Lordy Lordy, The Complete Strategy Guide (ENHANCED!)

This strategy guide is for people who have played the game for a while, or perhaps newcomers who want to know more about how the game works. This is not a replacement for the official manual and experience itself, but it's firmly rooted in the explained mechanics in the manual and in practical gameplay experience, 28+ years of it actually!

Now i'm not going to get into how to start a game, tweak settings, etc. and no there is no way to do multiplayer unless you have a lan cable or a hamachi/IPX program if you're looking and its SOOO difficult to set up, so if you have no clue how to play the game AT ALL, read the manual and then come back here and read this, it'll make sense of the manual or fill in blanks you may have missed playing the game as well.

https://archive.org/details/Lords_of_the_Realm_II_-_Manual (manual link)

I hope this is helpful and that you learn something but at the end of the day have fun, get messy, and make mistakes!
I want to thank all the people who gave feedback and thank you for reading this guide, and enjoy!

1.) General Concepts

Here’s a brief overview of this guide and the practical application of it to help you succeed without too much in-depth detail, for those of you who don’t have time for a long-winded diatribe!

1.) General advice
a.) start from the bottom up – build your economy and a basic fortress and then worry about forming an army and conquests and setting taxes and stuff.
b.) see who is near you and try to be on good terms with them in diplomacy, but don’t trust anyone.
c.) micromanage everything and you’ll never fail: trust in the work sliders and autocalculating battles and you’ll almost certainly regret it. If the game feels mindless, you’re not thinking hard enough!
d.) don’t fight battles you aren’t absolutely sure you outnumber them 2:1 on the battlefield, or 4:1 in a siege. If the ratio is 10:1 and you have more knights than them, it’s safe to assume you’ll win.

2.) Farming advice
e.) turn advanced farming on: always better than default farming no matter what.
f.) cows make more money and feed more people at the expense of resource production and army recruitment and arms making. Grain allows for more production, but has a bigger chance of going wrong with weather events: ¾ grain for large economies (1200 -2000 people) is best, go cows for small economies (600 or less people)
g.) aim for normal rations so that health doesn’t deteriorate.

3.) Taxing and happiness
h.) keep taxes 0-5% until happiness is near 100%. Raise to about 10% once health and happiness balance out. The idea is that you want to set the maximum taxes that will not decrease to below 50% given ideal conditions.
i.) usurious taxes of 20% or more are ok if you are taking a province you cannot keep and do not wish to take in the immediate future, and the AI will do stuff like this as well. Just be careful.

4.) Armies
j.) build castles for free garrison troops.
k.) Pikemen, Archers, and Macemen are the cheapest, most effective units to produce at home.
l.) Crossbowmen, Swordsmen, and Knights are the best, but most expensive, and are sometimes worth buying the equipment instead of producing in small numbers.
m.)Mercenaries are expensive, but can be a great idea to bolster an army.

5.) Castles
n.) castles make you more money and have particular defence and attacks strategies
o.) most problems are solved with a battering ram and pikemen/archer combo
p.) a macemen/knight rush with siege towers can work too.

6.) Diplomacy
q.) if you are weak or rich or bordering an enemy, you’ll most likely be a target no matter how nice you are.
r.) send a couple compliments, and a gift of 250, then double each gift to make lords like you.
s.) sometimes allies can be bribed to send troops or attack a location.
t.) try not to piss off AI.

7.) Lords
u.) Best allies are Baron and Knight
v.) Worst enemies are Countess and Bishop
w.) try to kill the bishop first, then the countess, or better yet, ally one and pit the one against the other. don't EVER ally the Bishop.

8.) Odds and Ends
x.) Armies cost points to move or split. Attacking armies stop movement, but damaging buildings only cost tile points.
y.) Small armies of 50 peasants can do a lot of damage and stop enemy armies from advancing, but raids have reprisals and make permanent enemies.
z.) Autocalc is almost always better with lots of knights and outnumbering the enemy: sometimes survivable battles are impossible in autocalc, other times impossible battles are survivable in autocalc, but generally, its still better to fight your own battles.

2.) Farming, Food, and Labor Penalty/Advanced Farming

(Updated for accuracy and readability)

Before we get into farming, i'd like to just make it clear that this IS the most important, make or break thing in the game. You can have gigantic castles, armies of knights, and be a clever attacker and defender, but if you can't feed your peasants you will lose everything. Part of that is farming efficiently and stockpiling food.

Cows or Grain?
Ultimately, population is the biggest factor:
Low population = 500 or less... do 100 cows and try to scale 1 cow for every 5 people until the next level.
Medium population = 1000 or more... sell off to 150 ish cows and start with grain fields.
High population = 1500 or more... sell off your excess cattle and continue scaling grain
Peak population = up to 2000 (i think this is max)... 3/4 of your population should be fed by grain.

Yields from selling excess...
sell/buy
12/24 per cow = reasonable return of 600 for 50 cows sold per year
2/4 per sack of grain = hard return of 600 for 300 extra grain sold per year

It is possible to sell grain off for money, but its much better to sell cows off. However, most of the year production will be better for the grain people than cows, so theres OTHER things to sell, leaning to: sell cows with low/medium population, focus on production/manufacture and items on the higher end, and consider selling off WEAPONS. more in the next section.

NORMAL FARMING:

GRAIN
Simple formula: 1:12 yield, minimum 10 sacks, 60 people = 240 grain PER FIELD
10 sacks takes 60 people to farm, and yields 1:12 always, meaning 60 workers can reliably make 240 grain each year barring any special events such as a surplus grain or rats in the granary, which gives a bonus or penalty to total stored grain each year somewhere in the 10-20% range.

This isn't bad, but advanced farming makes peak population play much easier, and the yields are much higher than cows can ever be, but does have draw backs. it's absolutely doable to use simple farming and have good grain yields, but you'll end up with 10 grain fields and 6 cow fields to basically stave away hunger... which is why i recommend you ALWAYS do advanced farming.

COWS
Simple formula: there is no simple formula!

