What are the optimum ways to play?

[Andrew]

Can anyone give me a little run down of how to play well?

For example:

Do castles cost more money than they generate so you should just devastate them and let them be reclaimed by somebody?

Should you beat each kingdom up then accept peace with a tribute?

Should you wipe out the kingdoms one by one and if so do you go strongest to weakest or weakest to strongest?

Do you ever get to a point where you earn more money than you have to spend or is it just a perpetual need to be at war and sell off loot/prisoners?

Should you release, kill or imprison rival lords?

Any other tips?

[Action Man]

Most of these questions, it really depends on your preferences.

Castles generally do not make as much as Towns, but they can quite profitable, and castles allow you to recruit Noble troops - usually cavalry units for most factions, and the Fian Archers from Battania. If you have no personal claim on a particular castle, you can devastate it for the morale and money boost. The current lord/lady of it will not take kindly to it.

Getting tribute is nice, but the higher tribute a faction is paying, the more quickly they will declare war on you again. There are multiple factors that determine when the AI wants war, but paying high tribute is a big factor in my experience.

Wiping out kingdoms is really up to you. If you're playing vanilla, non-beta, then fiefless factions may become quite irritating because they have nothing to lose and will just declare war on you, raid your villages, and nuke your fief prosperity.

If you manage your finances correctly, you can easily be swimming in money pretty early into the game. Usually this involves good fief management, as well as smart purchases of workshops/caravans. Battle loot is a great way to bring in lots of money though.

You should do with lords whatever you want in your game. In my experience, I have found enemy lords I have good relations with don't raid my villages. It really helps keeping my prosperity up, and earning money.

Then again, no one can raid you, if there's no one to raid you. :)

[lar unuruur]

to play well, one has to have a goal. otherwise, aimless participation in meaningless AI wars drives player nowhere. got fief from your king? great! now what?

i think, goal should be set at culture choosing screen.
1. what do i want to achieve?
2. with whom? do i want my own kingdom or i want to be a vassal?
3. what to conquer? everything?
4. will i raid?(means no merciful companions/spouse in army/party) will i be nice and merciful?(means no cruel memebers will be happy with me) will i make heads rolling or i will invite other clans?(do i need charisma? will i have to release future fellow clan members to raise their friendship?)
5. will i roleplay? who?

from there comes all setup. one can clearly know what towns he wants, geography of he`s future fiefs if this will not be full map painting.

money is not an issue EVER! no need to rely on smithing. one can do this, it will make one so rich, it is not even funny anymore. simply village raiding can bring tons of gold, battles with lords even much more.

my aim in average campaign is to get at least 100k+ gold and pregnant wife by the end of first year, also release brother and get pregnant wife with him too. also getting good future companions, parking them in taverns for future training and use. meanwhile training riding, scouting and chosen weapon. by the end of second year, i like to have at least million or near that, also i reroll until i get twins for me and bro, so by the end of second year we have 4 children. next year the same with kids. party is full sized at that time, companions are trained in respective skills and usually we have few fiefs given by lord to our clan.

[Ozone]

I love people who claim that money is not a problem EVER when I'm fighting to stay afloat since forever, going from 10k to 80k back to 20k to 220k down to 60k and back to 90k...

When you don't know how to play, money is really difficult to acquire.
My fiefs have super poor prosperity. I'm trying hard to increase it, but it takes forever.
All the castles around keep switching nation, they are utterly destroyed.

If you have advice on how to get money from towns with poor prosperity, I take, because right now I have to pay 2000 denars per day just to keep enough garnison to not get crushed monthly.

[Action Man]

Best advice I can give to start: Don't accept fiefs with crappy prosperity. It takes a long time to build them up. If your faction votes for you to take it, give it away. Let some other clan deal with that.

Stuff* your garrison with cheap troops, like bandits. The quality of the troop in the garrison really doesn't seem to matter unless you are fighting in an actual siege battle (not an auto resolve).

*Only use the minimum amount you need to maintain security.

Pick companions/spouses that either start with focus points in skill trees with the perks you want for your governors, or try to find low level companions so you can train them for the skills you want. If you're playing story mode, your siblings make great governors. If your game lasts long enough, your kids will also make great governors, because you can tailor them just like your siblings.

If there's a good fief you want, raise an army and take it! Show Mercy to it so you don't tank the prosperity and infrastructure. If you have no other fiefs, odds are you will get it when it's voted for. Sometimes the ruler can be a jerk and take it for themselves though.

Build up Charm. Let Immortal Charm work its magic as you stay a mercenary, collecting those paychecks. In general, don't become a vassal without a nice nest egg. You can earn a lot of money as a mercenary, as wars are almost always happening somewhere.

Be smart about buying workshops. If you put one in a high prosperity town that takes materials bound settlements output, you can make a few hundred per day, per workshop. Within one year, your workshops should be paid off.

Win tournaments. Not much on gambling, but you can sell off the prize for a little boost.

Get the Breeder perk. 1% chance per day you'll get some more mounts. Sell them.

Fight, fight, FIGHT! Battle loot is where the real money is. Get into a big battle (and win it), and you can sell off that loot for huge amounts of cash.

[Ozone]

Super helpful, thank you!
I'll try that in my next game.

