Tips on keeping captured castles/towns?

[Zerged]

Hey everyone

I'm on my quest of conquering all Calradia for my king Harlaus. It's all going great so far but one thing is bothering me:
Whenever I capture a town/castle and it's given to some other lord, it soon gets conquered by the enemy again because of the low amount of troops in it. Does anyone have tips on how to prevent this? Because I can't wait months in front of every captured castle/town ... there is lots of other places to be captured 

 

[Gappydave]

Befriend Harlaus as much as possible and he will start throwing castles and towns at you.

 

[Zerged]

Ok thanks. Will consider this. I don't want all the castles, towns though. Takes me quite some time to accumulate a garrison as well.

 

[Gappydave]

I had a look and to make things easier look at this page it has a way of modding it.
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,46290.msg1219470.html
By which i mean the getting of castles not the garrison.

 

[Effud]

The page Gappydave linked tells how to mod the game to improve your chances of being awarded castles, which I don't think is what Zerged was asking for.

Without modding, the garrisons will remain small (they seem to grow slowly over time) and in all likelihood the lord to whom the castle is assigned will not appear in a timely fashion to take ownership unless he was involved in the siege.  As marshall, I usually try to track him down and then give him orders to go to the castle.  Unfortunately, that's not necessarily more useful than sitting in the castle after you capture it, it leaves the new castle unattended while you find him, he may not comply if he doesn't like you, and there's no guarantee the new owner will actually stay there after you leave.  Gotta love dumb AI...or, er, not.

THIS page (http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,46290.msg1233871.html#msg1233871) includes a tweak by Lord Kinlar that enables you to give troops to allied lords (see his second and third posts on that page), and as a side effect increase the size of a garrison by giving troops to a lord who is in a castle's hall.  I think that's really what you're looking for.  I can't verify that this works in classic (it didn't work for me), and Kinlar's tweaks tend to be Warband only (and he forgets to qualify that).  It may not be save game compatible, and as he warns, it may cause unforeseen consequences elsewhere in the game, as with any mod.

 

[Zerged]

Thanks for your help but I guess I'll leave it as it is for the moment. Don't really want to mess up my savegame with modding yet

 

[wolfva]

Why not garrison the keep yourself, then give it to a lord?  Sure, it may be expensive, but then again...do a quick pass of the nearby towns for recruits and sit in the keep for a few days training them.  Garrison all your experienced troops so the recruits get more exp.  Switch 'em out, give the keep to a lord, then go capture a new one.

 

[Zerged]

Why not garrison the keep yourself, then give it to a lord?  Sure, it may be expensive, but then again...do a quick pass of the nearby towns for recruits and sit in the keep for a few days training them.  Garrison all your experienced troops so the recruits get more exp.  Switch 'em out, give the keep to a lord, then go capture a new one.

Oh I didn't know it's possible to give a keep to a lord. I guess I'll have to try that.
Also didn't know the recruits get more EXP when there's less troops in the group. Thought every unit gets the same amount of EXP each day, no matter how many units I have in my group. Guess that was a wrong assumption I made

 

[Anebel]

Why not garrison the keep yourself, then give it to a lord?  Sure, it may be expensive, but then again...do a quick pass of the nearby towns for recruits and sit in the keep for a few days training them.  Garrison all your experienced troops so the recruits get more exp.  Switch 'em out, give the keep to a lord, then go capture a new one.

I had no idea about this either, this opens up so many new options for me lol. I feel silly not noticing it.

 

[Gakgaming]

If you`re a marshall or king you can send a few infantry heavy lords to defend the castle for some time while the king decides who to award it to. Taking 2-3 close by castles in succession then consolidate is a good way of making progress. You can patrol the proximities of those castles while the king and lords do politics, reinforcing the garrisons and responding to any counter-attack.

If you`re king, try to award all the fiefs of a certain lord close to the castle he owns so he`s always around to defend it while patrolling his lands, at the same time try to award fiefs close to a caste or town to many different lords who are friendly to each other (possibly in the same family) so they team up for the defense of those lands. It`s always a good idea to not overextend a campaign if you`re marshall or king so that the lords can tend to their new lands and garrisons and replenish their armies, a feast close to the new castles can both be a fast response to counter-attacks while lords replenish their forces at the same time.

If you`re not marshall or king and they are doing none of the above, consider playing politics to replace the marshall or make yourself king and drag the best lords to your new faction. Serving a bad king with lots of lords at each other throats is often more disastrous than being a king yourself with few loyal vassals but with a good eye for strategy and politics.