Mount and Blade Warband: Becoming King Guide

Introduction

Mount and Blade Warband is a game that evolves as you play, it is dynamic in nature with single games lasting
200 hours or more. Tactics you learn as a Knight just to survive help you win a few minor battles, but once you
become a lord, you need to balance your income against your ability to defend your property and attack other
lords. When you become King, you have to do all of those things as well as balance your relationships with
other lords whilst assigning them new villages, castles and cities. Which is no easy feat given that just handing
a fief over to a lord, harms your relationship with all your other lords. So Kingship is a skill in it's own right and
this guide will aim to explain the path to becoming King and the requirements of a King so you can rise up the
ranks and rule the land your self.

Whilst there are many ways to become King, we will focus on the Knight to Lord of a Realm to Independant
Knight to King Route since its less damaging to your reputation and does not make you new enemies or start
any wars you did not want to be part of.

Before becoming King.

I have read about people rushing in to becoming King and getting attacked from all sides, the reason for this is
they failed to raise their relationship with other Lords of the land first or other factions. The secret to a smooth
transition from Knight, to Lord, to King is having friends in the gaming world and raising your right to rule before
hand.

So we start from being Lord.

Your first job is to sign up with some other King and do jobs for him. Every castle you take, will increase your
reputation with that King by 1 point when you speak to him. They only remember the last deed you did so you
have to speak to him right after each battle. Every time you see a friendly lord in battle, you should join in and
help him because this too increases your reputation with that Lord when you speak to them after the battle.
Joining a campaign and fighting along side several lords can help increase your reputation with all those lords if
you win, you just need to speak to them after each battle.

Releasing captured Lords rather than taking them prisoner is a double edged sword, but for those who say "I
Yield" or make otherwise honourable sounding gesture's, releasing them will boost your relationship with them
considerably and gain you a point of honour too. Those who curse you or call your men dogs are best held
prisoner. Though releasing them may improve your relationship with them in some cases, it will harm it in
others. Especially those who talk about the shame of defeat.

Those are the methods employed as a Lord to raise your relationship with other Lords, the more Lords like you,
the easier your transition to King will be, so its worth taking time to get as many of them in your good books as
possible.

Your right to rule

Other Kings and Lords do not automatically recognize your right to rule, you have to prove to them you are
worthy and that usually means defeating them in battle and acting Kingly. Typically when you beat a King in
battle, or do something involving a King, I found my right to rule rose faster than if I was dealing with a Lord.
Later when you are King, signing a truce after a war raises your right to Rule. As does marriage.

Before you can become King you should try and get the right to rule value to about 50, it helps you establish
your claim. At 50 no King will recognize your claim but few will attack you either for being a lowely peasant or
lord if your reputation is high enough with them. Usually other Kings will fight their traditional foes and leave you
a lone at this time.

One way to raise your right to rule is to send out your companions to spread the word about you before you
become King. But becareful, each will spread the word but if that word a message you want spreading. Your
companions will all be telling others your going to save the peasants from the lords, save the lords from the
peasants and sooner or later the other Lords will notice this and it will harm your chances of recruiting them. So
make sure you only send out the ones whos message match the one you wish to send.

Each will add a few points to your Right to Rule rating. But at most you will get 10 points, the rest you will have
to earn for your self. This is one of the hardest rating to increase because the methods involved are not fully
known but Marriage is one known way.

Marriage

As stated above marriage is a way of increasing your right to rule, it also gives you Minister to help rule your
realm later, a Minister that is not needed on the battlefield so this is important and frees up one of your
companions for active duty.

You start by visiting the Taverns and learning the Poems from the bards, then find an important Lord with a
daughter and raise your relationship with that lord until he hints his daughter is available for marriage Then go
and visit her, read her some poems and raise your relationship with her that way. When she sends word that
she wants you to visit, go and visit her, your relationship will rise each time you do and each poem she likes will
raise your relationship even higher.

Available Poems you can learn are...

Storming the castle of love (Allegoric)

Kais and Layaki (Tragic)
A Conversation in the Garden (Comic)
Helgered and Kara (Epic)
A Hearts Desire (Mystic)

Each lady has a favourite type of Poem, so try and find out what she likes before hand if you can. If you get it
wrong, the worst that will happen is she dismisses the Poem.