Originally posted by Action Man:

Stuff* your garrison with cheap troops, like bandits. The quality of the troop in the garrison really doesn't seem to matter unless you are fighting in an actual siege battle (not an auto resolve).

That won't be true anymore in 1.2 apparently; they are doing the power calculation correctly based on troop types and tiers now.

[Teralitha]

1. Use practice arena to make gain skills and some money to buy gear.
2. Go from town to town winning tournaments to get more money and gear.
3. When you have an overflow of money and gear start looking for companions or get married.
4. Hunt many bandits with your little group, keep building up your skills.
5. Start blacksmithing 2 handed weapons to build up the skill and make more money.
6. equip your crew with your best smithed weapons, go out hunting again
7. Repeat these steps until you are ready to take on the world.

[lar unuruur]

Originally posted by Ozone:

I love people who claim that money is not a problem EVER when I'm fighting to stay afloat since forever, going from 10k to 80k back to 20k to 220k down to 60k and back to 90k...

When you don't know how to play, money is really difficult to acquire.
My fiefs have super poor prosperity. I'm trying hard to increase it, but it takes forever.
All the castles around keep switching nation, they are utterly destroyed.

If you have advice on how to get money from towns with poor prosperity, I take, because right now I have to pay 2000 denars per day just to keep enough garnison to not get crushed monthly.

very possibly this queston should be turn around and you sould ask YOURSELF, what you do in game where money is thrown at player from all angles to stay non-stop poor?
and i mean that. what you DO every game day? chase nasty beggars in the form of looters and sell their rags in hopes to get... rich? or maybe you run around with top tier units party to deliver pigs or cows over half world to "earn" 1500g spending 3 days?

player have tournaments, smithing, merc contract, raiding. ANY ONE of these can sustain player, yet at different levels of income, but all of them are enough to keep constant income.
so, why you do not smith? why? do not need 50k income per town nearly every day? why do not need? too lazy?
so, why you accept trash fiefs? you roleplay some kind of calradian charity?
if you even chase those bandits with high level party, do you smelt their weapons? do you smelt any weapons to sell them as parts for 2-4 times higher price?

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Ozone:

If you have advice on how to get money from towns with poor prosperity, I take, because right now I have to pay 2000 denars per day just to keep enough garnison to not get crushed monthly.

There isnt any advice that would help with that. Both towns and workshops really rely on high prosperity to work.

The best advice is really not to have any fiefs, caravans or workshops, until you are done laying the groundwork for becoming king.

Instead, work on becoming better at getting the most out of war/lordhunting. It can become unbelievably profitable once you work out the ins ands out of it. If you master this, then 2k a day will become what you tip the waiter.

[Steve10393]

Originally posted by Andrew:

Can anyone give me a little run down of how to play well?

For example:

Do castles cost more money than they generate so you should just devastate them and let them be reclaimed by somebody?

Should you beat each kingdom up then accept peace with a tribute?

Should you wipe out the kingdoms one by one and if so do you go strongest to weakest or weakest to strongest?

Do you ever get to a point where you earn more money than you have to spend or is it just a perpetual need to be at war and sell off loot/prisoners?

Should you release, kill or imprison rival lords?

Any other tips?

I start out a new game by buying up all workshops I can and all companions are on caravans - stay neutral and don't join any kingdom until you are clan tier 4 and you should have built up a good amount of money like 1mil+ by doing this - reason for this is because once you join a kingdom the entire map shifts into a different mode and wars are more frequent, your caravans will get attacked nonstop even in peacetime by mercenaries and etc... caravans become much more difficult to function after you join a kingdom, basically. Use this built up money to weather the storm - don't max out your troops promotions or fill up your squad, keep like <100 men all Calvary or horse archers during this period - don't get regular infantry or archers or max out your squad until you join kingdom.

Then you can use this amount of money later to bribe nobles to your kingdom or for marriage, ransoms, etc.. gives you time to develop your skills, etc... also prioritize charm. Then once you join a kingdom a lot of your caravan usage will be limited and you can use those companions to carry banners in army now (banners are group buffs now if you're coming back).

Then idk what advice to give you because IMO end game gets kind of boring and tedious and I don't really have good advice on how to play that. Just know that you can't break away from a kingdom and keep your fiefs without a immediate war with that kingdom and you can't bribe any of the nobles from that kingdom to join your kingdom if you are at war with them. The important part when transitioning to your own kingdom is being in a position to bribe and coerce (you need both charm and $$$) the other nobles with fiefs near yours to join your kingdom because you probably won't last long solo'ing it. What I usually do is try to get fiefs that are near the other well aged nobles who have high tactics and leadership skill because they make better army commanders and have more money to spend on troops.

Also I do devastate the other cities around me that are not my culture so they are perpetually poor but i haven't played end game long enough to see if this matters or not. Remember also enemy armies will attack the settlement they think is weakest so to avoid your settlements being attacked all you have to do is keep more garrison/militia in them than your other neighbors do.

End game still needs something else to make it fun though becomes grindy super fast IMO

[Sleepysteve]

The games meme economics mean that until you are very established with high prosperity towns you are going to likely be in the red. That is what selling battle loot/smithing is for, it is your main source of income.