Vassal Management

[Gravmech]

Are there any techniques that players here can share in order to be able to use your lords effectively on a strategic scale?

I'm planning on finishing off the Sarleon faction by taking the town of Sarleon. But I find it difficult to mass my forces since the Sarleon lords (8 of them left exactly) while only having 50 men each (except King Ulric w/ 150) are moving like a swarm of bees ganging up on my Vassals. While this is easy to defeat w/ the divide & conquer strategy, they recover faster than my own lords.

While I can just order them to stay put in Mobray Castle but sooner or later one of them will go out and get swarmed by the REDS. Sure I can just go in and save the day but the damage my vassal takes to his forces often makes him want to go home.

A campaign won't cut it since only a grand total of 2 lords will respond (w/ a 3-day wait). While this would be enough (I think), this little problem has got me thinking of ways to effectively use your kingdom's military in a more efficient manner.

 

[SCGavin]

A campaign won't cut it since only a grand total of 2 lords will respond (w/ a 3-day wait). While this would be enough (I think), this little problem has got me thinking of ways to effectively use your kingdom's military in a more efficient manner.

My lords nearly never respond to summons. I wait an wait and nobody comes to me... In response I'll cheat a bit and transport myself to them (cheats on -> ctrl+click on the position) and order them to follow me, then transport myself back to where I was and wait there. As the lords sometimes leave my warband without any cause, I just transport myself to them and order them to keep following my orders. Some of those dorks I'd really like to put on trial for insubordination...

 

[H0NZA1]

Hahaha cheats well just nevermind.

 

[Gravmech]

My lords nearly never respond to summons. I wait an wait and nobody comes to me... In response I'll cheat a bit and transport myself to them (cheats on -> ctrl+click on the position) and order them to follow me, then transport myself back to where I was and wait there. As the lords sometimes leave my warband without any cause, I just transport myself to them and order them to keep following my orders. Some of those dorks I'd really like to put on trial for insubordination...

Yeah thats the primary reason I'm trying out this particular strategy. The idea was to 'park' most of my lords in the nearby castle of Mobray and then issue the Follow me to each lord individually when its time to begin the siege.

 

[SCGavin]

Yeah thats the primary reason I'm trying out this particular strategy. The idea was to 'park' most of my lords in the nearby castle of Mobray and then issue the Follow me to each lord individually when its time to begin the siege.

I tried that, too. But when I came back from my journey in order to send all my lords to e.g. Mobray Castle, only one or two out of eight where there.

 

[Pode]

The only way I've ever had luck with a campaign was to round them up individually using follow me and then call the campaign once I'd gotten the last one and they were all right near me.  Otherwise they see a shiny rock on their way to me and get distracted.

 

[munkibowl]

It keeps things fair, lords are pretty dumb when it comes to following the AI's orders too, they're always racing off after something that catches their eye. Maybe there's a tweak that'll make them act like cattle.

 

[Pode]

It keeps things fair, lords are pretty dumb when it comes to following the AI's orders too, they're always racing off after something that catches their eye. Maybe there's a tweak that'll make them act like cattle.

You may be onto something here.  There's a tweak that makes cattle act like quest caravans, so they follow you unless a hostile party scares them off.  If the lords got that setting, might they follow you unless they got scared, or would they still go chasing off after weak parties too?

 

[SCGavin]

My lords not only desert me in order to chase weak parties around the map. Sometimes they just leave my army and travel to some castle or town, without any order from me. The chasing part I can understand, but why do they seem to "forget" an order I gave them?

 

[Dante Leonhart]

Ctrl+Shift+F4

<_<

>_>

 

[Gravmech]

I really don't mind the easily distracted behavior of lords since I take advantage of the same thing myself, what irks me is that your lords won't follow your orders long enough to be actually useful.

 

[Dracil]

Well, when I was taking orders from other lords/kings, guess what.  I got distracted a lot too. 

 

[FritZ_FretZ]

A.D.D. has no place on the  ...


... Oh, look at the kitty...


...battlefield 

FritZ 

 

[jsgx3]

I tend to use them to patrol or go to a castle that is strategically placed.  That puts their forces in the general areas you want and they can give the enemy some grief that way.  Then I use my army for any specific goals I might have.