Marriage costs money so once the offer of marriage is made, you will be expected to pay a large amount of
gold as a dowry, after that the marriage can continue. You will become part of that Lords family, a trusted
member and Lords look to their friends and family first when deciding who gets new villages, castles or cities.
So this step is best done whilst you serve another King.

Trade and Industry

Every city allows you to establish a business, this provides you will your own income and is completely
separate from any gold recieved from fiefs. So it is very important you establish several businesses around the
gaming world. Also since war with the faction that owns a city cuts off the income, you should build industries in
several cities owned by several different factions and not put all your eggs in one basket. When you eventually
strike out on your own, this will be your only source of income.

Leaving the service of a King.

When your ready to strike out on your own, build up a large Army of well trained troops and a decent amount of
Gold and then return your current King and ask to be released from your oath. If your relationship with the King
is good, he will be sorry to see you go and you will part on good terms. You will have to give up all your property
but there will be no war with your friend the King. Your relationship with him will not change at first, but once you
make your self King, it will drop by about 16 points. So if you want to remain friends with him, you have to have
a relationship value of closer to 40 points before striking out alone.

Once your free of your oath to your former King and have an income from industries, it is time to find a good
spot to establish your new Kingdom.

Kingdoms are born in war, so first you have to find a location that is defensible, preferably something at the
edge of the map where the attackers can only come at you from 1 or 2 directions. Then you see who owns that
land and attack one of that factions Lords. That will start a war and give you the option to attack one of his
castles or cities. I recommend targeting a city first, so make sure your army is large and well trained. The
income from a city is greater and you usually get a few villages with it too.

Once you own the city, your court will be established there.

Establishing Court in your new Town or Castle.

If you got married, you will find your Wife arrives in your Castle at some point, talk to her and make her your
minister. Next buy as much beer, wine and food as you can find and add them to the House Hold Possessions
she takes charge of. Wifes organize feast, this wife being a minister too also acts as a central location for
assigning fiefs and castles to your Lords and removing traitors. You can also assign Marshall's by speaking to
her prior to taking on other King Cities and Castles. So the Court which is why your Wife always is becomes the
center of your realm.

Establishing a court takes 1 tool and 1 silk after the first time, so you should also give one of each to your wife
in case you need to change the location of your Court, or keep it on you if your in danger of losing your Courts
city or castle. You can assign one of your companions as Minister but I found it best to let the Wife be the
minister.

I found it wise to establish a Bakery in town I set up my Court in, feeding an army can be tricky and if the Town
has a bakery, it becomes easier. Of course, grain has to be present for that to be effective. No grain, means no
bread.

Making Companions in to Lords.

Companions are amongst the most Loyal of your followers usually, providing you have not done anything they
disapprove of. You can make them in to Lords but as a rule you should not make commoners in to Lords, and
should beware of commoners pretending to be Lords. Find the real Lords amongst your party, those are the
ones you can make Lords of your realm and assign property too. Anybody else will lower your rating with other
Lords, they dislike commoners being made in to Lords and you take a pretty big hit for it.

The game is all very Templer/Kingdom of Heavenish in its approach to many things, especially this.
Btw have you noticed yet that this game seems to have several things in it that hint at that film being a major
influence yet ?

As a rule, Companions are better in your party as Companions. With your forces they are extremely useful but
early on, it might be necessary to make 1 of your Companions in to a Lord of your realm and assign them
property. It will give you a second army right away.

Peace Time
During times of peace you will find it easier to organize your empire and take stock of important events, whilst
you can do these during war, things can be a little chaotic. Peace time is a time to have feasts, raise your
relationships with villages and cities as well as Lords. Assigning property to Lords as needed and smoothing
over the hurt feelings of others who feel left out when you show another lord your favour. So it is a very
important time for all Kingdoms and if you do not take time for peace, your kingdom will colaspe in anarchy.
Lords will ignore your orders and you will simply go no where.

Feasts

Your wife will allow you to hold a feast if your House Hold Possessions include lots of Ale, Wine and Food. As
King, feasts are much more useful as a method of keeping your Lords happy and loyal than they where whilst
you where a Lord. So you will find them your primary tool in fixing harmed relationships after assigning property.

