Becoming a vassal vs starting a kingdom

[Shmider]

I started this game with the intention of starting my own kingdom but the best way to move forward as it stands is to become a vassal. If anyone's started a kingdom yet, do I just keep grinding as a mercenary or do it the easy way as a vassal? How would I build an army big enough to take a city since that ability is only available for vassals?

[mw00]

most features for kingdom management are currently not working, so its better to just stay as a vassal

[Revenant]

Yes

[Mark Marlowe]

You need to raise relation with some notable, and then hire them as vassals. You can also create other partie, and then call your vassals/party to rally on you(cost influence) and attack whatever you want to attack

[titanopteryx]

Actually you can become a vassal and then later leave with any fiefs the kingdom gave you to jump start your kingdom. You need to progress in the main quest to unlock making a kingdom, remember. As a tip, when there's a vote on a castle vote against yourself and for someone else. When deciding on who to give a fief to, the game prioritizes fiefless lords. Having a castle will hurt your change to get a town. When you leave with the fief, the faction you left will be at war with you. If you right after that go do the part of the main quest where you tell the npc that you completed the requirements to make a kingdom, when the questline progresses then it ends all wars you're currently in. That faction still won't like you though, they just won't be trying to kill you. On a side note, once you're in a kingdom if you hire mercs you'll have to pay for them yourself and they can be expensive.

[VOLUME SHOOTER]

if you started your own kingdom you can have your party members create their own parties. Your clan costs zero influence to summon for an arm.when i first started my kingdom i had about 500k, i took onica castle which had like a 50 troop garrison against my 250 troops.i bought food recruited for the garrison, and built up the villages to produce more militia for the castle and waited until their counter attack. When they attacked i did a persuade to leave kingdom, if that passes i have 1 or more new vassals some of which are in the army that came to fight me lol. after the vassal switch you can bargain with the remaining lords for peace much cheaper. You could also barter for peace in the beginning

[VOLUME SHOOTER]

Originally posted by Mark Marlowe:

You need to raise relation with some notable, and then hire them as vassals. You can also create other partie, and then call your vassals/party to rally on you(cost influence) and attack whatever you want to attack

you can hire notables as vassals?

[Sentient_Toaster]

Seems to be trickier now that lords rarely defect unless heavily bribed or their kingdom is collapsing; that they seem to never bring their lands anymore, so your kingdom doesn't really gain new income or population; and that AI lords now need to actually be able to find recruits and pay for them rather than conjuring them up from nothing, so if you're running a weak upstart kingdom you and your vassals will all be competing for the same pool of recruits.

[Drikon Rjelavan]

just make "few" parties and you can get ~400 or so army easy i just go and conquer castle with ~120men... just get 75% or so of your army as T5 and you are golden... most men in keeps are hardly better than your recruits....

unless you see that they have lots in garrison...

edit: i hardly even brother with siege engines... the ladders are enuff most of the time...
funniest thing is when the keep guard attacks you themselves and you just meet them on open field... on your terms :P

[titanopteryx]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

Seems to be trickier now that lords rarely defect unless heavily bribed or their kingdom is collapsing; that they seem to never bring their lands anymore, so your kingdom doesn't really gain new income or population; and that AI lords now need to actually be able to find recruits and pay for them rather than conjuring them up from nothing, so if you're running a weak upstart kingdom you and your vassals will all be competing for the same pool of recruits.

They bring their lands when you're at war with their faction. To get them to talk to you when you're at war with them, you need a bigger army then them. Otherwise they'll attack you.

[Shmider]

Originally posted by titanopteryx:

Actually you can become a vassal and then later leave with any fiefs the kingdom gave you to jump start your kingdom. You need to progress in the main quest to unlock making a kingdom, remember. As a tip, when there's a vote on a castle vote against yourself and for someone else. When deciding on who to give a fief to, the game prioritizes fiefless lords. Having a castle will hurt your change to get a town. When you leave with the fief, the faction you left will be at war with you. If you right after that go do the part of the main quest where you tell the npc that you completed the requirements to make a kingdom, when the questline progresses then it ends all wars you're currently in. That faction still won't like you though, they just won't be trying to kill you. On a side note, once you're in a kingdom if you hire mercs you'll have to pay for them yourself and they can be expensive.

