Owning fiefs is basically a liability.

[SandWhale]

For how many resources you have to spend defending and improving a town or castle, the pitiful rewards you get from doing so make taking territory feel like actively damaging your own power for the sake of painting the map.

Taking a town should be a game changing boost in power. As it is now, their income is pathetic, and you have to devote a great deal of troops to defend the garrison and villages. You have to remain nearby in case they are besieged or raided, pinning yourself to one spot on the map. The only tangible benefit is being able to temporarily stash troops. They're more like a handicap than a prize.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Income is pathetic? How so? Mine make around 5k to 7k denars each when you add up taxes, tariffs, and income from their villages. Garrison expenses run from 400 to 800 each.

One of us must be doing it wrong.

[TruXurT]

Funny enough you both can be right. The longer I play this game and the more I read this forum, I realize how special this game is. There is really no one way to play it.

From role playing perspective. You are thrown into the campaign as a person who pretty much lost everything. All you have is your brother, horse and whatever clothes and weapons are on you. From that point on, there is really no one path to take. Yes, you can become a king or the emperor, but this is just one of many possible ways to play it.

You are a leader of your clan and seeing it grow, seeing the marriages, kids being born and countless battles being fought is awesome. You soon replace your rags with a decent equipment, and eventually can use the best stuff the game has to offer. You gain recognition from pretty much everyone in the game. They know you or at least heard of you. They seek your services or alliances with you clan. Some loath you and want you dead. All of those things happen.

Having a fief may be a liability, but I like to look at it as responsibility. You have people who look up to you for security, jobs, infrastructure. It is up to you how you want to rule them. You don't have to care, you can just think of profits etc. Even better you can just plunder the city after you took it, burn all the villages. But if you invest in the fief, you will reap the rewards over time. Prosperous city with a good garrison and well trained militia, with assistance of your army can stop an assault of an army you wouldn't have a chance to defeat in the field. And then you can just wipe that army completely. Those battles are extremely satisfying. But you don't have to play that way. The choice is yours.

The reason I don't like to own too many fiefs or to rule a kingdom is exactly that. Too much responsibility. I just can't bear it. But the fiefs I do have, I try to really develop and protect. But hey, it's just me and the way I enjoy this game. So do that too, find a way to play it so you can enjoy it.

[ItachiDeltaForce]

dude try the fourberie mod that will spice up your campaign!

[Urmel]

you can be king without any fiefs.
i like to get 1 or 2 towns of my culture (battania), to have a "home" and avoid the -3 culture.

for me playing mercenary till clan lvl 5-6 is most fun. you can always change your faction and join the winning team or search for better payment, more war/battles.

[EmotionallyBroken]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

Income is pathetic? How so? Mine make around 5k to 7k denars each when you add up taxes, tariffs, and income from their villages. Garrison expenses run from 400 to 800 each.

One of us must be doing it wrong.

I feel like your expenses and income are backwards.

As op has notice, fiefs arent really that great, compared to previous games of mount and blade, theyre about as useless as shop with a 10 year start up fee that gets repo'ed at every war every 6 months.

bannerlord is about lords, how many lords you have under your command.

Thats it. Everything else is 2ndary of this.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

Income is pathetic? How so? Mine make around 5k to 7k denars each when you add up taxes, tariffs, and income from their villages. Garrison expenses run from 400 to 800 each.

One of us must be doing it wrong.

I feel like your expenses and income are backwards.

As op has notice, fiefs arent really that great, compared to previous games of mount and blade, theyre about as useless as shop with a 10 year start up fee that gets repo'ed at every war every 6 months.

bannerlord is about lords, how many lords you have under your command.

Thats it. Everything else is 2ndary of this.

My fiefs also print money. I agree that quests from notables are annoying and bland. However, set up your fief with a good governor and get the infrastructure up, it will print massive amounts of money. A handful of fiefs can be worth tens of thousands of denars every day. If in the early game, most fiefs have low prosperity, so it will take time, but as the game goes on, they get more and more valuable - except for those that keep getting pillaged. Those fiefs are going to suck.

I would disagree about having as many lords as you can. The more you have, the more fiefs they need to be effective. Keep a good balance of fiefs for each of your clans to have, and they will be effective to fight wars without you needing to carry every fight.

[Forblaze]

They definitely do take a long time to get off the ground. They're also automatically set to auto-recruit, which fills the garrison completely full of low quality units. Each unit in the garrison eats food, which takes away from prosperity. To get the most out of your towns, you want to disable auto-recruitment and fill it with only enough mid/high tier units to maintain high security.

As for defending them, the enemy is drawn to weak garrisons. Once the war gets going and some castles flip, they'll usually opt to go for those instead of things that are actually defended.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

Income is pathetic? How so? Mine make around 5k to 7k denars each when you add up taxes, tariffs, and income from their villages. Garrison expenses run from 400 to 800 each.

One of us must be doing it wrong.

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

I feel like your expenses and income are backwards.

Are you calling me a liar? Or are you simply implying that I am too stupid to know the difference between income and expenses?

My fiefs make money, and obviously, yours do not, or you wouldn't be posting ♥♥♥♥ like this --

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

As op has notice, fiefs arent really that great, compared to previous games of mount and blade, theyre about as useless as shop with a 10 year start up fee that gets repo'ed at every war every 6 months.

Having trouble with your workshops, too, aren't you? My 5 workshops are averaging almost 650 denars a day each, and have long paid for themselves.

You obviously do not know what you're doing, and yet you have the sheer effrontery to call me a liar because I do know what I am doing and am more successful at it that you.

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

bannerlord is about lords, how many lords you have under your command.