Due to the some weird game glitch, in game, who ever calls a feast first gets to keep on holding one, so you
never get to have one of your own if somebody beat you too it. To stop this, assign the Lord holding the feast to
be your Marshal and then hold your feast when his ends. Then once every 24 hours or more, speak with the
lords at your feast to increase your reputation with them by 1 point per chat, per day. If a Lord lost 2 points
because you gather a castle to a rival, this is how you fix the damage. It is important to balance the giving of
fiefs against the feasts used to repair the damage in order to ensure no Lords relationship with you drops below
zero.

Any Lord that simply will not attend a feast should be gotten ridden of, brand them a traitor and take their
property for your own. The reason being, you will never be able to improve your relationship with them after
assigning fiefs to others. Not without following them around and joining every battle they start and as King, you
do not have that time to waste.

Also whilst at a feast you can ask the Lords who they think should get any unassigned castles or villages, who
ever they choose will not cause a drop in relations with you if you give that property to them. At best this feature
limits the harm giving fiefs causes to some lords. But its not really very effective and if you ignore it and stick to
feasts as a way of fixing the damage, you will do much better.

Traitors

The game says a traitor may leave your service and take his properity with him, I have never seen this but I
tend to get rid of Lords whos relationship is low enough to count as being my enemy. Once a Lords relationship
becomes a negative value, they stop responding to your orders and effectively become dead wood to you.
Giving them a fief can bring them back in to positive figures and make them follow your orders and so can time,
just wait and they will recover very slowly providing you do not give any fiefs out during that time, which you will,
it takes alone time for them to recover.

So fief giving is the best way, but if it means making enemies of other Lords to get the loyality of 1 rebel lord, its
best to ignore that lord and wait for his relationship with you to get so low it becomes worth getting rid of him.
When that time comes, speak to the ministor and declare that lord a traitor. Then take all his properity for your
self or ask the other lords in court who should recieve it.

Assigning property to Lords

Generally you want a Lord to patrol an area and not spread them selves too thin, so try and give them property
from the same area of the game world. That way their patrols are more effective. Spreading them too thinly can
be counter productive. Also try and make sure they get a castle near your Courts location, this way they will be
in the area of your Court every now and again and will drop by for feasts. Traitors you get rid off will recycle
castles and give you the chance to re-organize your expanding empire.

I am not sure if Lord once declared a Traitor will rejoin you if your relationship improves later so use this feature
sparingly.

Your own Town or Castle and the surrounding villages.

Once you establish your Court, you will want to be able raise an army locally extremely quickly, and you will
want the citizens of your Town where your court is based (if you have a city as your court) to help in its defense.
So you must raise your relationship with your city and the surrounding villages.

If you own a Town there are 4 ways to raise your relationship with that city. You can walk around your city and
find the towns folk that need a little gold to set up a business, there is always 1, just ask about trade and stuff
and you will see a request for 300 gold from one of them. Going to the Tavern and buying everybody a drink will
cost you 1000 gold and will also work. You can also hold a feast and join the tournament and win or find the
towns Guild Master and do jobs for him. The higher your relationship with a Town, the easier it becomes to
defend and the more people want to live there. If you go to the defense of a town under siege and there is no
Lord present, you can also raise your relationship that way.

Though I have to check if you need to own it your self first.

The surrounding villages become a quick way to raise an army so it is important you patrol around them and do
jobs for them to raise your reputation with those villages. Usually this involves entering the village and talking to
the Village Elder about jobs. Or fighting bandits Or building a School in those villages if you own them. Once
your relationship with them gets high enough, you can easily build an army up quickly.

Leaving extra troops in your City or Castle.

Barracked troops cost less to maintain then troops in your army, so its worth leaving a few hundred extra men
where you set up your Court. I find it good practice to use peace time to train extra men for the sole purpose of
leaving them in your castle or town. Taking lower leveled troops out on patrol to improve them through training
and swapping them out for other low leveled troops whilst peace exists. By the time war breaks out, your Castle
or Court should contain a good army.

Assigning extra towns, castles or villages to your self, will help pay for this army.

Increasing the prosperity of your Towns.

