A Guide to Success

This guide is primarily designed for someone who is absolutely clueless walking into this game. But, that doesn't mean people already familiar with the game won't benefit either. This guide will also benefit people during the mid-game when complexities build and you need to get your life back on track.

I sunk probably a thousand hours in the first Knights of Honor back around 2010 before I had life. Hearing about KoH2 made me so happy, and I'm glad the developers have kept a lot of the feel and made improvements since the first game. KoH 2 is a robust game with many diplomatic and management strategies. Growing your small province into a giant empire is not difficult, but it can also go incredibly wrong if you don't mitigate the risks. This guide will discuss the essentials to get your empire to grow and sustain it.

One disclaimer I should mention is that this guide will not go in-depth with the live battle system. I will talk about attacking, defending, how to siege castles and conquering them, but without live battles. There are already fantastic guides out there and I'd hate just to replicate that work.

This guide is currently in progress. Please be patient as I keep writing.

Before you Start

I generally start with a random province because I like to build a large empire from nothing. Some people may find this more difficult because you have very little resources to start with. Whatever your choice is, that's fine. If you're following this guide while playing the game, I would recommend pausing it. You don't have to, but whatever. Your life.

Diplomacy

Before I do anything else, I review any agreements I have with other nations by clicking "Stances" on the bottom-right (LeftShift + S)



This will bring up a map like the one below.



You can see the small nation of Connaught has a golden tint. This means that we have a trade agreement with them. I don't expect you to memorize what all the colors are. Why? Because clicking on their borders will tell you everything you need to know.



This game is well-designed from a UI perspective, so you can simply highlight your mouse over anything to explain what it means. If I highlight over the little gold coin pouch, you can see it means we have a trade agreement with them, which is what the gold color represents on the map.



From the map above, we can see they're the only ones we have a trade agreement with. It should be noted that any nations with a red color means you're at war with them. At this point, Connaught is the most important relations in my life. I need income to run an empire, and without a trade partner, I have to rely on taxation.

The next thing I want to review is my relations by clicking the shaking hands icon in the bottom-right (LeftShift + D)



Anyone in green means we have a good relationship with them. Anyone in red means we're in a bad relationship. These colors become more deeper depending on the feelings. A slight green means it's lightly favorable, whereas a deep green means they're basically besties. The neutral color means it's neutral.



You can find out other nation relationships too by clicking within their borders. I have a good relationship with English, but who do they have a good relationship with?



Knowing how your relationships and their relationships are can affect who you focus your efforts on. England is much larger than myself, so I probably want to improve my relationship with them for support in war and trade. They do not like Connaught. Could I convince England into helping me fight a war so I can get that territory in my first expansion? But, Connaught is also my only trade partner. Do I trade with them now and earn gold to grow my empire? Do I focus on my relationship with England and enter a trade partnership with them? Can I convince Connaught to fight England with me and take over? These questions are why this game is one of my favorites, because relationships grow and burn like fire. Every decision you make can equally benefit and harm you.

There are other buttons on the bottom-right, but I'll get to those later.

Resources

Trade is fundamental to growing your empire and building relationships in this game. But, if you nothing good to offer, then you have nothing good to gain. You must understand what resources you have (or don't have). Click the little mountain icon at the bottom-right (LeftShift + V):



Again, I don't expect you memorize these resources so just hover your mouse over them for an explanation:



I really lucked out on this game as I have several natural resources to use to my advantage. It will be very expensive to get them all, but having more than one really helps with trade partnerships. In my previous game, I had zero. Since we're in the early game, I will shoot for the cheapest resource.

Now that I understand your situation, we can begin the game.

Early Economy and Construction

We can begin the game now that we've been introduced to the world around us and our involved in this space. We have a place in space.

We'll need to get some things going, however:

• Establish a resemblance of an economy
  
• Get a military for defending our kingdom and attacking others
  
• Playing the game of thrones
  
• Holding our people hostage in order

Before we can do any of this, we need an economy and some buildings.

Mercantilism

Gold runs the world. It has for thousands of years and probably always will, but more specifically, in this game. If you have a keen eye on the previous section, you saw that my first king was actually a merchant. Even if he wasn't, my first priority is a merchant.



To do so, simply click one of the gray squares at the top - this is called your Royal Court, by the way - and click "Hire Merchant" (the icon with the money bag, obviously).