This is good information. I'm currently working for a kingdom i was hoping to build a good relationship with but I think may end my contract and just take a chunk of another one. In due time anyways

[SteelBear]

If a city or castle ges conqured it tends to have a weak garrson, sometimes under 100 men. So you can snipe it if you are at war with one faction. Declaring war on a losing side in a war can also be a good way to grind renown since you can fight their lords.

[Shmider]

Originally posted by SteelBear:

If a city or castle ges conqured it tends to have a weak garrson, sometimes under 100 men. So you can snipe it if you are at war with one faction. Declaring war on a losing side in a war can also be a good way to grind renown since you can fight their lords.

Would I keep the fief as a Merc or would it go to the kingdom I work for?

[titanopteryx]

Originally posted by Shmider:

Originally posted by SteelBear:

If a city or castle ges conqured it tends to have a weak garrson, sometimes under 100 men. So you can snipe it if you are at war with one faction. Declaring war on a losing side in a war can also be a good way to grind renown since you can fight their lords.

Would I keep the fief as a Merc or would it go to the kingdom I work for?

If you're currently in a merc contract, any fiefs you capture go to your employer. I don't think you can own a fief and be a merc at the same time?

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by titanopteryx:

If you're currently in a merc contract, any fiefs you capture go to your employer. I don't think you can own a fief and be a merc at the same time?

A recent update made it so that you shouldn't be able to become a mercenary if you already have any fiefs. I'm not sure what happens if, say, you have the high-tier Trading perk which should let you *buy* a fief -- does the option get locked out, does doing so nix your contract, does the game screw you over by forcing you to give the land you paid for to your employer, or do you simply become a landed mercenary?

[SmokeJam]

I have my own Kingdom for quite a while now (wiped out 2 factions during that time) and the best way to make money is to max out your Clan-Parties with Companions and just let them run around freely. They make a whole lot of money by raiding and stuff. from time to time they might get captured, but that doesn't really hurt you because you can just tell them to create a new party as soon as they are set free again.
BUT and yes there is a big but: The game still seems to be kinda borked when it comes to playing your own kingdom. On the one hand, all AI Kingdoms will just randomly declare war on you for no obvious reason. On the other hand, as soon as you have recruited more than 2 nobles as vassals they seem to just randomly leave your kingsom again and they will take all their fiefs with them. So best is to not give them ANY mayor city you conquered, just some castles here and there as they are way easier to take back.
Sidenote 1: As soon as you have vassals you can always max out to 100 relation with them by spending Influence to support their clan and as you are the ruler, your influence income should be through the roof at this point.
Sidenote 2: Might be just my perspective, but keeping the AI vassals always in your army seems to reduce their chance of defecting. The other plus is, that you constantly gain points in the Leadership talent, as you will fight a lot, which keeps your morale up and lead an army all the time. Ofc you will be a lot slower at some points and might have to disband to catch smaller enemy parties. Downside: As soon as you visit a city you will only be able to recruit half the possible troops, as the AI instantly buys the other half first.
Back to the big BUT: The real issue which arose for me is apparently a bug. When your parties capture an enemy notable and put them into a castle, the enemy doesn't get put into the dungeon, as long as he/she has a quest. They will be in the lords hall, their picture still showing shackles. For some reason youre not able to talk to them but they can't escape either. Means some factions just don't die, even when you conquered all their land. For me that brought my first playthrough to an immediate halt, as I was not able to achieve more victories against one faction to successfully finish the quest.
Apparently it would be best to just play as a vassal for now, or does this bug still arise?