Warband

personal army size doesnt matter nearly as much as having a castle of reserve units and enough of a garrison to repel a full scale horde siege; the first defensive siege is the one that decides whether your fledgling nation lives or dies

you're not taking any castles or towns until lords flock to your banner, lords flock to your banner when you've lain groundwork with companions and you have high renown and honor. You can also flip individual lords to your side if they really like you

creating an independent kingdom is a long game thing

Buying low selling high, depending on the demand. I forgot how to check what sells good where but thats basically how i made a bunch of money until some lord hired me which fucked me and my army completely over because i was put against terrifying foes

the lords of the kingdom vote on who to give a fief to, though the king can decide to ignore the vote and keep the fief for himself

make friends and talk to them when they're voting on who gets what to get them to support you

Sort of. The biggest stat of if you deserve a new fief (and thus are eligible) is based on reknown divided by the value of the fiefs you own, but whether or not anyone will vote for you to get that fief is based on a number of factors like your contribution and how much the king and vassals like you (which is heavily affected by honour)

>How do i make decent income without raiding villages and caravans as doing so loses you alot of honour?

at the start you can bet on yourself in tournaments and trade goods. You can also capture and sell bandits for profit and sell their gear.

A basic but relatively fast and profitable trade route is Wercheg (buy salt) -> Sargoth (sell a bit of salt here) -> Make your way to ichamur and tulga to buy spice (sell salt to any town on the way that nets a good profit) -> work your way to Rivacheg (sell spice on the way there) Buy raw silk at Rivacheg -> return to Wercheg for salt.

>Also what's a reccomended army size before I try take my first town and start my own faction?

If you don't feel like joining a faction, you can mercenary yourself out to some of them during war to build your renown (as you gain renown you slowly can recruit more units). Around 100 men you can try and snipe a town from a faction if it is at war with one or more enemies.

Slaving and trading. Recruit manhunters. Capture deserters and bandits. Sell for profit. Look up trade routes. Sell high, buy low. Take this money and invest in businesses, preferably in the area you want to take over first.

Well damn, other lords mostly dislike me. I had enough and joined the Nord claimant instead. But now every single faction declared war on me and no other wars start because of it. So I'm pretty much fucked, even if I abandon the cause all factions are still hostile to me.

Oh also you can flip votes by talking to lords and using your persuasion skill

Basically raiding is good in the short term but can trip you up later on, especially if you want to make your own kingdom. High dishonor erodes your right to rule and makes it hard for most lords to like you, and thus you'll have a hard time convincing anyone to join your faction (except mercenary/dishonorable types who are a big headache to have on your team)

Is fighting or questing the quickest way to make exp, for my character

Yeah I thought I leveled up my persuasion pretty good, at least 5 or 6. But nobody would vote for me and only 2 lords joined my rebels. But thanks for the tips.

Questing in the beginning. Fighting later on.

the "follow the marshal" quest gives a lot of exp for doing basically nothing

Oh yeah and I forgot to say, when I asked Ragnar about a castle I took he specifically said he would give it to me, but then it was awarded to someone else. That's when I decided to help the Nord claimant instead.

Get a quest from a lord to collect taxes and dont pay him back

Based Slaver

BANNERLORD CLOSED BETA

What is the definitive BEST MOD to play for this game???? Is end of the third age any good?

How the fuck do I make my units not suck shit with spears? For some reason they refuse to thrust properly at cavalry and keep trying to bash them with the spears like they're fucking clubs.

Wait for Bannerlord I guess

>How do i make decent income without raiding villages and caravans as doing so loses you alot of honour?
Start hunting down bandits and building up your warband. Enlist as mercenaries in some faction - this gives you some money and requires from you nothing you weren't already doing before. Grab as many prisoners as you can, ransom them and sell their stuff. Leave villages alone; instead hunt enemy caravans. Join tournaments whenever you can and bet on yourself. When you have money, invest them in businesses. You can make a lot of money without ever joining a faction.

My perfect army for conquering cities is something like 50 Vaygir sharpshooters and 20 Nord huskarls. Find a city with intact walls, which forces the attackers into a bottleneck (Narra is my favorite; very defensible). Set up your army under the walls and headshot everyone who sticks his neck out. You can climb the ladder to do some work yourself, grabbing arrows stuck in the crenellation. After you run out of arrows, retreat and try again. You should be able to kill even 100 defenders per assault. When you take the city, leave your army there and start conscripting people en masse. Your villages will be perpetually looted, so be quick about it.

When defending against a siege, stand just next to the ladder but not in front of it. Let others take the brunt of the assault. Hit coming enemies from the side. Order your melee fighters to the breach, so you never run out of meatshields. I've defeated armies of over a thousand this way.

If you think you can't defeat the siege, just evacuate your best soldiers and let the city fall into enemy hands. Freshly conquered cities don't have strong defenses, so retake them right after the enemy army leaves.

How do I not suck at tournaments?
My team mates if I have any are retarded and I get battered in 3 hits or so, which is not many considering I get swarmed sometimes

Use a mod with upstab. If your mod of choice doesn't have it see if upstab user made a patch for it in /mbg/s pastebin.

the first two rounds are a gamble with swarming enemies, sometimes you just get fucked and cant do anything about it

in later rounds it's just a thing of git gud

they supposedly take battle orders so you can at least send them somewhere they won't get in the way or just to keep enemy archers busy

They do. Take example from Russell Crowe and order your team to stand in a tight formation while you mow the opponents from behind.