How To Operate a Kingdom (Native)

This guide is made to tell my favorite way to operate a kingdom in NATIVE Warband. I'll go over Early, Middle, and Late stages of Kingdom management and ways to optimize your kingdom for best results!

Before You Start

Life in Calradia can be short and brutal, and the difference between a successful kingdom and a failure can sometimes be a matter of timing and planning!

What You Need!
>750 renown
You can conquer the map with very little renown. But in order to have lords respect you and follow you, you should have at least 750 renown. Some lords will not follow players with less renown than them, and at 750, you should outrank most lords in the game.
>Money
You can work money in two ways.
1.) You start with a large sum
2.) You have investments that can make you money every week.
or (preferably)
3.) A mix of 1 and 2. You should have a large sum in your coffers and investments all around Calradia.
>Right To Rule
You'll need at least some RTR to start a kingdom and not be locked into "forever-wars" with the AI. If you have at least 50 you'll be sailing smoothly. RTR is also helpful convincing some lords to join your cause!
>Some friends
Whether your character is a hero or an a**hole, it never hurts to have friends. You should have a handful of lords who have very good relations with your character. They will form the core of your kingdom later down the line.
>An Army
Duh.

What To Look For
>Location, Location, Location
My favorite way to start a kingdom is to look for an isolated area of the map that can be defended relatively easily. I usually elect to start in the Wercheg-Rivacheg area because it is separated by a river with only a few ways into the territory.
[Drawback]
The castle/town you want to siege might still be fully garrisoned, as many of those isolated areas are towards the back of the kingdoms and less likely to be attacked until much later in the game.

>Weak Settlements
If you're going to use this strategy, I would suggest waiting for a town rather than a castle. The premise of this strategy is to wait for two factions to be at war. One side or the other will siege a town (or castle if you're into that) and take over the settlement. The garrison that is left behind is always pretty small and usually very ill-equipped. Easy pickings for you and your upstart crew.
[Drawback]
Both factions might be mad at you and declare war on you. Good luck defending that ;)

Early Kingdom

Okay, congratulations! You've managed to capture a settlement! Good for you! This section will give you some ideas how to take care of your fledgling empire.

Recruit!
You will need to recruit as much as possible to dump troops into your garrison. Usually I dump most of my army into the garrison to free up space, then I go to the surrounding villages and get what I can. I dump those suckers into the garrison then head to the tavern to find some mercenaries. I stick the mercenaries in the garrison as well. You'll likely only get about 20 or so men, but hey we all start somewhere. You will need to recruit troops as often as you can and stick them in your garrison.

>Garrisoning Your Settlement
You just need as many troops as possible. Doesn't matter what faction, just start stacking bodies. They also don't need to be particularly high tier. A garrison of 550 nord footman will scare away most armies due to size alone.

Expand
You can elect to just sit back in your castle and defend against waves of enemy lords. I have found that to be an extreme waste of time, men, and resources. Instead, you should be trying to take over other settlements as well. You won't keep all of them, but it will distract your enemies long enough for you to put together some sort of adequate garrison in your main settlement.

It doesn't even matter if the settlements are close! You should have one "core" area that you would like to start off with. Don't be greedy! It will be nearly impossible to keep most of your conquests in this stage. Once you have your core set, go off and raid villages and capture weak settlements all along your target kingdom. The lords will not know how to respond to your blitz attack.

If your main settlements come under siege, just try to rush back and defend.

Lords
Hopefully by now you've fought your way into a tiny kingdom; a town, couple castles, and maybe a few villages. You might now be attracting lords to your cause! Some will come naturally via defection, and others you might need to convince.
[Defection]
Lords that defect to your nascent kingdom are almost always "bad" lords. They are there to capitalize on an opportunity rather than any real conviction in you or your cause.
[Convincing]
You'll be able to handpick some lords to your cause. You should start with your friends, as they are the most likely to support you. They will make the core of your kingdom and will be the most helpful to you.