Cows herding is highly land dependent and labor intensive for gains, but can make a fantastical yield each year.
10 cows per field= single space cows
11-19 cows per field = double space cows
20+ cows = triple space cows

with 100 cows on single spacing land...
1:2 200 people will roughly maintain stock between deaths and births.
1:3 300 people will roughly yield 10% gains (10 cows).
1:4 400 people will roughly yield 15% gains (15 cows)
1:5 500 people will roughly yield 20% gain (20 cows)
1:6 600 people will roughly yield 30% gain. (30 cows)
double spacing 50% of gain yields (15 cows at 30% gain)
triple spacing 25% of gain yields (7 cows at 30% gain)

To sum it up: 200 cows will destroy your economy if you try to gain every year, because it will take 600 dairy farmers (1:3 ratio) to gain 5-10% and take up all of your land... i was unable to get single cow land in this state.

Treat cows in one of two ways: a pump and dump scheme to make money, or maintain a 1:3 ratio of about 100 cows to feed 500 people and reduce your grain burden on about 5-6 fields.
Cows aren't a viable 2000 person food production resource, which my recommendation is to follow the guide above.

Cows are a great early farming source to boost an economy, and having 100-150 cows is great in a pinch because those cows can be eaten and feed 10 people AND their dairy is still collected for 5.
If a famine hits and you're out of grain, you'll be glad you kept cows.

ADVANCED FARMING MODE (AND PRODUCTION MECHANIC!):
Unskilled laborers start at 15-25% efficiency.
They gain efficiency at a rate of 14-22% per season, capping at 100%
This is the major drawback of advanced farming, but when compared to the yields (and farmers have no efficiency issues)
The more people that are at 100%, the less the ratio is affected: if you add 100 unskilled laborers to 100 skilled laborers at 100% the ratio is a less painful 50-65% and train quickly. Therefore when shifting peasants to farming, always try to scale work as evenly as possible for overall efficiency.

Advanced Wheat = 2 people to sow, but 20 people to harvest...

++ rainy - very good production modifier
+ sunny - good production modifier
= cloudy - no change
- drought - bad production modifier
-- flooding - very bad production modifier

As for fertility:
Excellent = up to 1:50 yield!!! (more like 1:25 usually)
Very High = up to 1:25 yield! (more like 1:15 usually)
Good = up to 1:15 yield (usually right descending from here)
Average = up to 1:12 yield
Poor = up to 1:10 yield
Very poor = up to 1:8 yield
Infertile = up to 1:5 yield

Fields never naturally degrade at 1:2, but 1:3 is still subbornly fertile. I also noticed that having cows seemed to bump fertility a bit too! it could be random, but after a all cow, cow with some grain, half and half, and all grain session, having cows helps a little bit?

This is far from a science at observation without datamining, but in general the best blend comes out to the guide i wrote above, and grain is remarkably good for food bit per bit.

3.) Taxing, Money, Happiness, and Health

TAXES AND HAPPINESS
Taxing is a big part of the game simply because everything except for peasants and castles can be bought with crowns! The game will start you at 0% tax... haha what a joke. But then look at the happiness, its usually 60-75%, so perhaps not a joke after all. Let me explain:

0%-5% tax is 5%-0% + happiness added to the counter.
6%-19% is 1%-14% - happiness subtracted to the counter.
20% is -16% and -1% to OTHER counties subtracted.
21%-23% -17%-19% and still -1% to other counties.
24% its -21% and -2%...
31% its -29% ad -3%!

...And any more than that and you're a rat dastard! Now the only reason you should EVER go above 19% is one of two reasons... Either you just captured an enemy province and are milking the county dry for all its worth, usually transferring all the goods back to you and basically looting the province, or you have a real emergency and you need to do a 1 time tax.

You may get away with this once, but I would advise against this generally unless you stand to gain a lot and can handle the fallout.

IDEALLY, you want happiness to hover around 70% that's the magic number. Any less than that, people start leaving your province, which isn't good at all.

TAXES AND CASTLES

Taxes are sort of funny. Apparently, each peasant makes about 3 crowns a year.
And castles BOOST the amount of taxes that each peasant gives SIGNIFICANTLY. I got these figures from starting a game with a castle and taking taxes to 33%, or one crown per person.
I've found with 100 peasants and tax 31% for about 100 crowns...

Wooden Palisade = 50%+ |= 150
Motte and Bailey = 75%+ |= 175
Norman Keep = 100%+ | = 200
Stone Castle = 125% + | = 225
Royal Castle = 150% + |= 250

The bonus of course only affects the province it's in, but multiplied this adds up quickly. with 1000 people thats 2500 per season, per province! (please don't tax them like the US government, they'll become quite angry and it will make you a naughty person!)

MONEY AND MARKETS

Now let's bring this down to earth a bit and look at the market place...
Now we talked about selling cows and grain, but what about raw resources?

Stone = 2:4 crowns x100 | = 200 crowns
Iron or Wood = 1:2 crowns x 100 | = 100 crowns
Its possible to stockpiles up to 10k of each, which is no small payday.

Mace = 10:20 crowns x 100 | = 1000 crowns
Pike =13:26 crowns x 100 | = 1300 crowns
Bow = 16:32 crowns x 100 | = 1600 crowns
Sword = 23:46 crowns x 100 | = 2300 crowns
Crossbow = 24:48 crowns x 100 | = 2400 crowns
Maille (for knights) = 44:88 crowns x 100 | = 4400 crowns

And one final value... BOOZE is 1 crown, and +1 happiness at 10% booze to people ratio.
So if you have 1500 pissed off peasants, you can booze them up for 750 crowns for +5 *hic* happiness! not unimportant.

ANYWAY...

The mace pike or bow are definitely affordable in numbers to quickly bolster your army, but the sword or crossbow are still worth it if only as a small addition for garrison troops due to their high damage and defensive value... and then there is the knight... We'll talk more about him later, but he can be very useful. VERY USEFUL INDEED!

HEALTH AND HAPPINESS

Health seems to fluctuate around food and random events... the mechanics are based on experience:

Perfect |= +2 happiness
Good |= +1 happiness
Average |= +0 happiness
Sick |= -5 happiness
Diseased | = -10 happiness

Food bonuses!
Triple |= +7 happiness
Double | = +4 happiness
Normal | = +1 happiness
Half | = -2 happiness
None |= -5 happiness

People don't appreciate good health care apparently, how utterly like life!
For giggles...
It took 12-16 seasons to go from diseased to perfect health with triple rations.
It took one season of HALF rations to go from perfect to good
It tooks two seasons for the same to go to average.
It took four seasons for the same to go to poor.
I didn't bother with diseased... because i'm not cruel!
Going up from diseased to average is less intense. 1 season of triple ration will take them out of diseased, and 2-3 of it will take them to average. But there's a hard ceiling trying to get them up from there, and the cost of doing so is pretty darn high, so, do what you will with that little tidbit.

