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[Blaze]

Really, I don't know how to sustain and train a large army, really.  I can't make a kingdom without conquering, and without an army, I have no hope. 

It's not that hard, but it really depends on your strategy.

I suggest NOT joining/starting a faction at all until you can gain ~10,000 denars. Tax money usually pales in comparison to looting and trading, and war will drain your cash faster than you can earn it. It's only when you're able to take cities that you're really able to reap in the tax money.

Then you'll need a method to build capital, I usually get mine from trading and/or looting bandits then starting businesses in friendly cities. In either method, don't bother spending points in trade or looting, they're better off in leadership since it'll save you money in the long run. If you don't disable companion complaints, you'll have a few "expendable" companions to fill those roles.

Whether to invest in enterprises or not is up to you, but if you plan it right, you can earn your upkeep, starting capital, and much, much more by doing nothing after your businesses start up. If you don't have a mind for numbers, ask the guildmaster for the expected profit range. A profit of around 300+ will pretty much guarantee you won't lose any money there no matter what happens. Of course, a velvet factory in any place but Jelkala is an extra 500+ denars every week if you can afford the 10k starting price tag.

After you've got your starting capital, you'll need to deal with army upkeep. If you were smart and built up leadership, you've dealt with half of the problem. The other half is dealing with recruitment and upgrade costs since you'll have to replace your losses. A companion with high surgery will help a lot. This, of course, also depends on what setting your "troop damage" option is at.

Remember, no matter what you do, you'll never be able to match other kingdoms in terms of armies alone. You'll always lose a war of attrition, since they can replenish their troops much faster than you can; especially on harder difficulties. Persuade enemy lords to join you whenever possible, since that can work to your advantage.

Only fight land battles when necessary or you're sure you can win with few losses. Only travel with as many troops as you need. If you're not going to attack/defend a castle/town or chase off a lord, you can garrison most of your troops and save the upkeep. A companion with pathfinder is helpful for outrunning larger armies.

Finally, dealing with tax inefficiency. If you have too many fiefs (Towns/Castles/Villages), you'll start losing money to TI. I believe the limit is 6 for "Poor" AI difficulty, 4 for "Normal", and 2 for "Good", with 3% tax loss for every fief above that limit. If you depend on money from businesses, that'll also be lost to tax, but doesn't count as a fief. So keep the two best money makers and give the rest to your lords.

Once you have a decent number of lords working for you, your troop costs will decrease to the point where you won't have to worry so much about earning money. Start a campaign and use them as shock troops to eat the losses when sieging.

When fighting a war, remember that a long, protracted war will almost always end with you losing. Strike hard, strike Fast, and you'll usually be able to scare an enemy into suing for peace.

[NRDL]

I have NEVER gotten a fiefdom, never got a business ( I can't seem to find a bloody guildmaster in vanilla M&B ), my max army size has been around 24, and once I get that number, looters never seem to pop up, and the forest bandits are just ridiculous.  Never mind the sea raiders and khergit bandits.  I like the advice on not having too advanced units, yeah, they do become really expensive. 

Please give more army tips, but also, what is your preferred one-on-one weapon?

For me, it's usually just the normal sword ( on higher qualities, maybe a bastard sword if I get the money ) or one-handed sword.  I can't help but fight without a shield ( on manual, directional blocking ) in tournaments and the arena.  Sometimes even in actual battle, but not often. 

I also love warhammers, it's just so fan bashing bandits on foot, too bad they don't actually kill anything. 

[Stworca]

I'll just leave a small tip : Number of enemies is directly connected to your level. THUS : As long as you're running around and gathering gold, but not leveling up, enemies will be a bunch of naked morons with sticks.

[Blaze]

I have NEVER gotten a fiefdom, never got a business ( I can't seem to find a bloody guildmaster in vanilla M&B ), my max army size has been around 24, and once I get that number, looters never seem to pop up, and the forest bandits are just ridiculous.  Never mind the sea raiders and khergit bandits.  I like the advice on not having too advanced units, yeah, they do become really expensive. 

Please give more army tips, but also, what is your preferred one-on-one weapon?