Next, click your new court member and select the icon that looks like a bag being handed to another person. This is called "Trade with Kingdom". Since I only have one option, Connaught, I will select them and click "OK".



Back up a second: What if I don't have a trade agreement? Honestly, I don't believe it is possible to start a game without one. But, let's assume this happens. First, look at your relationships and find a kingdom with favorable feels. Click on them, then click "Audience" button at the bottom.



Click "Offer"



Then click "Trade agreement". I bet 25 steam points they reject me, but again, this is a hypothetical scenario.



The idiot actually accepted.



But, let's, again hypothetically, say they don't. Then, I would keep doing this until I eventually got an agreement signed. It may take years, but you can move forward without one for now too. Just circle back to it before it's too late. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming that was written before I wrote the hypothetical scenario above.

Now, I know I mentioned in the previous section that I was contemplating wiping Connaught off the face of the earth, which I still am, but I need to get my economy moving. I wanted to point out something here, though. Did you notice the little coin pouch icon next to the Cost?



That icon appears at the top-right too. It's called Commerce.



Commerce can be expanded by the resources and buildings you have. What you need to know right now is that you cannot go over your limit. My limit right now is 26. So, 26 (starting) - 10 (trade) = 16. I still have 16 commerce that I can utilize.

It's worth mentioning that your trade can also expand too. As in, your merchant can find ways to grow as a merchant. Imagine a merchant trading goods and then opening a Walmart. Then, multiple Walmarts. When they do this, they bring in more gold, but they also utilize more commerce. Keep this in mind before deploying a bunch of merchants.

If you had a quick eye, you'll also notice my current gold income is +47.



Now this all depends on game speed and what not. To be honest, I'm not even sure on the timing, but if I had to put it in simple terms: I get +47 gold each "turn". I think it correlates to years, but anyways, +47 is fairly good at the start of a game. The reason is simply because I have no maintenance - no army and no buildings.

My merchant is now on their way to establish a trade route with Connaught. You can see how long it will take by the progress bar beneath him.



Once trade is established, you can see the impact. Simply click your Royal Treasury at the top-right (the gold icon), and you'll see your finances:


ca
Now, I'm pulling in the riches!

Buildings

Remember the resources I evaluated a bit ago? If you didn't, here's your reminder, but now it's time to extract them. To do this, click on your municipality (Dublin, in my case) and then select the giant "+" box on the bottom-left.



Now, please refer to the following image where I have sections labeled as "A" , "B", and "C" for the sake of clarity.



Groups A and B are available in every province. These are not unique buildings. Group A cannot be built until, most of the time, the related Group B building is built. Group B are what I consider fundamental to running your kingdom. You do not need all Group B buildings in every province, but you will need all of them in your kingdom to succeed.

Just a quick definition of terms:

• Kingdom - Everything under your domain
  
• Province - A single territory of your Kingdom. In this scenario, it''s Leinster
  
• Municipality - The central government of the province. In this scenario, it's Dublin

Group C is unique to that land. Remember when I pointed out my resources? These are how to extract them. Some of them have prerequisites. Look at Silver Smelting, for example:



I don't have any Metalworking or Market Squares. In fact, I don't have anything. So, I can't extract this resource yet. Sheepfarming, however, well that requires only 420 gold.



Clicking "Build" is an obvious choice.



On the far-right side of the screen, you'll see the progress of that building. The little hammer icon you saw previously, by the way, is how much construction it takes. Basically, the higher the number, the longer it takes to build.



I should point out that you can build quicker too. Remember the other Group C buildings I had? One of them was Metalworking. Metalworking adds +2 construction.



And, oh, look! Adds +3 commerce too!

Now, that I have two buildings in progress and-



- wait, what's this? They're building upgrades! Simply click the building you want to upgrade like Sheepfarming:



If I select Spinning Mills, for example, I can earn +2 commerce and +2 happiness in that town. If I choose Butchers instead...



You'll see I earn new Goods: Meat. Goods are what bring in trade partners. Everyone is trying to get all goods for their kingdoms, so they'll open up trade opportunities to acquire something you have and they don't. Oh, and by the way, the building upgrades carry across the whole kingdom. If I build Sheepfarming in another province, those same upgrades will apply to it.

Defense

One of the most fundamental pieces to keeping your first province intact is defense at your castle. While you may want to focus on launching a strong economy at the beginning, it'd be all for naught if another kingdom or a rebel attack your municipality and you have nothing to defend it with.