Essentially, people are resilient if they have to go on a diet for a season or two, and you can plump them back up when things improve, but try not to mess with people and they wont riot and rape and pillage and do all sorts of nasty things. It's better for everyone if you're a decent ruler!

Population

Without going on and on, the best population is somewhere between 1100-1600 people in general, and is easily achievable.
If population has good or perfect health, they die less, which means they increase more, but the price of food might be too high to get it up to that.
The larger the population, the more important it is that they're in good or perfect health, because they are less susceptible to plague - at least as far as i can tell - and the more of them the more LIKELY it is, so that's something to consider.

Small economies are okay, but make less money and stuff, cant really be used for armies, and are overall undesirable, so i do recommend trying to get population up to 800-1100 as a minimum, but better yet is a high population province.

4.A) Armies and Wages!

Every Warlord must have warriors in his retinue. Without them you are little more than a slave master, beating the backs of peasants and shouting lofty demands. What warriors you have will greatly determine your playstyle and tactical advantages, but in general the more costly they are the more useful they are.

Below is a indication of how they perform based on Knights for speed and attack, and pikemen for defense!

Peasant - Costs nothing but labourers
Attack = *
Defense = *
Speed = ***

Macemen - Costs 20 crowns or 4 iron and 4 wood to produce.
Attack = ****
Defense = **
Speed = ****

Pikemen - Costs 26 crowns or 3 iron and 6 wood
Attack = **
Defense = *****
Speed = *

Swordsmen - Cost 46 crowns or 10 iron and 3 wood.
Attack = ****
Defense = ****
Speed = ***

Knight - cost 88 crowns or 18 iron and 4 wood
Attack = *****
Defense = **** (less for arrows/bolts ***)
Speed = *****

Bowmen : 26 crowns or 13 wood.
Attack : *(*** with bow)
Defense : *
Speed: ***

Crossbowmen: 48 crowns or 10 iron and 6 wood
Attack : ** (**** with crossbow)
Defense : **
Speed : **

My Tierlist:
S - Macemen
A - Bowmen, Knights
B - Crossbowmen, Pikemen
C - Swordmen
D
F - Peasants

Why? (Here's an excellent rundown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqybHixruHg )

When I consider which unit is best, I take into consideration:
Cost
Versatility
Ease of use

S Tier
Macemen.
Macemen are cheap, quick, deal as much damage as the Swordmen, and quickly swarm whatever unit they face, and almost always come out on top. They're the only unit on the open field without gimics that can face off against knights and actually do pretty good, especially if they outnumber them.
Macemen are fast enough to use as cavalry by flanking, kiting archers and oil pots, and are expendable. Nuf said.

A Tier
Bowmen.
Archers will take out more units than knights in just about any defense scenario, and thats a fact. They are the top tier ranged unit for this reason, and can kill most other units given time and distance.
Archers really suck without a barrier though, and thats the one downfall is that they cannot stand alone, but why would you want them to be alone? That being said, i've fielded all archer armies and even against knights they can deal some good damage if they outnumber them significantly, but still, they are worth their weight in gold.

Knights.
Knights are bar none the best overall unit for nearly any situation, but I have to take points off because they are so expensive, and they are less useful in a siege than any other unit unless you can get them in right away. Sending knights into a crowd is the easy button for sure, and if cost isn't an issue, then they are obviously the best hands down, but fielding them in large numbers is really difficult.

B TIer
Crossbowmen.
Crossbowmen are great at one thing: taking out units at short ish range behind a wall of other units. They will absolutely destroy enemies if they choose valued targets. Unfortunately, they are often sniped by bowmen, but toe to toe with archers if they're backed against a wall and acting stupid, the crossbowmen will kill them really quickly.
They're really good in sieges, particularly behind a moat, because they'll destroy diggers.
But, they're slow enough and squishy enough that the cost is a little high to use them in general scenarios where bowmen are just flat out better.

Pikemen.
Pikemen are really cheap, and really sturdy. they're also really slow, so basically they act as meatshields. But when put in a castle to bar the gate while holy hell rains down on your enemies, they're the best unit of any, and digging ditches especially, the archers might kill some, but they're not bad.
Mixed with peasants, this can make a meaty wall that can surround your bowmen and crossbowmen and turn a battle 100% around. Pikemen/Crossbow mix will destroy knights if placed carefully, and macemen don't really have a chance unless they get around.

C TIer
Swordsmen.
Swordmen are neither expensive, nor bad, nor painfully slow, but they're just not really great at any one thing. They still get cut down by bowmen, they still get killed by macemen, and they don't even fair well against knights. Now, if they're used in conjunction with other units, they do make good vanguard units against macemen, or if they get around to ranged units or against peasants they do really well, and can take a few hits, but all in all they're kind of disappointing and i don't field them too terribly much for that reason.
They do make good siege units, however.

F Tier
Peasants.
Peasants are only useful because they're cheap - free even. They're useless meat walls that are only good at digging moats and protecting more important units, or ramming into ranged to stop them from firing. thats it.

Siege Units: when besieging a castle these units can optionally be made to make breaking into the castle much less of a pain in the ass.

Battering ram
Use this to destroy castle gates, the weakest part of the castle. Often the easiest and most efficient way to siege a castle. Pretty much you should always use and forget the others.

Siege Tower
Use this to bypass castle walls. This is quicker and easier than battering rams, but castle gates are 5 men wide and towers are two men wide. This is useful for just about every castle except for the Stone or Royal castle.

Catapult
Use this to destroy castle walls. This is by far the most painstaking of the siege engines because it takes forever to destroy the walls with just one catapult; You also cannot destroy castle gates with the catapult, so don't bother. If you have a large force and a specific entry point this can be useful, but again usually a battering ram is better, or a siege tower. You need really at least 4 to be effective, and you can pretty well destroy anything, and you can do them far away from the deadly boiling oil that would decimate other machines.

One thing I alluded to but did not explicitly state is that Catapults, when used correctly, can stay outside of range so you can destroy walls with no repercussions. I still believe catapults to be inferior, but it's worth mentioning that this can be a legitimate strategy.