The prosperity of a town is a measure of the prosperity of the surrounding villages. The better the villages do,
the richer your town becomes due trade between it and the villages. War and looting have a dramatic effect on
lowering the prosperity of your town and the available funds the owning Lord has available. So defending the
villages around your own town becomes a necessity. Improvements such as building a Mill also helps increase
the prosperity of a village but generally it takes time for a village to become rich and if it is looted in that time, it
has to start all over again.

War Time
War time is time of moving across maps, responding to threats to your realm and attacking the enemy, if your
relationship with your Lords is low, you will find your self alone at this important time. If your relationship with
your Lords is good, they will respond to your calls. When your relationship with your Lords is low, they ignore
you and fight alone, often losing to stronger foes and each time they do, your relationship with them goes down
by 1 point. If they are captured you can rescue them from the castle they are held at and improve your
relationship with them that way but generally, once a Lord stops responding to you, you either have to wait a
long time for things to improve or have to brand him a traitor and get rid of them.

Which harms your relationships with other lords but its often necessary to do it in order to keep the lords that
will response and do attend your feasts happy in the long run.

Captured Castles, Towns

Taking on castles and towns as a King is a little different from doing it as a Lord. For starters at the end of the
battle you choose who gets the castle or town, you can take it, you can choose not to assign it yet or give it to a
Lord right away. This is the only time you get to see how much property a lord owns in 1 easy to read list. If you
fail to take note of who owns what here, you have to check the Lords out individually to get the same
information and that is not as easy to read as this is.

Having said that, I recommend you assign them to your self and wait for peace time before giving them to Lords
of your realm. Decisions made here can make your Realm hard to rule later. So it is best done when your not
occupied with capturing more territory.

Yet there are times when this advice should be ignored. For example if you do that, you have to assign your
own troops to defend it, that reduces the size of your army and limits what you can attack next. If you choose
not to assign it yet, a small force is placed in the Castle or Town for the time being automatically. This force will

not hold the town if attacked but it will give you a day or two to respond to a siege. The forces in the castle or
town will never increase unless you add more.

It is generally mistake to try and defend all castles and towns with large armies anyway. Better to respond to
sieges with 1 good army than pay for several good armies that do not see much action and cripple your
economy.

The other way is to give it to a lord, they will eventually increase the garrison for you.

But one thing you can be sure of, within minutes of leaving a newly captured castle, somebody will try and take
it back. So it is best to not go too far from any newly captured Castle or Town, wait for a few days and ambush
those counter attacking it. One less army to worry about gives you a greater chance of taking your next target.

Sieges

Sieges you conduct as King are usually different from those performed by Lords because of the time the game
has been running, usually you have put in many hours and the other Kings and Lords are no longer the weak
fools they once where. If you go charging in to the melee as you did as a Lord, you will often die, the battle will
end and your forces will eventually be crushed. So some tactics are required.

Change number 1 is not to be the first up the ladder or ramp, let your forces do the fighting for you and act as a
special forces sort of guy for taking out any stubborn defenders that hold up your men or kills too many of your
men.

Change number 2 is you should make your self marshal and start a campaign if you need help capturing any
castle or town. Then start a seige and wait a few days before attacking so your Lords have a chance to reach
you and help.

Change number 3 is your army should be a balance of archers, cavalry, swordsmen and spearmen.

Change number 3 comes up naturally the first time your rank is high enough for the enemy to start defending
his castles or towns with 50+ crossbow men or archers. The arrows fly like bullets from a machine gun and you
are cut down before you even get near the ladder. Shields are broken long before then so your companions are
out of the fight too. When you reach that point in the game, the value of 50+ sharpshooters of your own cannot
be ignored. Having them follow you to the wall and hold the ground near the wall whilst your forces attempt to
storm the castle or town walls can mean the defender is the one being shot to pieces and not your army.

Much changes in the later game, especially as King, tactics come in to their own and you will find your self
deliberately training spearmen to take out cavalry and training Archers to take on other Archers. Every King has
his own way of fighting and you will find your self adapting to each faction you fight with, or you will start losing
and die.

But those sort of Tactics need a guide of their own to do justice too.

Your own Faction Relationship and other Lords.