Fief Management
["Bad Lords"]
Bad lords are lords who will be upset at not getting fiefs and are extremely jealous. They are general troublemakers with bad personality types.. They are most likely the first lords who will defect to your cause. They are usually not worth keeping around long-term. For your early kingdom, however, they work perfectly. Accept them into your kingdom, but don't give them anything more than a village or two. They will slowly start to hate you and they will eventually leave you, but in the meantime they will defend and patrol your territory and be able to chase away bandits and weaker lords.

[Good Lords]
These are the lords with good personality traits (I count martial in this "good" category too). They will not necessarily get jealous about fiefs, but overruling them may upset some of the lords.These are the lords that are worth keeping around long-term and they should be the only ones receiving fiefs. You will likely only attract one or two good lords in the early stages because they tend to be the most loyal to their respective kings.

[Notes]---Keep this in mind the rest of your playthrough!
Keep territory available, even if it is just a village. This will encourage lords to join your cause and you don't even have to give them the available settlement.
Give your lords territories that are clumped together! If you give them fiefs on opposite ends of your kingdom, the will have to spend more time travelling to and from their settlements. If you keep their fiefs close together, your lords will be able to effectively defend their given area. The time they would lose travelling to and fro is time they could be spending marching alongside you!


Peace
I would put off making peace until you have a nice core of settlements. The ideal would look like this:

1-2 towns
2-5 castles
And the attached villages, whatever they may be.

At that point, you've made a mini kingdom in its own right. Once you have that, I would go ahead and put down the sword and shield. Don't worry though! You will be back in battle soon enough, but for now you will need to focus on managing your garrisons and lords. You should be giving your lords enough time to build a substantial force (~60) and to reinforce their garrisons. Peacetime is also a good time to dole out fiefs.

Cycling
The best thing to do is just cycle between war and peace as often as your kingdom can keep up with. Remember to let your vassals recuperate, and remember that not every war needs to be one of conquest,, and that attrition is a very real factor in Warband. Taking but not keeping settlements is perfectly fine since it keeps teh garrison weak for a later time when you can capture and hold the fief.

Congrats!
Early Kingdom stage to me ends when you have an entire kingdom's worth of settlements under your control. That meant 3-4 towns and about a dozen castles. Once you're here, congrats! Your're at the middle kingdom stage!

Middle Kingdom Management

So, you finally have a good sized kingdom! Nice.

Lords
Accept fewer "bad" lords. Now that you're more powerful, you should have more luck convincing decent lords to join your cause. If you're truly desperate for numbers, maybe accept a couple.

Fiefs
You should still be keeping one or two settlements available to attract newcomers, but don't leave too may settlements unclaimed. Your lords can use the money! It will grow their army size for every fief they gain.

You should also be concentrating on giving certain lords fiefs. It's nice and all to have a lot of lords, but if they only bring 20-40 poorly trained men to the fight, they aren't worth much. By giving a few lords a lot of fiefs, they will be able to train hundreds of good soldiers and, since they will love you, they will almost always answer to your summons if you are the marshal and they will never defect.

War
You will notice that more kingdoms will declare war on you. In fact, the whole realm may decide to pick on you depending on your location.
Your wars should be on a much wider scale than before. Instead of capturing settlements to distract your enemies, you should now be capturing castles with the intent of keeping them. I have found that the most effective strategy is to siege as many castles and towns as your kingdom's armies can manage. Then you can retreat, lick your wounds, regather your men, and defend against sieges. You won't hold onto every single settlement, but as long as you're making three steps forward, one step back is acceptable too. You just have to make sure you're gaining fiefs.

Congrats!
I consider Middle Kingdom management to be over once you control roughly half the map. By then you should have a lot of lords on your side and plenty of territory to give your lords. Congrats on making it this far! You're almost done!

Late Kingdom Management

War
Same as last section. You will want to take as much territory as possible. You may not be able to keep it all in one war, but at this point you're just trying to batter down your opponents as much as physically possible. If you can absorb an entire kingdom in one war, go for it.

Lords
Finally, you should get rid of your bad lords entirely.Your kingdom should be rich enough and powerful enough to sway most lords into joining your cause. The lords themselves will have moved around enough to where they should also have pretty terrible relations with their lieges. You should snap up all the remaining good lords whenever possible.