Mercenaries

Occasionally you will have mercenaries for hire in one of your lands, easily denoted by a sword and a purse over the capital of the province you rule.

From an FAQ:

Saxon Macemen......: 150 Maces for 1900 Crowns
Burgundy Macemen...: 250 Maces for 3100 Crowns
Swedish Swordsmen..: 100 Swords for 2700 Crowns
Danish Swordsmen...: 200 Swords for 5500 Crowns
Spanish Knights....: 25 Knights for 2700 Crowns
Angevin Knights....: 50 Knights for 5500 Crowns
Scottish Pikemen...: 100 Pikes for 1800 Crowns
Irish Pikemen......: 200 Pikes for 3500 Crowns
Flemish Crossbowmen: 100 Crossbows for 3000 Crowns
Norman Crossbowmen.: 200 Crossbows for 6000 Crowns
Moorish Archers....: 150 Bows for 3000 Crowns
Welsh Archers......: 200 Bows for 4000 Crowns

If compared to the pure cost of the items themselves, it is generally not worth it hiring mercenaries because of high upfront costs. It might seem tempting at first, but it's always better to manufacture and raise homegrown armies yourself if at all possible.

There are two exceptions to this rule.

1.) siege relief force.
Send a mercenary band to attack a sieging army and provide relief.

2.) short term battles.
If you have a lot of money but not a lot of resources, it can be acceptable to burn a mercenary company to acquire a province or defeat an invading force.

WAGES

What about paying your soldiers? From what i can tell, it doesn't matter if they're mercenaries, peasants or knights, 1000 men will cost about 300 crowns a year, or 1/3 a crown per soldier per year. NOT TOO BAD HONESTLY!
Once you get at least one royal castle and 1000 peasants, you wont ever feel the sting of army wages, for ONE province.

4.B Practical Battle Strategy To Not Get Got

(Medieval gardening at its finest!)

So you think you're ready to fight eh? slow down there mr.knight in shining armor, there's more to it than statistics and overall ratings of units!
Unit composition is often much more important than any single unit, and units work well in pairs.

Quick Basics
Did you read the manual? You should know the buttons and nuances if you did, but here's a summary of useful tidbits to remember.

Drag to select units, then CTRL+(numbers 1-9) will assign a battalion you can press the number key and the screen will focus on that group no matter where you are when you press it.

You can ALSO change the formation. This isn't very useful on an open field, but when you have units selected, press H for HORIZONTAL or V for VERTICAL columbs, and they will try to fit within two or three lines of 10 depending on how the units are scaled.

Units are scaled representations based on numbers, usually representing multiples of 8 (8,16,24,or 32 from what i can tell) and you can have up to i think 1500 troops in an army at one time... this is important because armies cannot gang up to attack a single target: One army per target, even castles.
For that reason, you can siege a castle to attract enemy attention while another much nastier army moves up, and you can block the road for any expected resistance and just have what you need to siege... this is especially useful for small castles, one to capture the castle and one to run defense or reinforce if you fail.

Retreat really isn't an option, and essentially is autocalc and fights the battle for you. I cannot tell a difference between the two options. I don't think it works as intended.

Mop up sends all units into melee mode - including archers. They will bee line towards the nearest enemy, every soldier selects an enemy and moves until it's engaged. You can stop units by selecting them.
This is useful if you have all melee units, or to send them charging at once and you have a battle group for your archers. This is very useful if you have knights and macemen and want them to race to fight before the enemy can set in, and i have one many battles this way with my knights rushing archers before they can set up to GREAT effect.

Ranged cannot shoot over other enemies to get to other enemies, but they can shoot THROUGH to attempt it - if you select them and click on a enemy behind the lines, they'll fire to try to hit the enemy behind the others, which can be useful. ranged CAN shoot over your men, and arrows pass through them without doing damage.

Field of Battle
There are 4 basic types of battle grounds and some variants that i can tell:
-Thick Forest, which negates archery in general, but a archer unit can bury themselves in a narrow corridor and bottleneck snipe your units to death (or vice versa).
-Grass Field, which is pretty much free of obstacles: sometimes there are small patches of forest, other times there may be stones or water features that archers can pocket that act as a barrier for your men
-Rivers and Bridges, which is pretty well a bottleneck with open archer lines
-Sieges, which always follow a set pattern.

Sometimes there are "tweener" maps that mix features. but play according to the type is what i can suggest.

Army Concepts

So, having established basics, lets talk about how to approach each type of map and optimal use, but lets also talk about basic types of armies you can put together.

NOTE: Mercenaries won't combine in the same army. If a unit gets low, you can split an army and get them out for a new one to enter, or send mercenaries to supplement castles that dont already have mercenaries in them, i find that works out well.

Concepts:
Skirmish - send ranged first to bait opponents into attacking and then retreat. This works well keeping ranged in the middle and your melee on the sides. Use this if you are outnumbered, or they're entrenched in a line and you want to break them up. Beware knights and macemen, because they'll catch your retreat and kill your whole ranged battalion, severely crippling you.

Flanking - reserve units that are fast, like knights and macemen, to engage the unit on a side or from behind while already engaged - multiple units attacking one unit will destroy them. I've seen 9 peasants take down a knight when attacking in unison, as others swarm to fill the gap. It's the best use of strength you can muster.
This is often used in conjunction with line battle to try to take out enemy ranged, or target weaker units to cause a cascade of units moving further into the line and trying to surround the enemy, which is ideal.
This is risky and may not be worth as much as sending all your units in a line, but it can work to great effect if you do it right.

Line - line battle is exactly what it sounds like : set ranged behind melee and send them off. one after the other, so that ranged is directly behind melee. This is the typical strategy and if you outnumber the opponent, this is the best one.

Vanguard - if you have enough units to form a line and a ranged battalion behind them, its useful to keep some units behind your skirmishers to sandwich them in and protect them from a rear attack.
This is useful if you outnumber the enemy and you have men to spare that can't engage the enemy directly, and the enemy has flanking elements such as macemen and knights.
But if they aren't fighting, they arent useful, and so this has to be weighed between risk, and benefit, but it can save your life.

Attacker - will move in first. if the AI detects you have a weaker army, or less units, or if they attack you, they generally will act as an attacker.

Defender - will wait to be attacked before moving. if the AI detects you are stronger, have more units, or you attacked them, they generally will act as a defender.