For me, it's usually just the normal sword ( on higher qualities, maybe a bastard sword if I get the money ) or one-handed sword.  I can't help but fight without a shield ( on manual, directional blocking ) in tournaments and the arena.  Sometimes even in actual battle, but not often. 

I also love warhammers, it's just so fan bashing bandits on foot, too bad they don't actually kill anything.

If you're playing vanilla M&B, there are no starting of businesses, so looting and trading are the only way to go.

The looting path is best when fighting sea raiders. Looter are nearly worthless in terms of denars. Forest bandits fire arrows like no tomorrow and aren't worth the effort. Steppe bandits are demonic spiders since they always appear on horses. Mountain bandits have a small chance of starting on horses, but the only worthwhile thing they drop denar-wise are warhammers. (Tundra/Taiga/Desert bandits aren't in Vanilla M&B.)

Sea raiders are quite easy as long as you avoid hand-to-hand combat. Vanilla M&B makes lancing ridiculously easy. A single mail shirt that they drop has a base price of 1,000 denars even without armor modifiers.  Find small bands of sea-raiders and use a horse+lance to take them down. Target the archers first, you can rider circles around the ones with throwing weapons until they run out.

If you want to make money from looters, two words: Prisoner Management. Looters can be sold to Ramun in Tihr's Tavern at a flat 50 denars each. So 20 prisoners is equal to 1,000 denars. Other prisoners can be sold to ransom brokers who pay based on prisoner level(Unless it was different in Vanilla). The problem is that Prisoner Management is a leader skill, which means companions can't help there. There is also the issue that you have to use blunt weapons, but hey: Looters, they're a bunch of naked morons with sticks. Warhammer them to nothing.

My preferred melee set-up while on foot is a shield and military pick (Base cost ~300). While it has a very short reach, damage is boosted by speed - which is higher at the tip of the weapon. This is also important in sieges where you won't have space to swing a longer weapon. It doesn't have as much damage as other weapons, but that's easily dealt with via points in power strike. Plus, it deals piercing damage, which is better against heavy armor. If dealing with lightly armored enemies though, you're probably better off with a weapon with more damage.

Two-handers are fine, but archers will obliterate you on full damage. If you send some shield-bearing troops/cavalry to get the attention of the archers, you're fine with a two-hander so long as you don't bite off more than you can chew.

On horse I want a two-hander, since most other points can be mitigated by movement speed.

Generally speaking, larger numbers of troops are better. One Nord Huscarl has almost as much upkeep as three Nord Warriors. And 3 Nord warriors are are more effective against 6 Swadian footmen than one Huscarl. The advantage is greatly increased in larger numbers i.e. 10 Huscarls = ~30 Warriors, 20 Rhodok Sharpshooters = 50 Rhodok Trained Crossbowman, etc.

The problem is the other things besides wages you'll need to pay attention to: party limits, food costs, slower travel, etc. But in battle more troops are generally better. Though there is a limit to how far you want to leave your troops unupgraded. 60 recruits are diddly squat compared to 20 footmen. Troop strength is gauged primarily by equipment, so for the greatest effect, get them up to metal armor and decent weaponry. When it comes to ranged troops, archers lose more when downgraded compared to crossbowmen. Bows depend greatly on power draw whereas crossbows have a set amount of damage. On the other hand, having more archers means they can fire more arrows; which is better when fighting enemies with light armor.

[NRDL]

Fighting sea raiders is tough, their throwing axes and javelins keep getting to me, a single hit ( ok, maybe a few hits ) is often enough to destroy me, or my horse. 

This is all great advice, but it's kinda useless right now, because I can't actually access Steam ( got the game from there ).  Every time I activate it, it just...freezes.  I'm not so sure how to fix this, will a second Steam installation help me, as well as keep my games intact?

Forgive my immense amount of newb questions, this is an LP, not a discussion thread.

...

Should I make a new Warband discussion thread? 

[Blaze]

Fighting sea raiders is tough, their throwing axes and javelins keep getting to me, a single hit ( ok, maybe a few hits ) is often enough to destroy me, or my horse. 

This is all great advice, but it's kinda useless right now, because I can't actually access Steam ( got the game from there ).  Every time I activate it, it just...freezes.  I'm not so sure how to fix this, will a second Steam installation help me, as well as keep my games intact?

