What is the best way to level up leadership?

[Danish]

So I want to level up leadership, but the only way to do is to have high morale which is hard to get without high leader skill. The other way is to lead an army, but I can never get enough influence to lead an army.

[Janek]

Make a new party with your companion/family, lead it around at 0 cost. Earn influence for having clan members in army and ups Leadership. Win-win

[desaix]

My experience, both early on and current, is that (barring the use of cheats or mods) leadership can ONLY be levelled up pre-Army formation (slowly) by getting high morale, which counter-intuitively gets easier to produce the later into the game you go. Best way I can come up with:
Step 1: Get your party size to about 80 or so (if you're early game, don't have any passive income coming in, etc., you might want to wait a bit to get these many people in your party, which makes leveling up leadership early difficult). Your morale can be 100, but it won't matter if the party is too small. Get your party healthy (kick out any easily-replaced wounded, if you have the numbers to afford it), as having a bunch of wounded guys hanging around seems to negatively effect morale (I've yet to determine if this is officially coded in, or if it's just my perception, but it makes sense).
Step 2: Ensure you have a diverse menu in your food supplies. Grain is cheap and easy to acquire, but make sure you have at least a little meat, fish, cheese, butter, olives, and dates as well.
Step 3: Go to the tavern when in a settlement. Talk to the tavern wench. Order whatever food she asks, then (here's the thing people miss) talk to her again; ask her to provide whatever dish she gave you to your whole party (no matter how disgusting it might sound in real life), which will cost you some money (typically 500-1000 coins).
Step 4: Check your morale. If it's above (well, it used to be; dunno if this has been tweaked) 70, congrats, you're earning Leadership XP. Might even earn a trickle at 65ish. Keep it up for months, and maybe you'll earn a point or two. It's very, very slow progression, however. (Once you CAN start forming armies, however, it just rockets up)

[MinenSpecht]

You can also gain leadership by hiring soldiers from you prisoner pool. But this can and will hit your morale.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by desaix:

My experience, both early on and current, is that (barring the use of cheats or mods) leadership can ONLY be levelled up pre-Army formation (slowly) by getting high morale, which counter-intuitively gets easier to produce the later into the game you go. Best way I can come up with:
Step 1: Get your party size to about 80 or so (if you're early game, don't have any passive income coming in, etc., you might want to wait a bit to get these many people in your party, which makes leveling up leadership early difficult). Your morale can be 100, but it won't matter if the party is too small. Get your party healthy (kick out any easily-replaced wounded, if you have the numbers to afford it), as having a bunch of wounded guys hanging around seems to negatively effect morale (I've yet to determine if this is officially coded in, or if it's just my perception, but it makes sense).
Step 2: Ensure you have a diverse menu in your food supplies. Grain is cheap and easy to acquire, but make sure you have at least a little meat, fish, cheese, butter, olives, and dates as well.
Step 3: Go to the tavern when in a settlement. Talk to the tavern wench. Order whatever food she asks, then (here's the thing people miss) talk to her again; ask her to provide whatever dish she gave you to your whole party (no matter how disgusting it might sound in real life), which will cost you some money (typically 500-1000 coins).
Step 4: Check your morale. If it's above (well, it used to be; dunno if this has been tweaked) 70, congrats, you're earning Leadership XP. Might even earn a trickle at 65ish. Keep it up for months, and maybe you'll earn a point or two. It's very, very slow progression, however. (Once you CAN start forming armies, however, it just rockets up)

+1 agree


almost 1500 hours in this game, And I havent talked to someone in a tavern except on a quest in the last 1480 of them lol.. Thanks for the ordering food tip, I will use it.

As to leadership (and now steward, which seems weird to me). Yes morale is key. This is super super easy to do. No cheats required. Nor influence. 1- get a companion or sibling. 2- Have them make another party. Equip them with only recruits. limit their salary wages in party section of clan tab. 3- Create army and invite only them, Run around. when cohesion is almost done, disband army and reform it. Zero influence cost.

Now to keep morale high? also simple. Have a bunch of diff foods, and dont use prisoners as troops. You can eventually take perks that boost morale based on amount of food your have, double morale for variety of foods etc... I usually run around with 80 morale. when im not fighting, by year 2-3 in game. When fighting I tend to run around at 70. or lower, because I recruit tier 4-5-6 prisoners, and take the morale hit, but know I'll be in another fight, and earn that morale back soon, so IDC. After a week or so of fighting my morale is usually 100. and I recruit 20-30 prisoners, to lower it, and get some nice free Khans guards, etc....

Anyway, steward for me always seems to hit 200-250+ with almost no effort. Though I do add attributes and focus points. I don't feel they are wasted. The stat goes up easily and there are good perks in that tree.

Leadership is slower, but not much. Just make sure you put 2-5 focus points in it. Depending on how high you want to go with that stat. My leadership is usually 50ish points behind steward, by mid game. Still, rather easy to level IMO

[Fenris]

When your army is made up of only companions there is no need to disband and reform it. Just click on the flags next to the army icon and you'll get a screen where you can click on cohesion to raise it. Normally this would cost influence, but since the army is just your companions it is free to raise cohesion.

Edit: Also getting "Gourmet" with Stewardship is a big help for morale to passively raise Leadership. Instead of 9 extra morale you will get 18. Still slow without an army, but helps a bit.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Fenris:

When your army is made up of only companions there is no need to disband and reform it. Just click on the flags next to the army icon and you'll get a screen where you can click on cohesion to raise it. Normally this would cost influence, but since the army is just your companions it is free to raise cohesion.

Edit: Also getting "Gourmet" with Stewardship is a big help for morale to passively raise Leadership. Instead of 9 extra morale you will get 18. Still slow without an army, but helps a bit.

Mine costs influence. im in 1.5.10 Well it SAYS it costs. I never actually looked at my influence number in the tool bar. But yeah "0 influence to invite" cohesion drops to say 34... I go to raise it, and it costs 10 influence per 10 cohesion. IF I just disband, and reinvite it costs 0. SO unless its a visual buy, I know mine costs influence to "refill" And I'm talking with only me, and one companion with a second party in my army.

[Fenris]

Originally posted by RJboxer:

Originally posted by Fenris:

When your army is made up of only companions there is no need to disband and reform it. Just click on the flags next to the army icon and you'll get a screen where you can click on cohesion to raise it. Normally this would cost influence, but since the army is just your companions it is free to raise cohesion.

Edit: Also getting "Gourmet" with Stewardship is a big help for morale to passively raise Leadership. Instead of 9 extra morale you will get 18. Still slow without an army, but helps a bit.

Mine costs influence. im in 1.5.10 Well it SAYS it costs. I never actually looked at my influence number in the tool bar. But yeah "0 influence to invite" cohesion drops to say 34... I go to raise it, and it costs 10 influence per 10 cohesion. IF I just disband, and reinvite it costs 0. SO unless its a visual buy, I know mine costs influence to "refill" And I'm talking with only me, and one companion with a second party in my army.

Oh ok. I'm playing 1.6, guess they changed it then or it's a 1.6 bug they will fix.