4.C Not Getting Got Continued

Raiding Army - 50-100
Small Armies - 150- 500 soldiers
Large Armies - 500 -1000+ Soldiers

In describing the armies i'll also talk about strategies for their strengths and things to avoid.

Raiding Armies
Not much to say here- either you've hired a merc army and are using it to burn villages and farmlands, or you have hired peasants to do the same.
This is one of the times i'll say swordsmen armies make good raider armies because sending them against a small army often works out well, usually other raiding armies, and you can autocalc safely with it. If you do it well, you may even have a superior force at larger sizes.
Just remember, swordmen are general and will only win, toe to toe, against peasants and pikemen.
With an open line of sight, swordmen won't beat crossbowmen or bowmen, and bowmen can run away and kite your swordmen until they're dead - but AI wont do that usually.

A small knight army can work too, but they're so expensive to use that way i'd advise against it.

Small Armies

Pike and Crossbow Army:
The defensive line army
Great for River and Bridge, or Thick Forest.
Okay for Sieges
Not ideal for Field Battle.

The idea is that you build a large number of pikemen and some crossbowmen (lets say 300/100) and you build a wall with your pikemen to let your crossbowmen wreak havoc.
This is especially ideal for bowmen on Thick Forest maps, because your pikemen can absorb fire while your crossbows wreck the archers.
If the enemy doesn't have bowmen, this works well, but if they do, you need to be creative - archers don't do a lot of damage to pikemen, and ranged units cant shoot through enemies.
The enemy can send worthless units and then flank you if you're not careful, so in essence:
-Try to force the enemy into a line battle, particularly at a bottleneck, to maximize your crossbowmen. Pikemen are beautiful meatshields that are resistant to normal archers, so if you can engage them with other pikemen or lesser units crossbows will take.

Great against knight armies and particularly in sieges, they will almost always win if set up right.

Macemen and Bowmen Army:
The offensive line army
Great for everything except Thick Forest.
Not Ideal for Thick Forest.

Basically similar to Pike and Crossbow, but you want to send your macemen to rush the battlefield and bring your bowmen behind, with the option of skirmishing, flanking, or a straight line battle.
Macemen are great shock troops which can really turn the tables with peasant based armies, basically sending one battalion as a line element, another as a flanking element to take out archers, and then position your archers where needed.
You can often win many battles with this set up, even sieges, so long as you avoid bowmen with your macemen, or knights.
Great against a Pike and Crossbow army because of their flanking ability, and Macemen will win toe to toe with pikemen always. You can even flank with your bowmen and catch the crossbowmen with both macemen and archer fire for an easy win.

Knight Army
The rich man's army.
Great for Field Battles
OK for River&Bridge Battles
Terrible for everything else.

This is an all out attack army that will pretty well guarantee victory against anything the enemy throws at you in equal number: 300 Knights will decimate any imagineable opposition, and it's all about speed.
Honestly, it's tactically the easiest army too - hit the Mop Up button and they'll race like bats out of hell to the nearest enemy that isn't engaged, which is exactly what you want them to do. You want them to run toward the enemy before they can position and hit them with everything they've got, and often you'll cut down their archers in the process.
It also can be useful dividing the army into two, such as in the case of multiple bridges, clicking on the minimap to send them over, and trying to get on the enemy's side of the bridge before they can position and bottleneck you.

If the enemy stops your Knights and pins them into crossbow fire, your army is toast, most likely. Very dangerous against a pike and crossbow army.

Large Armies

Standard Array
- 100 bowmen
- 100 crossbowmen
- 100 macemen
- 100 pikemen
- 100 swordsmen
- 100 knights.
- maybe 100-400 peasants for moats and meatshield element.

Form your front line of pikemen and swordsmen mixed together: very effective in tandem.
Form your back line of crossbowmen
Form your flanking elements of knights and macemen, mixed or seperate.
Form your skirmish line with archers on the flanks if possible, in two battalions.

This has no outstanding weaknesses or strengths, and you can use all the strategies at will.
Well equipped AI will build evenly, but a lot of times they'll send peasants, and thats where this army will really shine: straight on battle will be a breeze, and you can hit Mop Up and select your ranged and send them to the prospective back line, and maximize your effect.

Some good alternative arrays:

Knight or Macemen army (cut peasants and replace with these)
Becomes a flanking army

Bowmen army (cut peasants and replace with bowmen)
Becomes a skirmishing army

Pikemen army (cut peasants and replace with pikemen)
Becomes a defensive line army/siege army.

Things to avoid

Dont bother with a swordmen army.
Swordmen aren't good at anything that other troops can't do better for the price of them.
Macemen hit harder, move faster.
Pikemen are more resistant to ranged, and defend well.
Knights are better at it all.
As i said, swordmen only win against pikemen and peasants, every other unit will probably kill them all and survive. Knights especially.

Don't make peasant armies.
For the same reason as swordmen armies, don't mass peasants because they're pretty worthless. It should go without saying, but i'll say it. DONT.

Don't make crossbowmen armies
They're extremely expensive second only to knights, and they move slow to where they can't skirmish, and if the enemy gets through they'll make short work of them.

5.) Castles and Tearing Them Down! (MUCH IMPROVED!)

On to Building, Attacking, and Defending Castles.

Castle Overview

Castles are a mainstay in the game and are essential to any strategy you do. Which castle you build will be dependent on stages of the game, strategic value (more on that later), and resources and manpower. The best castle will be the most expensive and time consuming to make, but often you can do well with a lesser castle so long as you NEVER AUTOCALC the battle.

When building a castle you get 100 or 200 archers automatically (100 for anything under keep) and free of charge. This is VERY HELPFUL, and is why building a castle when you conquer a county is so important, other than the increased defensibility and the tax revenue (SUPER IMPORTANT!).
Any cheap @55 can build a palisade and be dandy with that 50% boost, so no excuses not to pretty well from day one.