Town Garrisons

Each municipality has the capable to defend itself in some way. This makes siege assaults very difficult. Thankfully, you can make it difficult for others. To do this, let's fortify our squads by clicking on your municipality and then the little knight icon on the bottom of your screen to the right of the buildings:



Right now, my only option are peasants, the worst fighters in the game. To be frank: something is better than nothing.



A few things to keep in mind: You can always remove peasants and replace them with another unit later once you can build them. If your province already has a Barracks, then you can already build more advanced units and should do so.

Before you buy, look at the little icons:



On the left side you will notice they cost 20 Food (represented by the wheat icon), and 3 works (represented by the person). The food comes from your municipality storage, when you can view at the bottom of your screen. Mine is 400/400 at the moment.

Workers are visible on the main map underneath the municipality name.



I currently have 10 workers out of a maximum of 10, which you can see once you click on your municipality and highlight over the Workers icon. You can grow the maximum number of workers through certain buildings like Housing (from Group B). They slowly replenish over time, which can also be increased through buildings or governors (covered later).



Going back to our fortification, simply click on the Peasants (or other option if you have it) and they'll be added.



Now, you will notice that I ran out of available workers, but I have plenty of food.



Remember earlier when I was purchasing the Peasants and there was an arrow on the right pointing to Upkeep? Friendly reminder, it was 1 Food upkeep for each peasant. I bought 3 peasants, so it requires a total of 3 upkeep.

If you go to the top-right and hover over your Food income (represented by the wheat icon), you'll see what your current balance is:



My total food production is +9, and the garrisoned troops require 3 upkeep. My balance is +6.

It's important to keep your food upkeep positive. Unlike gold, books, and religion, this does not accumulate. It will remain +6 unless I produce or import more food, or I spend more on troops. If you go negative, it can lead to poor morale with troops and potentially cause riots.

Over time, fill your town garrison with troops. Since this is also my only province, I want to make sure it can withhold sieges or else it's game over if I lose it. To do so, simply click on the Town Fortifications:



Then, click "Yes" like any sane person would do at this time.

Military and Kingdoms

Military

Defending your municipality is one thing, but what about defending villages, farms, mines, temples, or attacking? That's where hiring a Marshal comes into play.

First, click on an empty Royal Court spot, then select Marshal, represented by the swords:



Next, select your municipality then click "OK"



You can control this Marshal by clicking them on the map, then right-clicking a location for them to go.



You'll notice the same icon in the Town Fortification for Marshals. This is how many troops they can manage.



To fill up those troops, simply right-click your municipality again to bring them there.



Now, you'll notice that when you click on your municipality, the right-side of your screen has changed.



Marked by Groups A and B (real original, I know), you'll be able to hire troops to that marshal by clicking the empty unit in Group A, or hire troops to the municipality garrison by clicking the empty unit in Group B. You can also move units from the marshal to the garrison, or the other way around by dragging and dropping them.

If you're really paying attention, you probably spotted I had two peasant troops instead of three in the above screenshot. Long story short, but while I was writing this section, war was suddenly declared and my town was attacked. I didn't fair very well. In fact, I became a vassal to the Gwynedd region next to England.

Coincidentally, I think this is an excellent time to discuss...

Kingdoms

You already know that a municipality is part of a province, and provinces are part of a kingdom. You can review kingdoms and their municipality by clicking the Kingdoms (LeftShift + A) icon on the bottom-right represented by a crown.



If you look at my kingdom above, you'll notice it is striped. I am a vassal to the striped color, which matches that of Gwynedd just to the east. Other kingdoms also have vassals or are vassals.

A vassal gives a portion (20%) of all income to their owner.



However, since I'm a vassal of Gwynedd, they have a duty to protect me in war too. So, I'm partially paying for protection should they choose to.

Building a Military

My plan didn't go, but regardless I would've taken the same approach to building a military. Since I only have one province, I need to focus one building slot on Barracks.



Having Swordsmiths will unlock light infantry units, which are much stronger than peasants. Building Fletchers will allow me to build archers, and Spearmakers will allow me to build Spearmen.

Mercenaries vs Hiring

Another option is mercenaries. These are traveling marshals with no intent on attacking and purely making themselves available for hire. You can hire all or a few troops. Lucky me that this actually just happened as I wrote the above. Make sure you have your marshal selected and then right-click the mercenary camp that settled.



