to take the town, and stabilize and take care of it's villages while keeping an eye out for the next rebellion. I also fought lots of minor factions for fun though. It was also cool in that version, rebels didn't disappear properly so eventually I had rebel parties everywhere.

Now that I can conquer cities without fighting any factions other than battle hardened rebels in fancy robes, has anyone thought of a way to subvert castles without becoming a kingdom and trading for them?

If you don't want to be at war, it's kinda nice to have other faction clans in between your cities for bandit hunting and such. I don't think there a way to get castles without normal war or trader buy perk, even as ruler recruited clans leave their fiefs unless you're at war.

Is there any point to me becoming a kingdom other than being able to develop policy, take on pesky nobles and form armies?

No. Being able to level leadership (via an army) and policy buffs are the only benefit to being a ruler. If you take vasslas they will start to vote for endless wars too, ruins the game as you have so control

A third question for free... this kind of subversion isn't really legit. Is it something the devs should nerf in some way? or will the natural limits of my companion size ensure rebellions will prevent me slowly taking much of the map?

They've already kinda ruined in 1.5.8 and 1.5.9, sure rebellions can happen, but I haven't seen it in my games. The anti-snowballing work seems to have made it much less likely. As far as punishing/preventing the player, they were going to probably add a relation penalty for not returning captured rebel town to their former ruler. It was possibly going to make you go to war with that faction but devs seemed to not like that idea, it in the rebellion topic stickie btw, Mexxico talk about their ideas. Personally I can roll a faction on it back as my single clan anyways, so it's just removing a option for no good reason if they make you have to go to war.

A fourth question edited in because I thought of it... will anything happen to all my pointless influence points if I declare kingdom or join a faction?

I think it resets but I don't know for sure, been a long time but I do recall needing to 'earn' more point to make more policies in my new kingdom though. I'm not sure if they completely worthless as a lone Clan though, there a few quests that have alt option that will tell you "you don't have enough influence" sometimes, but sometime they let you, I don't think it actually uses up influence though, just checks if you have it..... probably just some bug but try it on the family feud type quests.

A 5th question... what happens to my cities if I become a mercenary?

You cannot become a mercenary if you own a fief. I think you can join a faction though, not sure if they ask for some of your fiefs like they could in warband, never tried.

 

[TheLordOfTheDiamond]

I think it resets

It did happen to me.

 

[a_ver_est]

I think that it would be good if an independent clan have a limit of how many fief can own without being forced to be a kingdom, I would say 1 town and 2 castles for example. I will allow you to prepare the way without abusing it.

My last play was similar I manage to have 3 towns and 1 castle without being a kingdom, but in my case I eventually declared the war to one empire faction and sue for peace short time after once I conquered one town.

 

[cadadr]

As an experiment, I decided to see how many cities I could obtain without declaring a kingdom, or going to war, or joining a faction, as a way to flesh out a trade focused play through.

It took 700 game days for me to spot the first rebellion. By that stage the Khuzaits and Asari had split most of the Southern Empire.

Onira rebelled, and with only 80 defenders and me being quick, I could declare my intentions and capture the city with my 180 party. I put an Empire wife in command of the city, loaded up the garrison with recruits and mercenaries, set the fairgrounds playing and went back to my trading.

Myzea rebelled, and with only 50 defenders, I quickly pounced. Placed one of my companions as governor, set my brother up with a party nearby to improve security, set the fairgrounds playing, did a couple of quests, and went back to trading.

Phycaon rebelled. Hey there... now things are going well. I had to dump a companion to get another Empire one, sorry Blah of the two swords, you've outlasted your usefulness. My sister gets a party to work the looters and I'm back to trading.

The Asari have just taken Danustica. I'll be "trading" in that vicinity for a while I think. As the three way war between the Khuzaits Southern Empire and Asari bounces back and forth, I'm setting up a non-aligned trade focussed empire in between them, and there's nothing they can do. It's much better for the people anyway - uninterupted growth and prosperity for ever - only I can provide for them like this, they love me, flags and parades etc... Eventually I'm going to run out of family members and companions to govern my new empire, so it will reach a natural limit of expansion unless I pick up a few Asari cities that I can leave governorless (my character is Asari)

By the time I feel like declaring a kingdom, I'm going to have close to 300 trade, and already own as many cities as I can find in the time it takes for the last 50 trade points grind. I'll already have thousands of influence points from all those cities and their forums going unused. I'll already have a full army's worth of family parties patrolling and questing as they see fit. Unfortunately, I wont have subverted any castles yet.

Two questions come to mind:

• Now that I can conquer cities without fighting any factions other than battle hardened rebels in fancy robes, has anyone thought of a way to subvert castles without becoming a kingdom and trading for them?
• Is there any point to me becoming a kingdom other than being able to develop policy, take on pesky nobles and form armies?
• A third question for free... this kind of subversion isn't really legit. Is it something the devs should nerf in some way? or will the natural limits of my companion size ensure rebellions will prevent me slowly taking much of the map?
• A fourth question edited in because I thought of it... will anything happen to all my pointless influence points if I declare kingdom or join a faction?
• A 5th question... what happens to my cities if I become a mercenary?

I think this could be throttled by:

* trade penalty: kingdoms will refrain from trading with these cities because they'd be unstable.

* unstability: gangs and bandits get stronger thanks to the lack of central authority, security drifts.

* loyalty penalty: people of the cities want the protection of big strong factions, so there will be a loyalty penalty that makes rebellions hard to avoid.

* rebellion backers: factions back rebels from other factions. e.g. Aserai took Onira. SE will back rebels in Onira. If you attack Onira, you will lose relation with SE lords, and there's a chance they will attack you.

* In the same vein, Aserai could be mad at you because they wanted to get that fief back eventually, and you got in the way. So relation loss, potential agression.

* All these are avoidable if you declare a kingdom. The more renown you have, and the more relation, the more youre respected.

Possibilities off the top of my head. One should get a little window to capture a couple settlements, but if you can build a faction without risking skin like this, its broken and theres not much point to creating a kindgom tbf.

Also, IMO castles could rebel too. Why not.