Basic rundown from the Fandom WIKI

Wooden Palisade - Requires 40 Stone, 400 Wood to build. By far the weakest castle; easily breached. This is the first of two primarily wooden castles. Grants a 50% boost to tax revenues.
(1 OIL POT)
(200 men to build)

Motte & Bailey - Requires 80 Stone, 800 Wood to build. The most common castle erected by computer controlled opponents, this castle is the second wooden castle and while easier to defend than the wood palisade, still a fairly weak castle. Grants a 75% boost to tax revenues.
(2 OIL POTS)
(400 men to build)

Norman Keep - Requires 1000 Stone, 200 Wood to build. The middle of the road castle, not very weak, but not very strong either. The Norman Keep is the first of three stone castle types, and is a fairly common castle type used by the AI. Grants a 100% boost to tax revenues.
(3 OIL POTS)
(800 men to build)

Stone Castle - Requires 2000 Stone, 400 Wood to build. This is the second strongest castle available. Grants a 125% boost to tax revenues.
(4 OIL POTS)
(1500 men to build)

Royal Castle - Requires 3000 Stone, 800 Wood. This is the strongest castle available. Once erected, this castle is not easily breached at all and is a very secure defense. Grants a 150% boost to tax revenues.
(6 OIL POTS)
(2500 men to build)

Obviously, the bigger the better... not listed is how long it takes men to build these castles, and the build time can be considerable. With an economy of 1600 people with 400 people devoted to labor, it would take a royal castle about 7 seasons to build. that's a lot of people, a lot of time.

Siege Weapons and Sieges

When Laying siege, consider a few things before leading your merry band down to the enemy and expecting them to shake in their boots:
The type of castle changes the strategy
The amount of enemy troops and types change strategy
Your men are vulnerable to counter-attack by the army being besieged sallying forth, or a relief force.
Other passing troops from other lords may incidentally bump into your army on their way to someone else, and they seem to always attack no matter what.
Units on walls or siege towers take less damage from ranged
Units cannot fire through walls to get to other units, works both ways.
Hovels catch fire when touched, and if your troops step through it it's like stepping in oil pot flames.

Siege units take 200 persons 1 season or so to build, except for towers. Important to note because time is of the essence when trying to capture a castle before getting interrupted with a nasty surprise.

The short version that fits all the essentials is this:

Every Castle besides Royal:

Battering rams. Battering rams. Battering rams. 100% of the time, they work, if you have at least two you shouldn't ever run into an issue breaching a gate, and your men can still bash it down themselves if necessary, but it's not advisable.

Run peasants in front of oil if you can ( i know, kind of gross) or cheap units like macemen or pikemen, and if you can, "KITE" the oil. Run, then when they spill it, run out. Preferably with one un it.
NOTE:
The AI wont dump oil for one unit. it has to be like 3-4 units before they'll bother. you can sacrifice a macemen to attack a slow moving oil pot trying to retreat and then run through the flames and come out somewhat unscathed!

Send fast units into the breach once the oil is out of the way to engage troops in combat to greatly increase your odds... Macemen are the best for this, but Knights too if there's no crossbows or pikes to deal with.

Royal:
Fill the moat, bash down the door with a ram, take the courtyard, then do the second door. If you can send knights and macemen to the second door to cut off archer retreats, all the better.

Castle Siege Strategies

Palisade
This is the easiest one, and really doesn't require much strategy at all. There are two ways to do this quickly and at a minimal loss to men:

Battering ram to the door (after kiting oil) and send knights and macemen into the breach and you will take it with minimal casualties. SEND THEM DIRECTLY TO THE FLAG!
OR
Send two towers and do the same thing.
Catapults... i guess you could break a wall, but it takes forever for just one. two or three can make short work of the walls... probably just dont.

Motte And Bailey
Basically two palisades to deal with.
Easiest way?
A tower and a ram - get the men on the walls to cut off units and kill them, and the ram to bash through for the rest, and to take care of the final door.

Catapults.... gosh you sure love catapults! i definitely wouldn't recommend it on this one.

Norman Keep

A more sturdy bailey without the moat. OH, and the Keep can't be scaled with a tower.
Easiest way?
Ram and Tower, same strategy really. Only, the corridor is more narrow and you'll take more casualties. REALLY invest in macemen on this one.

Royal Castle
The Mack daddy of castles... a royal pain in the @55.
This one you need to really prepare for.
All the way around there will be a moat, and it MUST be filled.
The BEST way to do this:

Send pikemen and peasants to fill in the moat, kite the oil, get the ram in there to bash the drawbridge down, and use either Catapults or Siege towers on the sides if you must, even if its just trash units to distract with: You want to try to divide units the AI throws at you and have multiple points of egress.
Once you're in, its much easier to get to the keep and basically, take your men in there to bash your way through the keep in.
The problem is there's plenty of walls and oil pots and you'll have a hell of a time trying to kite oil and kill archers before they run into the keep, and often there will be a LOT of units.
Most of your army honestly should be pikemen, and they'll mostly all die.

This is the one Castle where doing a hail mary isn't the worst option, but still try for rams and towers before catapults.

6.) Diplomacy

Lords are, in general, vicious back stabbers who will break allegiance and attack you regardless of diplomacy if certain conditions are met. These conditions to avoid:

-Becoming too large: if you expand too much and border their domain and you are bigger than them, then they will often attack or break alliances and attack.

-Too small: if you are too small and bordering their domain they may take it as a sign of weakness and attack. (BUT, they're also as likely to try to ally with you if they DON'T see you as a threat). This depends on the Lord.

-They are much larger: in addition to bordering, you can be seperated from them slightly and if they are much bigger they are more likely, though not guaranteed, to attack you.

-They like a lord more than you, or are allied to another lord

-If you are richer and have less armies and weak castles (at least to me)

- if they hate you: they will send small raiding parties to burn your farms, or bigger ones as they get closer and can seize your land. they will not attack if you do not border them with LARGE armies because they cannot take your land.

- if the alliance bears no advantage to them

- if another alliance may be more beneficial

Diplomacy is rather simple: The point is to get them to like you enough to either relent from attacking you or to ally themselves with you. You can do the following:

Send compliment: sends a complementing letter - This works well once or twice, but after that you will need to send Gold. raises relation bar nicely once, and slightly the second time.
For fun type in something nasty and see how their blanket responses come in and laugh at their inability to read!

Dispatch gift : sends a gift of your choosing. this works like the compliment, but it always works, so long as you always send at least 250 gold more or so from your last amount and a minimum of about 250. if you send the less than that it will be taken as a mild slight and your relationship will go down slightly, but they may tolerate a lesser gift ONCE and slightly raise your reputation.

Send insult: this always works for the most part. You cannot be sent to war by insults, but if you repel their raiding party you will expend your one time warning that, while reducing relationship, will never end in war. attack after that and you will cause them to become enemies.

