Own feasts

[Hasbulat]

Let me understand. As an owner of a City or Castle a married player is able to organize own feasts.
So you have to collect tonns of meals. Accourding to WIKI:

"Then you should stock your household inventory with feast resources like:

Food (4 of each for magnificent)
Drink (Wine, Ale) (4 of each for magnificent)
Spice (2 for magnificent)
Oil (1 for magnificent)
For foods, you'll need at least 4 of each kind of food in game, from fresh meats (chicken, pork, beef) to grain and bread."

What is counted as a meal - bread, fish, ok, but does olives or grapes are meals as well?

And for WHAT? To gain +1 of relationship with lords are coming? I mean not every lord will come, not every lord will stay there several days.

You have to have fresh meals in your castle. But after a day of inviting till the start date of feasts are abouit 4-5 days, these fresh meals are rotten in two days.

Another thing. Should my hero stay in a city during whole times of 4-5 days of a feast and just greet coming lords?

Is it worse to do at all?

[Zlato]

Meat in storage (be it in household inventory, keep chest or enterprise possessions) does not get rotten.

[Tuidjy]

And +1 relationship is not trivial, either. Even if it were, that's not the main benefit of throwing a feast when you are king or marshal.

1) You get all your lords in one place, so you can pick their brain on who should get the next fief, and convince them if needed.
2) You can quickly resolve disputes between vassals.
3) You can start a campaign with all lords together, and quickly hit your target.

To be honest, I do not go out of my way to throw magnificent feasts. But getting all your reliable lords where you need them is very valuable. Note that if a lord does not like you enough to come to your feast, you should either not count on him, or you should not even have him in your kingdom in the first place. If a lords likes you and does not show up, then you failed to give your lords enough time to take care of their fiefs in the feast/campaign/recruit/manage fiefs cycle.

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Also, I do not run my feasts for days, nor do I wait there for the lords to arrive. I start the feast, I go do something nearby (kill outlaws, fend off raiders, etc.) then come back, meet and greet, and when that's done, I start a campaign.

[ricklong]

Feasts are great when you are at peace also. Those are the ones I run for days and days racking up rep. If the throne room is getting crowded and I max out rep with a lord, I tell him to go someplace nearby (which he usually does for a few days before returning).

This goes on until one of my neighbors declares war and everyone is already all gathered up.
If you hold them in towns, you also get 3 or 4 tournaments a day. That pays for all the food, and lords and companions will get a little experience and weapon skill increases from it.

Oh yeah, and your guests bring you their prisoners that you can then ransom off.

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by ricklong:

Oh yeah, and your guests bring you their prisoners that you can then ransom off.

Very god point I usually forget because I seldom put points in Prisoner Management, unless the mod makes it help with something beside cash flow.

[Pyrrhus]

I'm confused about household inventory part. Is that chest's inventory at court of player's castle or is that wife's larder or player's personal inventory where to put those items into ready to trigger a feast?

[Tuidjy]

For the feast, the food needs to be in the storage area controlled by your wife.

If it is in your inventory, the troops can get at it, and it rots.

If it is in your fief's chest, the food is safe from both troops and guests. This is where I keep my campaign provisions - it is important that you campaign with a good food selection, for morale. So after a point in the game, usually in mid game, i start buying all food I come across, and stashing it everywhere - enterprises, walled fiefs, wife's larder, etc. It's not a big expense, and it comes in handy.