Thats it. Everything else is 2ndary of this.

If you want lords, then you need money and you need fiefs. Given the tenuous understanding of the economy you have demonstrated, how's that working for you?

[VoiD]

Dunno, haven't touched a castle since warband.

towns are good money though, later on you'll never have to fight for money, you'll have enough to pay wages and restock food to keep your warring efforts going on and on, as long as you don't waste your time on castles and keep trying to get more towns.

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

Income is pathetic? How so? Mine make around 5k to 7k denars each when you add up taxes, tariffs, and income from their villages. Garrison expenses run from 400 to 800 each.

One of us must be doing it wrong.

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

I feel like your expenses and income are backwards.

Are you calling me a liar? Or are you simply implying that I am too stupid to know the difference between income and expenses?

My fiefs make money, and obviously, yours do not, or you wouldn't be posting ♥♥♥♥ like this --

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

As op has notice, fiefs arent really that great, compared to previous games of mount and blade, theyre about as useless as shop with a 10 year start up fee that gets repo'ed at every war every 6 months.

Having trouble with your workshops, too, aren't you? My 5 workshops are averaging almost 650 denars a day each, and have long paid for themselves.

You obviously do not know what you're doing, and yet you have the sheer effrontery to call me a liar because I do know what I am doing and am more successful at it that you.

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

bannerlord is about lords, how many lords you have under your command.

Thats it. Everything else is 2ndary of this.

If you want lords, then you need money and you need fiefs. Given the tenuous understanding of the economy you have demonstrated, how's that working for you?

Wow, anger management!

I think you need to take into consideration that you are taking your examples from a point in time much further ahead than most people that would ask this.

No, you are not going to see towns making 5k+ anytime soo. And that would basically apply to workshops as well. You would need a very high level of prosperity for this to materialize.

And Emotionallybroken is right, obviously depending on your goals, that lords are the key. And, there is hardly a shortage of ways to make money, Soo..

[Lord Savage]

Originally posted by SandWhale:

For how many resources you have to spend defending and improving a town or castle, the pitiful rewards you get from doing so make taking territory feel like actively damaging your own power for the sake of painting the map.

Taking a town should be a game changing boost in power. As it is now, their income is pathetic, and you have to devote a great deal of troops to defend the garrison and villages. You have to remain nearby in case they are besieged or raided, pinning yourself to one spot on the map. The only tangible benefit is being able to temporarily stash troops. They're more like a handicap than a prize.

Yes mans is right. Owning a fief isn't a big thing as should be.
Take in consideration lare mid game and late game. Castles and towns are conquered one by one. There is no log big siege or something. After taking a town then retaking and taking again it town basicaly dead. Buildings demolished prosperity on 1000.
No chance to improve this city enymore. Even if you will have prosperity +4 every day it take 1500 days to make this city rich.
Villages same. When their prosperity is 70 you need 500 days to make them average ?
It take so much effort with so little outcome.
Totaly agree with post.
Another thing when you want build up your citty you must sitting in city whole game. Because every raiding willage or siege of town push your posprerity to hell.
One thing on income if you have citty with prosperity about 5000 you will have income like 3000 ? But with some good gariison you are maybe on 0 income also right.

[Selig]

This is why I play this game modded. Feels so much better, and owning villages/castles/towns actually means something and matters.

[ShaneyD]

they are long term investments. I think they are vital for peacetime income. Sure it sucks at first, but one its well developed, they become profitable later.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by SandWhale:

For how many resources you have to spend defending and improving a town or castle, the pitiful rewards you get from doing so make taking territory feel like actively damaging your own power for the sake of painting the map.

Taking a town should be a game changing boost in power. As it is now, their income is pathetic, and you have to devote a great deal of troops to defend the garrison and villages. You have to remain nearby in case they are besieged or raided, pinning yourself to one spot on the map. The only tangible benefit is being able to temporarily stash troops. They're more like a handicap than a prize.

Take the rich ones...

Just an idea, but the real problem is the game being designed to try to turn fief ownership into too much of a "Management Game."

It's not terrible, but it can be a bit twitchy... Fief improvements as well as any Perk bonuses that apply, which need a good deep scrubbing too, IMO, should be few and significant. Improvements should be limited to basic operations with a few specific focuses and maybe a health and morale line and that's... that. Improvements would be needed in response to dynamic variables or to improve certain things relevant to main gameplay. (combat/sieges/units/trade)

For "real game," King players should get access to an added Tier of improvements, but that's just because I think they should be more special'er than Lords and.. the game desperately needs some tiered mechanics and unlocked progression points for the advanced-progression player to fiddle with... But, anyway:

To put it very bluntly...

"OK, I grabbed this Town after a hard battle and now it's mine! YAY!"

<Two Days Later>

"This town is trash! Who in their right mind would live here? It's suxxors and should have imploded on itself on Day 1. Why would anyone fight to defend this rathole? Somebody built walls? Around this pile of garbage? I'll have to spend multimonies just to get rid of the smell? Why did I fight, here?"

;)

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

Wow, anger management!

So I'm supposed to let some little peckerwood battle fanboi flip me ♥♥♥♥ and accuse me of lying simply because he does not know what he is doing and cannot make money with his town or his workshops?

Not bloody likely.

Nahh, he hardly accussed you of lying, more like expressed disbelieve. But alittle context would really help to get the message across.

Personally, I do not question that the numbers you present are within the realm of the possible (math) and based on your posts throughout the years that you do play in such a way that you might reach those.

For my own part (as a humble battle "fanboi") my towns and workshops, as few as they may be, do not generate any income worth mentioning. Ofcourse, I dont need the extra income either.