ALLY OPTIONS [b\]

Terminate alliance: you can end an alliance at any time: this is important because if you attack an ally and fail to end the alliance first (even if they run their forces into you to attack you), you will be hated acrossed the board with all lords, and your ally will permanently be your enemy. everyone will be prone to attack you . This is also set off if you try to burn their crops. everyone usually will send out a raiding party if the relationship is not IMMEDIATELY repaired.

Request help : requests aid in repelling an enemy: useful if besieged. usually the ally will request gold and send a small army to help, depending on the lord.

Request attack : requests an enemy to attack another enemy in a specific location. while less prone to do so, the ally will occasionally agree if you send money. certain lords are less prone to do so.

What's the point? [b\]

As you begin the game, you may border another Lord and its best to try to keep kindly and expand away from them. As you start out, you'll get a fair amount of friend requests, and you should always swipe right! unless its the bishop because he's an @55hole. Actually, he's the one lord you probably should make an effort to piss off early in the game... more on that later.

If you can, try to get on good terms with ALL the Lords (except the Bishop), and especially the Countess or the Baron.

7.) Lords - Rewritten and enhanced!

LORDS

In order from the best to the worst reliability. keep one eye open at all times!


Behavior traits explained:

Aggression = How often the enemy will attack and eagerness to fight.
Economy = How carefully they plan food/money.
Defense = How able they are with castles and armies.
Reliabiliy = How likely they are to stab you in the back.

The rating is 1-5 stars based on dominant traits and rankings between them all, and a baseline of function, 1 being inept and 5 being the best.

Rankings

The Baron:
The most friendly and honest AI, the most straightforward, but also the most contemplative and self-sufficient. He's the least likely to reach out, but the most likely to actually be helpful if you maintain a good relationship. His only weakness is his tendency to expand more than defend and he overextends and doesn't build castles.
Aggression: ***
Economy: ****
Defense: **
Reliability: *****

The Countess:
The best overall AI and most balanced. She does sometimes double cross you, sometimes will help and other times not, and is generally the best AI and therefore the worst overall enemy, but she can be a useful ally at times. She has a tendency to balance expansion with defense, she really has no weaknesses.
Aggression: ****
Economy: ****
Defense: ****
Reliability:***

The Knight:
The most aggressive AI and the least balanced. He is so unpredictable between attacking you or fighting for you that it makes him a difficult ally, but given luck and distance he can be a decent ally.
He's sort of a hot headed glass cannon that either gets amazing gains and money or atrophies and implodes with little help. He always seems to piss off other AI so is usually the first one to go down for those reasons.
Aggression: *****
Economy: **
Defense: **
Reliability: **

The Bishop:
The most ruthless AI and the worst friend. He is predictably malicious, will go to any length to win against you, and will always betray you and never help you. It makes him the absolute worst enemy, and the one you want to avoid at all costs. Making him attack you increases his chances of enemies blocking and engaging his armies, reduce his expansion and resources, and ruining his chances of alliances. Best to insult and go to war with no matter where on the map he is, and raid him OFTEN.
Aggression: ***
Economy: ***
Defense: *****
Reliability: *

Aggression in gameplay
When the game begins, assuming no armies or castles or money or weapons are available, and a weak economy is set, the AI will mostly keep to themselves for at least four turns.
The first armies will always be the Knight. He will cobble together a peasant army and send them to try to capture another province... if he succeeds, he can get really big really quick and be a headache, and he prefers macemen and swordman.
The second army will be either the baron or the countess, followed by the bishop in dead last almost always.

In terms of the most deadly armies, usually that's reserved for the Countess, who will have the most even combination of troops, followed by the baron (more peasants), then the knight (who prefers macemen), and the bishop (who prefers pikes and bows)

In terms of who will most likely raid you, this is most likely the bishop unsurprisingly, followed by the knight, then the countess, then at dead last the baron.

In terms of how players behave when they like the player, the bishop is the only enemy more likely to attack the more they like you.

Economy in gameplay
When the game begins, assuming the other conditions previous, all AI will focus on the accumulation of food, repairing land, then taxing wealth, then start to build armies.
The Knight will cobble together armies of peasants which are easily defeated and hamstring himself, making him the worst economist.
The Bishop will wait until his royal castle or keep is built to try to be nasty, and will accumulate through taxes the most money of any other AI. Given a chance, he can be very nasty too, because when you are sieging or captuing counties he will transfer food out, tax 33% or more, and leave you a barren land instead of giving it up nicely.
The Countess is somewhat less unkind to her populace, but can raise a lot of money and an army quickly as well.
The Baron is probably the kindest AI to his populace, and often has a very healthy economy and can host large armies once he gets going. However, hiccups can derail his progress and take him out.

Defense in gameplay

When the game begins, assuming all the previous conditions, the Knight will build palisades or keeps, the Baron and Countess will build motte and baileys and keeps, and as far as i can tell only the Countess tries to start with stone and royal castles, and the Bishop will always hold out for a keep or royal castle - i've never seen any other castle electively built on his lands.
Because of the unit composition as previously stated, the hardest will always be a built up bishop, followed by the countess, baron, and knight.
the knight is the wild card because when flush, he fields the most macemen and swordsmen, potentially making him the strongest. he's also the most predictable.

Reliability in gameplay

When the game begins, assuming all the previous conditions, The first and most likely to try to ally yourself is the Countess, usually if you're doing comparably in terms of money and territory and people. The second is the Bishop, and the third is the Knight (which is very random on his part with no real pattern) The least likely to try to ally you is the Baron.

After they're established, the most likely to break an alliance...
The Bishop will often not, but then raid you so that when you defend him, you break the alliance and piss off the other lords. The most devious. if you see his raiding party coming, unally him immediately... not that you should ever ally him ever.
The Countess will almost always break it off before she attacks you specifically for expansion.
The Knight seems almost random and is just as likely to accept again as to bid you adieu, but it seems the more money you have the less likely this behavior is.
The Baron is the only AI that breaks it off because they no longer need you with no ulterior motives.

If you try to ally them, generally they'll all accept, but in terms of the most helpful allies (attacking your enemies or defending you),
The Knight loves a fight and will almost always accept. Usually needs money though because of his poor choices, but if he's doing well he'll almost certainly accept. A good starter ally.
The Baron will usually accept a request but will also usually charge you on principle. A good general purpose ally.
The Countess is the third most likely but isn't very reliable, but when she does she'll usually do it for free. Potentially the best ally, but potentially the worst enemy too.
The Bishop never, as far as i can tell, will come to your aid, and is easily the most useless ally.

