How To Deal With Factions That Become Too Strong

This bootleg Sun Tzu brings you some advice on how to deal with factions that become too powerful.

So you wanna take down an empire, uh?

Many have noted that in its current state, the game tends to create a ‘snowball effect’ in which a faction becomes much more powerful than the others, creating a superpower that’s difficult to handle once you have progressed and have your own kingdom.

I have managed to somewhat counter this, so this is a short guide on how to do it. You can call it an 'Advanced Course In Guerrilla Tactics And The Assymetric Warfare'. Or you can call it a bunch of things that worked for me and that I was bored enough to write into a list. That's up to you.

I am going to suppose that you already have your own kingdom and control a couple of settlements. If you are not there yet, well, form your kingdom, get a couple settlements, and come back here when you've done that.

Make Some Preparations

This is likely going to be a long war of exhaustion, so you should get your stuff in order before it begins. You are not likely to have time to spare when a huge, angry army is chasing you.

You should pick a couple of cities to be the core of this operation. While you are going to (mostly) let the enemy conquer whatever they want, you should try to have at least a city that’s well protected, to rest, regroup, and, if needed, to take troops from.

The enemy is not going to target only your newest acquisitions. This means that you need to leave large garrisons at the start of the war in the places that you don’t want the enemy to take. You can also play with that factor, in the sense that usually they will not attack your best defended spots, so you can sort of decide where they will attack you by leaving certain places undefended. This will lure their armies to those undefended places, and they will leave the important, strategic places alone for you to take/for them not to take.

Starting The War

Obviously, you are going to have to go to war with the Big Boi. As of now, the Declare War option is not activated yet, so you will have to raid a village to start the war. If you want to summon an army for this war, be aware that raiding the village will take 200 influence points, so you may want to form the army BEFORE raiding anything, because you will not be able to do so if you have negative influence.
The important thing here is where to start the war.

You should raid a village that is:

-Close to a castle/city with a small garrison. You are going to besiege said castle/city next.

-As close to your kingdom as possible. You don’t want your kingdom to be too disperse. Don't create your kingdom smack dab in the middle of the huge, invincible empire, though. Ideally, your main cities should be as close to the Big Faction as possible without having a border with them.

-Not in the border between the Big Faction and another one, in case they go to war and open another front for the Big Faction that may benefit you.

Attack The Weak And Avoid The Strong (Duh)

You shouldn’t avoid ALL contact with the enemy, just the big, fat armies. If you find a lone party that you can handle without much casualties, go for it, and, crucially, CAPTURE THE LORD. This has been a useful tactic in M&B forever, and also now; the enemy is not going to have a lot of troops if there is no one to command them.

EDIT: So, I don't know if this is a bug for some people, or if it's MY game that's bugged and doesn't let prisoners escape so often. But if you capture lords and they escape too easily, here's a mod to fix that: https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/134

You should try to keep an army with as many higher tier units as possible. This way, even when you have a numerical disadvantage you can take down enemy parties. Before attacking a party, think how much of your army you are going to lose in that battle. If you are not going to lose more that 10-15% of your soldiers, go for it. You can replace what you've lost with recruits, and that's not going to cost you much in terms of army performance as long as they are a small minority of the troops.

Fly Like A Butterfly, Sting Like A Bee

Cities and castles that have been recently conquered won’t have strong garrisons. You can conquer those easily. Whenever you do that, loot the thing and wait close, but not inside. Two things can happen then:

-If a big army appears to reconquer it, get the hell out of there and besiege another city/castle. This will either make the big army move to you, leaving the recently conquered spot alone and developing its militia, or leave you enough time to conquer this other place without much difficulty.

-If a lone party tries to besiege the fortress, face them in the open field and capture the lord.


Remember, you are not as interested in keeping your acquisitions as you are in weakening the armies of your enemy. Most of the stuff you siege is going to be taken again, but in the process, the enemy is losing troops, and getting their lords captured.

On a later stage, when the shortage of troops begins to kick in for the enemy, you can start to choose what to keep. Expand your kingdom in a logical fashion. Try to keep it unified, and reinforce the garrisons radially. Your final goal is conquering all of Calradia after all, so start thinking about that too at some point.

Reinforce The Other Factions

At first, leave the border areas of the Big Faction alone until they go to war with another faction. When that happens:

-Go to war with the smaller faction too.

-Conquer the castles/cities on the border between the two kingdoms.

-Leave them unprotected so either:

a) The Big Faction comes to recover them, moving their armies away from other place, opening
a window for you to attack them elsewhere.

b) The smaller faction gets them and becomes stronger. You are at war with them too, but the
Big Faction will have a stronger enemy to worry about, and your main objective is to weaken
them.


It also could happen that when the Big faction goes to war with another one, they simply mop the floor with them. This is not that bad. When they conquer new places, they will be less protected, so you can target them for your “Besiege, loot, run” strategy.

Bonus: Make The Enemy Clans Treason Their Faction

A more direct way to weaken the Big Faction is to go directly to their lords, and trying to convince them to join your kingdom. This is made by choosing conversation options, the same way you do when you are trying to marry (which means you can save and reload until you are successful). Also, when a clan joins your faction, they bring with them whatever fiefs they had, so you are growing your kingdom at the direct expense of the Big Faction. Be careful with this though. When you start to have different clans in your kingdom, you need to take political decisions more carefully if you don't want to alienate them. Not good to have your allies hate your guts.



Hope any of this helped. Suggestions are welcomed.

[Morazain]

A thing I do wonder is what would happen if you convince a rebel clan that took a city from a conqueror kingdom before the kingdom comes to reclaim join your side. I am currently looking at several clans that have joined some of the kingdoms that looks like clans that were once rebels

[Smurf∞¸.•'¯)]

u need clan to help u fight war execut clan wont help u win in long run

[Silverado Legion]

Walsingham, so execute them

[Aspire]

This is a well designed campaign with good steps for identifying the need for a safe haven, imposing battles on your terms, while refusing battles on their terms.

Critical to this is a high mobility and awareness of canalizing terrain (particularly in the Northern Empire and Sturgia, which limit your ability to evade the enemy).

[Walsingham]

Update: the mod mentioned is broken. Lords escape constantly. You know, like they did in history. It's not like accepting parole literally means you promise not to escape. Hence this strategy will not work.

[Humongous Chungus Among Us]

I like to declare war by stopping villagers and initiating a fight, but then leaving before we enter the field. This way it costs nothing and you don't have to raid a village you might be owning shortly if you siege successfully.

[EmotionallyBroken]

Quite impressive

Though basically its all irrelevant in the scope of this game , its purely about how many lords you command (How many troops you have and how fast they replenish vs how many troops the enemy has and how fast they replenish.) Ive wiped out entire armies, and by the time my wounded have healed from a single battle, theres already another army 2 or 3 times my size ready to besiege again, all because they have more lords. Taking land is only relevant for short term income.

So work up your smithing, sell your weapons for tens of thousands of income, and bribing the enemy lords to defect. Thats basically it in the scope of this game. =\

[Walsingham]

Sounds like good advice. I struggle with the bastards escaping custody.

[TOBI]

you cant

-sun tzu

[Claustrophobic Turtle]

I want the mod that fixes easily escaping lords to work