Forgive my immense amount of newb questions, this is an LP, not a discussion thread.

...

Should I make a new Warband discussion thread?

We already have a thread actually.

Of course you aren't expected to go out alone. First, capture a couple of looters (Sticking one point in prisoner management is enough for 5 unless you fiddle with the module.ini file.) and take them to Tihr to sell to Ramun. Looters are generally no problem; but if you want some men to back you up, go hire a few cheap recruits to use as fodder. Repeat it a few times and you'll be able to outfit yourself with a decent weapon, some armor, and a cheap horse.

After that, hire a few mercs for ~300-600 denars; caravan guards or merc horsemen/cavalry if possible. Mercs are expensive but start out strong, and you'll only need to pay upkeep if they're alive at the end of the week. Then find a small group of sea raiders (They can have a size between 5-50 men), send your men in to soak up the hits while you snipe/lance any stragglers. It also helps to go out recruiting companions; quite a few of them have no recruitment costs.

Reinstalling steam should fix any problem with it, but since I don't know the details I can't really help. If you want to keep from reinstalling your games, read this.

[Light forger]

Ok, I'm back my internet got cut.

Too long don't read version

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Someone cut a fiber optic cable removing my internet I'm at a coffee house with wifi that has not been cut to make this post.

I'm thinking of going with the native mod so we can have dwarfs nords with axes and crossbows the game will start in 2 or 3 hours so get your voice in!

[Light forger]

The game has began! sadly there well be no screenshots until my internet is back up but when that happens I will edits these posts.

[nenjin]

Find companions ASAP. Immortal pseudo-player characters are invaluable, especially ones you bring up as trackers for the extra map movement speed, visibility and tracking. It makes hunting much easier and fleeing against anything but mounted raiders a snap. Once they are geared and skilled, they will also murdelate almost as good as the player character, assuming they're handled right and not sent screaming into the horde on the first charge.

[Light forger]

Update: I have looted,raided and pillaged my way to level 12 I have a well level force of around 50 nords with a few vaegirs mixed in and 5000 denars so do we:
Raise 75+ huscarls and take a city
or
Take a castle and hope for the best?

What happen from level 1 to 12

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I went and murder looter lots and lots of looters. Then raised a force of nords and since the nords where at peace I help the vaegirs with there kergite khanite issue and got mauled by 200 of them with about 35 lancers. I then and rebuilt my army and traded for my money.

[NRDL]

Raise more forces, which is really impressive, howdya do it?, but anyway, take the city once you've got 75+ huscarls. 

Also, give us some stats on your character, not to mention his name. 

[Light forger]

Here is Cog Mcaxelord at level 3


Here is him at 26


By the by we raised a force of 80 hucarls and took praven mainly because It had only 250 troops and 100 of them were recruits. Shortly after I recuited a baron who was needless to say was VERY unhappy becuase he lost all of his feifs to the nords.
Me holding the city:

Those siegers were poorly trained mainly because swadia was fighting the nord, vaegirs and rhodoks at the same time.
Following up on this victory we took Tevarin castle and due to me using the right to rule bonus of all my companions I made a peace deal with the swadias and got Haringoth castle as a part of it.

My kingdom:


So now what do we do. The nords are having the crap beat out of them by the VERY powerful vaegirs. The swadias have lost so much land to me I could try to take suno fairly easily but the rhodoks and the vaegirs may think I'm growing to powerful. A war with the vaegirs would be costly but would get us the support of the nords even more so because there king is held in sargoth which we could take. The Kergite Khanite is on hold due to the power of the sarranids and the vaegirs and, due to my past with them they are none to happy with me.

So what should we due?

Edit:forgot to say the nords have lost sargoth and wercheg.

[Light forger]

In two hour the next part of the LP will start so get your opinion in.

[EuchreJack]

Explore!  Expand!  Exploit!  Exterminate!

[NRDL]

Explore!  Expand!  Exploit!  Exterminate!

Take Suno, you are building an independent kingdom right?  If so, you'll need the Nords on your side, so even if the Vaegir's war with you, it will be a sort of good thing.