Practical Strategy for alliances
Generally speaking, pick the best lord furthest away from you and like them, and no matter where the bishop is, start instigating stuff, especially if he is your neighbor.
It doesn't hurt to send a single complement to the other lords (except the bishop), and it's free. a second compliment will help a little, then it comes down to bribery.
It doesn't benefit to interact with other lords other than the basic courtesy until they border you.

8.) Odds and Ends

This last chapter is something done as a response to some feedback on subjects I haven't mentioned yet; this is a short wrap up for things that don't necessarily fit into other categories or are better left out of them.

Armies and Transportation

You can create armies with nothing but peasants and maraud around and terrorize your opponents, which in this game nearly constitutes cheating. I would recommend you DON'T, but who listens to the guide anyway XD?

Basically you can make an army with as few as 50 people and move through the map, raizing hovels, shops, and farms - killing peasants, destroying labor, and destroying livestock and crops. This is a good way to have retaliatory parties sent your way, which at best are annoying, and at worse can ruin your game.
But if managed well, you can decimate literally any opponent in the game in a few turns and change the tide of a war. Economic warfare, like in real life, works very well.
However, this is a low and unknightly way to deal with opponents and may ruin your gameplay experience.

In addition, you can merge armies up to a certain limit (i believe it's 2000 units but cannot remember right this moment) but will cut down your movement points.
You can also split an army so long as there are movement points remaining and the unit you create is at least 50 units. You can also disband an army, which returns the weapons to your armory and surges your populace wherever that province is.

This can be used to quickly populate a underpopulated county you own by moving a peasant army over and disbanding it in the province in question. If i recall correctly, if you disband an army in a neutral or opposing province that province still gets the villagers, which could be a subtle economic warfare as well.

Each army gets 15 movement points per turn. Movement on:
-Road is 1 point
-Grass is 2
-Enemy Fields, Hovels, and Workshops are 2, but take (i believe) 2-3 movement points to destroy as well.
-Woods, Water, and Mountains are impassable. Also, you will be forced to go around all keeps, and all production buildings of yours.

Auto Calc (you lazy butthead!

My suggestion, read this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2922755305

So, if you vastly outnumber the enemy, or if it's like an all knight army, chances are autocalc will be useful for anything that is a foregone conclusion. Sometimes, you can cheese the system and take a castle with a bunch of knights when you really shouldn't have.
Sometimes your archer army will just absolutely smash a small town and it's pointless to bother fighting.
Or, you can grow a beard and be a man and fight to the last man and accept your royal responsibilities!

You decide what's best for you, but i prefer to not autocalc battles because it's cheesy, skewed, heavily unbalanced, and decidedly unknightly.

[Sir Edward]

did a reread and cleaned up most of the guide for legibility and typos.

[Sir Edward]

Rewrote Lords section with more practical analysis and observations, and is much more readable now.

[Baltimoron]

Legend, thank you.

[Sir Edward]

Castles was atrocious, and i rewrote it entirely with gameplay tests and feedback (thanks oilpot people and siege people) and went through all the castles and tried to siege them with various methods and i feel like it's much better and more thought out this time around.

Armies now has a much more practical explanation and includes wage information. infinitely better and now the longest chapter.

Diplomacy I did touch up a bit with practical observations.

Lords i added more practical advice and gameplay observations that makes things better.

Hope it helps!

[Sir Edward]

I've done a overhaul on everything and checked my numbers and strategies, and it's all currently waiting to be reviewed for "malicious links". Some things i've done:

General Concepts now has a very simple point by point guide that summarizes the entire document.

Farming and Food NOW is much more streamlined, and addresses the labor penalty mechanic of advanced farming. It should be much more accurate as well.

Taxing and Money also includes Happiness and Health information which is important and related to money, and i never really addressed the minutia of how happy and healthy peasants make more money and how to fix it, and overall just really good information on how to manage your provinces better, including practical tips and gameplay analysis.

[Sir Edward]

I've started to try to clean this up, and i've rewritten the general concepts with a basic overview of my advice in this guide: hopefully its less hair brained and helpful!

[Sir Edward]

I appreciate the feedback and im glad you liked it! I really REALLY need to update this, clean it up. i rant in places.
I feel bad, i've been super busy, but all this feedback will definitely be in the new one.

autocalc is definitely skewed to knights and crossbowmen and pikemen, so good for you on discovering that!

[Mojayz]

[part 3]

5. If you can, build your armies in the fall, as your high population counties drop in the winter anyway. Counties around 1200 population will continue to grow through the winter, while those around 1500-1700 will consistently drop down. In effect, you will be saving on manpower, and maintain high production and taxes year round.

These strats got me through the "impossible" difficulty level and made it feel easy

[Mojayz]

[part 2]

3 Archer abuse gets old quick, so when I discovered an autocalc guide on the Lords2 discord server, my eyes were opened and I was converted to the way of PURE KNIGHT AUTOCALC ONLY GAMEPLAY lol. This method involves producing TONS of iron if you have it (obviously. If you DON'T have iron, quarry STONE to SELL so you can BUY iron. If you have neither, you most likely still have wood, so you can make bows, but not for your army; instead sell the bows to, you guessed it, BUY MOAR IRON! 100% worth it

4 Tiny tax tip, if you need more money, just save up wheat and occaissonally double rations to get 3% more tax per season while maintaining happiness!

[Mojayz]

May I add a few tips of my own? [part 1]

1 You can win fielded battles against huge enemy forces if you have archers with a few pikemen defending them. By turning the gamespeed down to 1, you can easily micromanage which individual enemies your troops target and focus fire to quickly consume enemy forces

2 Similarly, you can abuse ANY battle where the enemy waits for you with little to NO losses very easily. This works for sieges as well, even ROYAL castles. Let me explain: since archers have a 1 "screen-length" of range, you can abuse this mechanic by placing them one "block" away from shooting enemy archers, then order them forward 1 "block", fire off 2 volleys, then retreat out of range by 1 "block" again all before the enemy's arrows hit you. Using this process you can destroy ANY castle for FREE (if you have the patience for it) and DECIMATE any opposing armies that rely on ranged units