Once your marshal lands at the mercenary camp, you will be given an exchange screen:



However, they're very pricey! They want to charge me 700 gold to hire them.



Meanwhile, since I built barracks, the same unit costs 200 gold. But, if you're too low on food or workers, then this might be worth it:



Another thing to point out is the kingdom levies. Certain troops cost more levies than another. Levies are kingdom-wide rather than only specific to your province. If you don't have enough levies, you cannot hire more troops.

Rebels

I'm beginning to think the game can read my mind, because while I was finishing up on mercenaries, I got attacked by Rebels (marked by the black/red flag).



They're currently attacking my mine. You can see that my mine earns +3 gold, +2 construction, and +4 commerce for my province. The rebel military strength is 2,150.

To the right, you'll see a little bit of fire under the green bar, which represents the mine. When it reaches the end of that green bar, that mine will be completely demolished. I will lose the gold, construction, and commerce it provides. It takes a long time rebuild these places! Again, construction can be increased through buildings or through certain traits from the governor (covered later).

When I click on the mine, you can see the plunder in progress:



You'll notice on the left side, which represents me, there is a missing marshal. On the right side, you see the rebellion marshal. You'll also see two icons:

• Barrel (95) - army supplies. When this reaches 0, the troops have terrible morale and will fight sloppily or flee easily
  
• Army manpower (2150) - How strong a military is calculated to be

Fighting rebels offer a few benefits:

• They increase the morale of the troops under the marshal
  
• Your troops gain experience, and thus fight better
  
• You can earn gold
  
• Your peasants (or peasants of other kingdoms) praise you more

But, you should only fight if you have a chance. Since my kingdom is so young and I'm limited in every way imaginable, I temporarily moved my peasants from the garrison in Dublin, and purchased a few troops with what workers and gold I had.



Notice my military strength is 2,300, which is greater than 2,150 according to the maths. So, I will select my marshal and right-click on the mine. The battle is drawn:



I'll let this one play out by itself (basically if I clicked Counterattack), but the other option "I'll Lead" is what i mentioned in the beginning of the guide. This is where you manage the battle in a live situation. I'm not going to cover this because there are plenty of great guides.

I want to point out that military strength isn't an exact science. It is a fairly good estimation, but it doesn't necessarily account for things like military morale, marshal skills, troop counterattack, etc. I will briefly cover these:

• Morale - Morale is earned from many factors, some of it is your own marshal. Some of it is being within your own kingdom territory, some of it from crown authority, etc.
  
• Marshall Skills - I swear this is covered soon, but your marshal can earn skills that provide them various bonuses
  
• Troop Counterattack - Spearmen can take down horseman, horseman take down infantry, infantry take down spearmen. This game is about rock-paper-scissors. If you're fighting a kingdom with a lot of horses, get a lot of spearmen.

As you can see below, the difference in military strength increased from 150 to 575 and I have a significant advantage.



Rebels are primarily made of peasants and easy to destroy.

Royal Family, Royal Court, and Character Level

Running a kingdom requires a path of succession and people to manage it.

• The Royal Family includes the King, his Queen, and their children.
  
• The Royal Court contain people who assist managing your kingdom like the marshal and merchant we hired

The Royal Family

The one key component of your family is ensuring you have a queen. The queen will, hopefully, produce children. If one of those children is a boy, they will eventually become prince of your kingdom.

On the bottom-left of your screen, which we've widely ignored, press the crown icon (LeftShift + E). This will open your Royal Family screen



You will notice King Gofraid and Queen Anne. If they had children, they would appear in the empty spots below.

Underneath "Important Relatives", these would be male siblings of your king. Woke disclaimer: don't be offended by lack women power; this is the middle ages. If I had siblings, I could bring them up to the Royal Court.

Let's focus on my king:



He's old. His biological clock is ticking and therefore I am worried that he has no children yet. Just like real life, things happen. Should he die before any children are born, someone in my Royal Court will become king.

If a prince is born, you will receive the following message:



I recommend selecting a position that fits their high stars.

If my king didn't have a queen, then I would use diplomacy to arrange a royal wedding. Most of the time, they'll eventually find a queen. If you can recall the trade agreement screen from my previous section, there is an option to arrange a royal wedding. Be careful when doing this, though. If you take new lands during that marriage, the kingdom you married into can take their claim to those lands.