You shouldn't turn away lords! You can keep them indefinitely in your court in order to make sure that they won't join the other kingdoms and raid your lands. It's a small detail, but it makes life much easier without 20 or so pesky lords raiding villages everywhere.

Fiefs
Just stock your lords with fiefs. They'll be able to gather huge armies and if you're marhsal they will follow you nearly 100% of the time. Focus on giving your "good" lords fiefs.

[bGrind!][/b]
At this point, all you need to do is slowly grind your enemies down into oblivion. You will most likely be at war with all remaining factions and your kingdom will most likely be in a state of constant warfare. Expect villages to be raided constantly. As long as you keep your lords fat with fiefs, they should be able to easily defend themselves from the steadily weakening attacks of your enemies.

Closing

Endgame
There are only a few castles or towns left. They are absolutely piled with enemy lords that provide insane garrisons. These sieges will be brutal, but have heart! By this point lords' armies will be very raw and not very skilled. While they may have a lot of troops, only the main garrison itself will be any good. Your army of thousands will be able to sweep them away.

If there is a particularly elite garrison, but no lords (maybe they went on campaign) it may even be worth it to autocalc the battle. You will lose more men, but your numbers will be able to carry you to victory over any garrison.

Lords
Go back to your court and get rid of the lords leaching off of you! Keep the goods ones, give them a bit of land to keep them happy, and he rest will go into exile. Keep kicking them out as they defect to your Kingdom. Those dogs had their chance!

Brightfyre AD

House Brightfyre is officially recruiting!

We are a fun, casual Game of Thrones themed chat that is focused on enjoying the Mount and Blade experience. We are fairly new, and we still have many positions to fill!

---Why You Should Join---
>We have a fun and interesting rank structure based on Warband's troop tree system.
>We hold events at least twice a week (we play together very often) on various mods, keeping your time with us fresh and fun.
>Skill/experience isn't so important to us as your ability to be part of a team. HB is a big believer in fighting as a unit rather than relying on individuals to carry the rest. We place a large emphasis on teamwork.
>You may have the opportunity to found your own house and make a name for yourself!

---What You Should Know---
>We are mostly NA, with some EU players
>You must have a Mic and Discord
>If you are already in a clan no worries! We are now accepting mercs!
>We play Osiris, NW, AZW, Native (with other mods on the side)
>We play a variety of mods to keep things interesting!

I hope to see you guys.
https://discord.gg/MwzPNUF

[Shiroyasha]

Sounds like a pretty fun way to do this. The way I like to do it is to only allow my companions as Lords, I start with the noble ones and only expand into the commoner ones if absolutely necessary

[Nimplex]

thx a lot your guide helped a lot! :)
btw "damn my wife" when te marriage sequence showed my relation with my wife decreased from 23 to 15 :D <-- real life situation (?) :D
still cant find her... maybe i missed sth :D

[Svenald Ruriksson]

@Nimplex Your wife should be in whatever settlement you first captured. No lords will join you for a while until you advance a little farther. Hopefully you've spent a good amount of effort making friends! You should focus on convincing them first. If not, you're going to be alone for a while, but for that you can just read through the Early Kingdom part of the guide!

[Nimplex]

ok i "made" my own kingdom... but no lord or whatever will join me... also i married... but what now? i cant see "my wife" anywhere etc?

[platypus]

Once took Praven with a handful of Nords because Swadia was being hammered by everyone else. Ended up at war with the entire map, constantly being sieged and forced to rely on a quantity over quality approach using massed recruits in the garrison to try and discourage attacks. Managed to actually win a few siege defences. Eventually lost Praven and ended up skulking about Calradia for a while with everyone actively gunning for me.

I tried to write out the full story but it wouldn't fit in the 1000 character limit so I'm summarising.

[snipeR McMaster]

interesting...it was fun to read...I always had problems with deciding with lord is good and witch is bad..

[Typhoon]

This is very helpful, i'll remember these when i wish to defect my own kingdom!

[lolcat1245]

Good guide!