Why are my foes more easily befriended than my vassals?

[Thandruin]

After running a quite successfull kingdom for a few months, more and more lords are coming to my hall to join my faction - what remains a mystery is how pissed they get over not immediately receiving fiefs - and so little that can be done to appease them, save for hosting never-ending feasts - in which case social gatherings IRL, or even Sims 3 seems readily more tempting than the "feasts" with mental dysfuncts for guests that M&B Warband has to offer. 

Compared to said situastion, we have the enemy lords, who fall to their knees and kiss my plate boots whenever I let them run after battles
Such is the case at this point that 60 % of the lords in the factions I am in war with have a 20+ relation with me - I seriously have "devoted" enemies, which doesn't really add up, seeing as a good third of my own vassals lies below 0, three of them at staggering -17, -23 and -27, developing steadily into my mortal enemies.  Furthermore, it is neither politically nor fiscally possible to hand out any more fies to the vassals who are short of one.

Not that it inhibits my ambitions in any way, having such ingrates running around and calling me names whenever I meet up with them, but it makes for a less than credible impression of this aspect of the game.

BTW: I'm not really interested in tips for cheats or tweaks of the game script, as I fancy a certain degree of controversy in my realm - however, I do want to place a light on this seemingly contradictive element of having 'enemies' for 'friends' and vice versa

 

[YENKO]

And when you DO give them their fief, how pissed are the other vassals! Envious bastards!

 

[Nessa]

I have this with vassels I haven't even met. There's a bunch of vaegirs that love me.
It's probably to do with honour, mines pretty high so the honourable lords have like, +50 towards me.

 

[Caba`drin]

A just concern...and a major oddity of the game.

While the OP stated he wasn't looking for cheats/tweaks...but how about a much-needed mod? I preach the Diplomacy Mod to the masses frequently, I know, but one way that Diplomacy makes things a bit more sensible is by adding the ability for the King to set "domestic policy", such as giving more or less autonomy to your vassals; this translates to monthly relation bumps or hits depending on the various policies you set. Additionally, after conquests, you can reward your vassals with the spoils of war. You can send caravans of gifts to appease them when they need it. None of this, however, addresses the fief-giving situation.

 

[Thandruin]

A just concern...and a major oddity of the game.

While the OP stated he wasn't looking for cheats/tweaks...but how about a much-needed mod? I preach the Diplomacy Mod to the masses frequently, I know, but one way that Diplomacy makes things a bit more sensible is by adding the ability for the King to set "domestic policy", such as giving more or less autonomy to your vassals; this translates to monthly relation bumps or hits depending on the various policies you set. Additionally, after conquests, you can reward your vassals with the spoils of war. You can send caravans of gifts to appease them when they need it. None of this, however, addresses the fief-giving situation.

A tempting suggestion indeed. I've heard of this mod before - does it imply any known issues for my save games, meaning: can I use the existing ones and continue with my current games status and enjoy said advanced diplomatic features?

Speaking of diplomacy, I've created a simple spreadsheet where I can keep track of my vassals relations and preferences for rewarding fiefs - if anyone's interested 

Spoiler

As you can see (hopefully), I would benefit from rewarding either Lord Bilya or Lord Klargus with the current fief (Jameyyed Castle) - I'll probably be choosing Lord Klargus, thus saving my relationship with him, and give minor boosts to my relations with Clais, Knudarr, Montewar, Plais and Ryis.

 

[morphwan]

has anyone else noticed, in the first few versions of warband when you as a king took the time to go to your vassals and find out who they supported for a particular fief, you would receive a relationship bonus with those who voted for the lord you gave it to. in example say Count Plais gets the support of three other lords and you gave it to Plais you also got good relationships with the voters? It seems to me in the last few versions when you do that you no longer receive that bonus. It will say the person you gave it to gains such and such number of points but everyone else takes a hit for it. Maybe it's just cause I'm playing mods instead of native but it doesn't seem to work anymore.

 

[Thandruin]

Good fellows - I have returned with great news: Diplomacy mod works like a charm  - time to set a couple things straight in my kingdom!
As for the support benefit - I still get a 1-2 boost in relations with vassals's whose choice of support was rewarded the fief.

(For myself, I'm running v.1.132 with Diplomacy V3.2.1 and a little bit of TweakMB)

 

[Mallissin]

Yesss...yessss...another convert. Excellent. *runs his hands together*

 

[Blaze]

Yesss...yessss...another convert. Excellent. *runs his hands together*

It was inevitable Mr Mallissin. They will all join the dark Diplomatic Side.

 

[LBaeldeth]

Yeah, it's a very odd part of the game. And annoying. Even when one of my vassals actually supports someone other than himself for a fief, I still seem to lose relation with them when giving it to the preferred recipient. And it's a losing game, as you will never be able to give out enough fiefs to each lord make up for the relation loss from the fiefs the lord didn't get.

I got tired of it when, after doling out fiefs from recent conquests as equitably as possible, I ended up with most of my lords losing 10 relations and several ending up deep in the negatives. That's when I loaded up TweakMB and just removed the relation loss. Now my vassals aren't all petulant children.

 

[morphwan]

Yesss...yessss...another convert. Excellent. *runs his hands together*

Our legions are growing...... Soon we will be unstoppable and Diplomacy will rule the World MUHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!
All Hail High King Wahiti!

 

[Thandruin]

Come to think of it, an increase in the use of sound diplomacy wouldn't exactly be the worst thing that could happen to our society

 

[Aqtai]

I have the same problem, my worst enemies are my own lords, where as several enemy lords are extremely friendly towards me. As soon as they join me they stop being friendly and end up hating me as much as the rest. Is there a way to make myself popular? Giving them fiefs doesn't work, the rest end up hating me more!

 

[Zebot]

u dont need diplomacy to fix the relation thing.... u just need to know what lords u should recruit.
For what ive seen, most of the ppl just recruit any lord without considering their believes and in that situation is quite normal that u have enemies inside ur kingdom since they have different "agendas".
Ofc there are several steps before recruiting lords like improving relations with them, checking their believes and etc etc... wich makes the lord recruitment a bit far more complicated than most of the players think.
An advice that i can give you is that you always try to recruit lord with the same belief such as the one of the commons rights (you will see that some of the lords in caldaria will awnser you that is an honour to serve a king like that) and those one from my experience are the best lords for you since they not greedy with fiefs and you have alot of more ways to improve relations with them (even winning a battle against another kingdom without that lord being there is enough to get improvement), so my conclusion is that u need to choose well ur lords and have them all with the same beliefs (and never use ur companions as lords).

I hope i can awnser to you question and sorry for the bad english

 

[manekemaan]

u dont need diplomacy to fix the relation thing.... u just need to know what lords u should recruit.
For what ive seen, most of the ppl just recruit any lord without considering their believes and in that situation is quite normal that u have enemies inside ur kingdom since they have different "agendas".
Ofc there are several steps before recruiting lords like improving relations with them, checking their believes and etc etc... wich makes the lord recruitment a bit far more complicated than most of the players think.
An advice that i can give you is that you always try to recruit lord with the same belief such as the one of the commons rights (you will see that some of the lords in caldaria will awnser you that is an honour to serve a king like that) and those one from my experience are the best lords for you since they not greedy with fiefs and you have alot of more ways to improve relations with them (even winning a battle against another kingdom without that lord being there is enough to get improvement), so my conclusion is that u need to choose well ur lords and have them all with the same beliefs (and never use ur companions as lords).

I hope i can awnser to you question and sorry for the bad english

sure but that takes time,
download diplomacy and send them some wine
look at my rhyme