My king also has a lot of stars for various subjects. These are bonuses for those affiliations (i.e. he'd be great marshal and boost their morale). As always, you can highlight your mouse over these for an explanation:



I have another save managing the Kingdom of Arabia where I have a prince as the designated heir, noted by the crown icon above their head:



When Sultan Zayn passes away, Prince Tahir will take the crown. Though, I could change that. If I look at my other prince:



Prince Usamah looks like a great option. Look at all those stars! I can select him and make him the next Sultan of Arabia.

In any case, my first dynasty with Leicester is probably hosed. So, let's talk about...

The Royal Court

I strongly recommend having one of each position. Because it's so early in the game, there isn't a huge advantage to doing so yet. In my previous playthroughs dating back to the first game, I usually only brought family members into the Royal Court. Why? Because you could accidentally hire a spy from another country, unbeknownst to you, and they could do everything from stealing money to stealing a province.



There is pop-up information if you use your mouseover on each of these explanations, but I'll highlight them:

• Marshal - Fights
  
• Merchant - Does money things
  
• Diplomat - Handles relationships with foreign kingdoms
  
• Cleric - Spreads faith
  
• Spy - Seeks intelligence and does dirty deeds

You can generally survive with one of each. But, for a better kingdom you should have 2-3 merchants and more than one marshal. When your kingdom gets big, you'll need to be prepared to manage your marshals on various front lines of war.

Skillsl

You can upgrade each member of your Royal Court with various skills to help them improve their jobs, and thus their Character Level. These skills can range from increasing their trade in gold, troop morale against rebels, increasing book or religion production, etc.

If I select my merchant, then click the "+" circle:



Each royal court member can have up to five skills. By clicking the circle with a "+" icon, then an empty star, you can add a new skill from a list of options. These options are random for each royal court member.



A new skill costs 200 books, which you can see at the top-right of the screen:



The 3 with a circle notes this merchant's "Character Level". You can also upgrade a skill by simply clicking it. But, it costs more books and more gold. This will increase their Character Level too.

You may have noticed that my merchant is now my king. My king died of old age without a heir, but thankfully my kingdom is still in tact.

Operations and Expansion Planning

The first 15 minutes of the game are a battle of discovering information and learning about your surroundings and launching your kingdom into something glorious. After that? Well, there's a lot of day-to-day operational things you can do. And waiting.

Notifications

You will get a lot of notifications throughout this game. Some of them useful, some of them not. Some notifications you get will tell you how your relationships are impacted by your actions, and some of them will tell you about upcoming opportunities.

I added a new merchant to my royal court and opened up trade with England. When it succeeded, I got a notification, which you open on the left side of your screen.



Sometimes you'll get an offer. Highlight your mouse over the opportunity to learn more about it.



Since my current gold income is low (anything below 500 is considered low, in my opinion), I don't really want to invest in something unless it's a huge impact. I have a small military and zero defense.

I just received an offer to expand trade. It's usually a good idea to do this if you have the commerce strength to do so.



Once successful, my income increases:

Crown Authority

The Crown Authority is a fancy way of saying how your people feel about you.



My people do not like me for multiple reasons. One reason is that I am a vassal to Gwynedd, and I lost that war. You'll also notice a number next to each icon. I won't go into details because you mouseover these, but your actions determine how various guilds feel about you. My merchants (noted by the middle figure with 5), love me because of my trade agreements. The nobility (on the left noted by -4), hate me.

You can increase your crown authority by clicking the Crown icon.



It grows in expense based on your current crown authority level, and the size of your kingdom. Keeping this positive will help prevent rebellions and, potentially, internal conflict. It's expensive, but worth it.

Planning Expansion

Building a military is fundamental to growing your kingdom. Because I was attacked earlier by Gwynedd, I don't want to be a vassal anymore. But, is that alone enough to attack them? Let's look at their land:



They have three resources I do not. This is an obvious choice to me. Before I attack them, though, I should probably understand their strength. For this, I need a bigger army and a spy.

Infiltration

Hiring a spy is easy. Just add them to your royal court if you haven't done so. Before you do anything else, select the kingdom on your map that you plan to spy on. I'll explain why in a second.

Next, select your spy and choose "Infiltrate a Kingdom"



You'll notice that the kingdom you selected is automatically chosen. This helps prevent you from scrolling a giant list of kingdoms. Finally, select that kingdom and "OK".



