Călaraşi 说:
So my character has about 500+ renown now,and im beginning to think of becoming a vassal of some faction.
So my inittial plan was to restore "Kievskaia Rusi" either by conquering novgorod,which is rather small in settlements,halych,or starting the story by taking Moscow from the golden horde.But i got a mercenary contract with Halych which i though was gonna be temporarily,and woulndt you know it,now i have 10+ relation with all the lords,and this put me in a tuff decision.
So what plan should i follow?
Should i conquer Novgorod while having no relations with the lords?
Should i take Moscow fotress and go to war against the Golden horde?
Should i continue making more relations with the lords of halych and conquer it?
Stay with Halych for quite some time, prepare some (I always use all of them for lords besides 4-5 which I need for party skills) of your companions to become lords by leveling up training, leadership as high as possible, pathfinding, spotting, looting are next and pick your highest lvl companions for lords - the higher the comp. level the more renown, the more troops he can field. Don't even think about founding your own kingdom if you can field less than 150 troops. Collect money, for conquering/garrisons (in the beginning try always to have the best and largest garrisons in every place, you'll be defending a lot) and replacements you'll need a lot of money. You won't have time for travelling around earning some money if you're the king. So, gather yourself a good deal of money, some 250.000 should be enough for conquering Novgorod which I would recommend after leaving Halych, simply attack one of their caravans and you're there, you can besiege places. Try to get married while in Halych, always good to have a wife before becoming king. Do not attack a large nation like the Mongols, this is very, very hard to achieve in the beginning. In the beginning, give the villages and castles to your companions, keep the town(s) for yourself - the more fiefs your lords hold, the more troops they'll have in their parties. While being a lord in Halych, build up your fortified manor+castle, don't worry about it, you can still interact with the fortif. manor after you've left Halych it just doesn't officially belong to you anymore. You can conquer it back later on. Don't care too much about relations with the lords, if you're an honourable guy and have something like 100 honour or more you'll be somewhere at around +50-60 with every other honourable lord around all of Europe, who are not rare at all. If you donate a little money to the priest in a monastery, only if you don't know on what else to spend, you can highly improve your honour, so that you are at +100 with every honourable lord, later on.
If you target a faction, try at first to conquer a town (your capital, give the 2 villages to 2 of your lords; use your superb ranged units, which are a must, and let them hold position while standing in front of the enemy's walls and place the infantry infront of them, let them shoot until they run out of ammo before you order your infantry to charge) as you won't have a that strong and highly trained force later on for some time, due to loss and replacements and constant fighting. After conquering the town, get yourself and your town garrison as many new units as possible, train them and await the big charge of the whole enemy faction. Beat them in the siege - it is the siege defense that is crucial. If you beat them you have gained a couple of days in which you can either conquer another place or reinforce your army/garrison and if they return with their marshalled army, their overall troop quality won't be that high and that many as it was in the very beginning. After heaving beaten them in siege don't sit in your castle, training troops, but train them on your way - look around for weak enemy lords or try to single one out if in a pack and destroy them. Every army less in the marshalled army is to your advantage. After you've beaten Novgorod, Halych would be a good place to continue, if it weren't for the distance. Sooner or later you'll get in trouble with the Mongols anyway so you could start something against them as well. But first build up your kingdom's army. I gave 1 fief (village or castle) to 1 of my lords, to gather as many lords and as strong an army as possible.
Don't declare war without a reason, but wait for a border provocation (you have to be provoked not the other way round - either you'll get a notification or look up the factions info in the menu) which will get you a bonus of +2 with your lords; declaring an unprovoked war will give you -2 with them. And always try to conquer places after you've beaten the main army, because otherwise you'll have them standing knocking at your doors while your garrison is still way too low. If you make one of your lords the marshal, always choose the one with the highest renown as lords tend to follow a marshal that has a higher renown as themselves (look up the char info on that particular lord). If not, you'll get the response that they know better what to do than the marshal and thus don't follow him, if you ask the lords what they do. And take every enemy lord for prisoner you can get your hands on because it weakens the enemy substantially. The negative relation hit from such a behavior is quickly cured with a couple of ale/wine caravans from your fortif. manor. Always leave 1 castle 'open', don't give it away, cause unawarded lands (castles or towns) attract defecting lords from other factions.
Don't conquer too much in one row, just conquer maybe 1 town and 2 castles, then offer peace. Use the time of the truce to improve your army in numbers and quality or look around for lords, earn money, etc. If you are too hasty, the other factions will declare war on you in order to curb your power and sooner you think you'll find yourself fighting against 3 or more factions at the same time. If your kingdom becomes really big, you will not be able to avoid being attacked by several factions at once. Hardly any faction will declare war on you but if one of the remaining does there is a high chance that other weaker nations are juming on the bandwagon in order to 'curb your power'. With holding ~50% of all territory in a game at rev89 I am not at war for the most time but if I am then it's always something like 5-6 factions against mine. And if you have conquered maybe 3 castles, then give 2 to yourself and leave 1 open. This has the advantage that you'll get from them the high initial income which can be something like 30,000 or higher or lower or whatever. Then, if a lord joins your faction give him one of the 2 castles (if you don't want to have them for yourself forever) and leave the other open. Never give the castle/town to yourself right after you've conquered them (besides your capital) but always tell your companion (who automatically talks to you after having conquered something) that you want to postpone your decision to take the counsel of your lords (also: before leaving the place put the garrison slider to huge). This you won't do but travel as fast as possible to your capital and tell your minister/wife that you want it for yourself - the advantage of this maneuver is, that you automatically get some 60-120 men (sometimes even more) immediately into your garrison after you did it this way. I would use this method only for places that are somewhat near to the capital.
Last, do what you want the most to do but I have to warn you that the corner you're aiming at is one of the most fun and hard-fought regions - you'll have to deal with deadly spear throwers (Litus), heavy knights faction like the Teutons, best horse archers in the game (Mongols) and at least with 1 Nordic faction, Denmark, maybe later on additionally Sweden. It is quite doable if you're good prepared, which I would consider to be if you have some 500.000 dinar, can field 200-250 men (50-100 knights and same amount of Cymry, rest high tier infantry - no 'fluffy armoured' mercenaries), high lvl companions and lord companions should be at least at or around lvl 30-35.
If you're not that good prepared, then have faith in your luck and go for it