Hopefully they didn't die while infiltrating. Upon success, you'll have access to new information. In addition, your spy will give you regular reports and opportunities.



From the above, you can see their military strength and a small garrison. Though, you need to understand their full force. The spy can feed you that information too over time.

Because of my vassalage, when I open an audience with Gwynedd, I get an option to Claim Independence. If you're not a vassal, and hopefully you're not, you'll see an option to Declare War.



Now, it's time to march forward and conquer!

Conquering

You have to live with the expectation you're not going to win every battle. How you recover or avoid losing everything is more important than winning each battle. You want to win the war.

Pillaging

Attacking features rather than the municipality is a good option, especially in the beginning of the game for a few reasons:

• You gain resources (i.e. gold, food, etc.) for pillaging a resource
  
• Your troops gain experience for pillaging

There is a downside: should you succeed in taking over the province, the people will be very pissed off at you for pillaging their villages. In addition, those villages will take a long time to recover before they're valuable to you.

To pillage, simply select your marshal and then right-click the village you want to pillage:

Battles

If the kingdom chooses to protect their village, they can stop it from attacking you:



However, you have to think about whether to stand and fight or walk away. Since a majority of their military were peasants, I decided to add another marshal to my royal court and ship them with as many troops as I could purchase. You can have two marshals in battle:



I won the battle, but my troops were demolished. I recommend returning your troops to your municipality after every battle. To this, go to the screen where you can see your troops much like you're hiring them. Next to your troop number, there will be a green plus sign. You can click it, if you have enough gold and workers, then all of your troops will be refilled.



Also notice the barrels on the side. Remember, if this is empty then your army morale will be severely hurt. You can refill the supplies by simply clicking it if you have enough grains stored.

Even if I hadn't won that battle, I gained valuable information: I know the composition of their army is peasants. Remember:

• Anything > peasants
  
• To beat horsemen, use spearmen
  
• To beat spearmen, use infantry
  
• To beat infantry, use horseman

Archers are good on all troops as they help attack from a ranged point. During live battles you'll want to ensure they're protected by the other troops. Remember: Just because an army has a higher military strength score than you, doesn't mean their military is stronger. Though, to be safe, always try to be around that number or more.

Prisoners of War

When you lose a battle, you can end up losing your marshal either as he will either be imprisoned, or he will be killed in battle. Most of the time, the other kingdom will offer a ransom fee (I.e. 1,200 gold) to let go of your marshal. Since they have battle experience, it's usually a good idea to take the ransom. You can also click on your marshal and try to start a riot to escape.

Another option you have, is if your spy is still within their kingdom, one of their actions is "Help our prisoners escape".



However, be aware that your spy can be caught by them. They may end up in prison as well, executed, or discovered. The last option is your best because at least you keep your spy. The downside is that they cannot go back into the kingdom for... well, pretty much ever.

Likewise, you can also have their knights imprisoned. Underneath your Crown Authority, you'll see a little head with gates around them. These are your prisoners:



You have a few options:

• Execute - You can eliminate them completely from the game
  
• Release - Let them be free
  
• Invite to Court - They may be willing to join your kingdom and fight for you
  
• Deal - You can ask that they become rebels on your behalf in another kingdom

Personally, I prefer to make a deal with them any chance I get. That marshal will set up an army of peasants and fight in your enemy's lands while disrupting their military actions. While they probably won't win any meaningful battles, it is possible that they can capture the municipality and put it under your control, especially if the marshal has a high character level.

War through attrition

When I said it's okay to lose battles earlier, I wasn't lying. You will lose battles, and some times a lot, before you get on your feet again. While at war, enemy troops will raid your land and your municipality at times:



While they may have a stronger army now, it doesn't mean they can maintain a stronger army for good. They have to manager resources just like you do. They have gold, food, worker, and levy limitations. If you let them come to you and position yourself right for each battle to have the upper hand, you can win the war.

Art of Siege

Once you've limited their military down enough, you can lay siege by right-clicking on their municipality:



Notice how strong my military has becoming compared to theirs. It's important to note your supplies, because a siege is a battle of supplies more than anything else. You can see this at the bottom of the battle screen:



If your supplies empty before theirs, then it's best to run away. If you think you can knock down 50% of their resilience (the heart icon) OR defenses (noted by castle icon), then you can open assault. If their food supplies hit zero (noted by wheat icon), then you can also open assault. Alternatively, your spy may be able to break open the gates for a small fee.

Taking the province

Taking a province can be very time consuming, and patience is absolutely necessary. If you become inpatient and start attacking other provinces without a marshal to instill law, then you can lose that land to rebels or loyalists.

Your new province will appear striped, meaning that the people haven't gave in to your kingdom yet. In addition, you'll see the fist on fire icon telling you the same.



There is an option to "Establish Order". Look at the percentages:



The percentage is higher depending on how their people feel towards your kingdom. Loyalists to your kingdom are more than likely to give in to your order. Otherwise, keep your marshal in the town and fend off any rebellions. Keep any threats away until the province becomes integrated with your kingdom.

Another option is to utilize a cleric. I haven't talked about clerics and religion much yet, so now is as good as time as any to mention that they can help lift disorder in a town:



Then you select the province you're trying to take over:



In my case above, it's at 54%. It's not a risk I'm willing to take quite yet, so I'll have to wait for the disorder to resolve itself.

Managing Provinces

Taking Ownership of Your First Province

Even though I attacked Caernarfon first, Cardiff was the first province to accept into my kingdom. The first thing I'll want to do is focus on loyalty. I had my cleric, now my king, previously governing Dublin due to some rebels that popped up. I'll need to reassign him:



Then, I'll reassign him to Cardiff:



What you're hoping to achieve is to gain all the workers of the province. These are loyal workers:



If I highlight my mouse over, you'll see that 3 of the potential 5 are rebellious:



When this number reaches 0, you will have full control of the province. See what I mean by it's a slow process?

Province Overview

When you have multiple provinces, the easiest way to manage them all is from the Province Overview screen (LeftShift +Q)



You will be able to view every province you own, and a high-level overview of them.



Yes, I expanded quickly. How? It turns out that rebels in England were really hating their king, and they admired my land. The marshals declared loyalty to my kingdom and took over each province. Eventually, because England was also fighting France, they collapsed completely.

This screen will tell you were your weaknesses are. It will also allow you to quickly view them on the map by double-clicking the name.

In any case, don't be afraid to put a pause on wars because of rebels:



The worst thing you can do is get yourself involved in more battles while loyalists to another kingdom are rampaging your lands. Take advantage of governors to help.

Governors

Governors are built from your Royal Court. Each member of the court can govern a town while offering it benefits. Merchants, for example, will gain additional income from those provinces. Clerics and Diplomats will help with stability.

To assign a governor, simply select your municipality then click on the empty picture by the name:



Then select a member of your royal court. Mouseover each of them to see what benefits they can bring to the province:

[Der Liebe Frankie]

I just ran into a map that seems to have no princesses... it's all princes. That seems like a bug, or a really crazy feature.

Anyways... thanks for the guide. I also played a ton of KOH1, and I wish there was just a simple "here's what changed between the 2 games" list, as most of this guide is like an introduction to the most basic game mechanisms which are pretty easy to understand after playing for a while. I still have a lot of trouble getting a single tiny country off the ground, and it seems that starting conditions can make or break the game, especially when conquering a new city is so difficult.

EDIT: Oh nevermind... I figured out how the filters work so I can see a very small number of kingdoms who have princesses... WOW!

[megabot]

thank you for the guide! so from what I understand only marshals can lead armies? meaning my king cannot recruit an army for himself unless he is a marshal too?

this should help me a lot getting started in the game, because I tried getting into it, got overwhelmed and quit after 20-30 minutes

also, if I say, have sheep and try to get meat from them, that means I cannot get the other resources because I already picked an upgrade meaning that all the other upgrades become unusable, correct?

[satsui]

@seanzie There are a couple of things you can do: You can have someone in your royal court with a skill related to province stability govern it. It's also possible the disorder is caused from a foreign spy, so having a spy perform a witch hunt will help.

The Bolster Culture ability does work, but it's very slow and takes time.

[seanzie]

I appreciate the effort you undertook to make this guide. The picture aids you painstakingly included were particularly helpful!

I keep seeing a recurring theme in these guides though: no one seems to know how to deal with disorder and returning a province to a stable state. The only suggestion I've found thus far is to use the Cleric's "Bolster Culture" ability but that doesn't seem to have much effect if any and it costs a lot of income.

Do you have any suggestions?