When you enter a battle to help any member of your faction be it a peasant, merchant or lord, you earn points
towards your own factions relationship. As this rises more Lords will want to join you and the number of armies
you can call upon to help with campaigns will increase along with your Factions rating. Your honour and
relationships with other lords determines the number of men you get. Should you make a poor king and annoy
most lords, you will find your army size shrinking. So these elements are all linked.

The Campaign against other Kings Factions

Eventually you will get to the point where wiping out one faction becomes a possibility but the number of Lords
that keep turning up to defend his last few Castles or Towns make it hard to finish the job. At that point you must
start taking the Lords Prisoner and stop releasing them or ransoming them. Thus lowering the number of Lords
facing you.

Also before each campaign can really start, you have to take out as many of the enemies well trained armies as
possible, so when you do attack his castles and towns, the enemy Lords will have raw recruits instead of
knights facing you. So the first job is to seek combat with Lords individually and wipe them out one by one, then
and only then go after the castles and towns. Any forces you meet after that will be easily beaten by trained
troops.

Starting a campaign and making your self Marshal is a task you should perform when your ready to take on the
enemy castles and towns or when the enemy forces are so strong, you need help. Generally though, save this
option for the main event because when your King, every town and castle can be a major fight and the longer
the game goes on, the harder the fight becomes and the more strategy is needed.

Party Skills

As Lord and especially as King, your companions party skills must be considered, these give you bonuses that
can will battles for you. For example the First Aid bonus seems to be accumulative, so the more Companions
have it the better as it helps when battles are multiple part battles. The same with Looting, Tactics and Training.
These are skills useful for combat and the raising of large well trained armies quickly. Training recruits in to
trained fighters quickly can help you win campaigns. But it is an expensive job and you can easily spend 10,000
gold on an army before a campaign or during one.

So loot is important and so is the trade skill since it effects the price you get for your loot.

Use the personal skills to help you control your Lords and run your Empire and use the party skills to boost your
chances of winning a campaign.

Tactics is a skill that is especially good for a King, add this skill to as many companions as possible. When your
facing an army twice the size of your own, this will help even the odds.

Being able to take prisoners is a must too for a King but this is a skill you should have taken as a Lord long
before now.

Strategy

This is a topic for another guide but I'll cover some points with you here.

Choosing what castle or town to take is a strategic decision you must consider, after all you have to be able to
hold it. Having little islands of property you own scattered amongst the enemy territory is not a good idea. So
you have try and take chunks of land whole, making sure there are no gaps in your realm that hold another
factions Lord who is just waiting for a war to start so they can strike deep in to your realm from behind your
lines. When they have to cross your front line, the game gives you messages of where they where spotted and
a couple of such messages can tell you where they are heading so you can intercept them.

When fighting battles, the orders for different kinds of troops come in to their own later in the game. As I have
already mentioned, simply having archers shoot at defending archers makes a victory against heavily defended
castles possible. The same is true for spearmen when facing cavalry, positioning them is vital. So your strategy
starts with assigning men to groups before you enter a battle, then the tactics they allow become possible once
battle starts. If you click on party and then select a type of troop, you can see an option called "Class of Troop".
There are 7 unnamed ones for use for custom groups. Those groups, if used can give you an edge in battle.
For example Archers and Skirmishers are not the same, they have different ranges, so whilst your archers are
shooting great distances, your skirmishers are stood there doing nothing. Yet both are part of the Archers group
by default.

So you see the problem.

End Game

As you find your self controlling more and more of the map, the other Kings start to get nervous and go to war
with you more often. You find the realm you have built is tested to the limits and if your not organized and
prepared, it becomes indefensible and you will lose most of it. So try not to be random in your choices as king.
Consider defense, consider the benefits of taking entire areas. Consider the importance of assigning a front line
town to a strong Lord on your side so he is paroling the front line and taking out invaders.

These the things you must be prepared for as the game develops and towns and castles behind your line
become less vital for defense.

Remember the old saying "he who defends everything, loses everything".

Its far better to heavily defend a few key locations and respond to sieges else where then try and defend every
castle. As a rule, Towns make good key locations to defend front line castles, the rest do not need large
garrisons, just decent number of trained troops to compliment the Lord that charges to its defense, when it is
attacked. Archers and Crossbows are especially useful at those times since their defencive positions will be
better placed when the battle starts. So think in terms of your army + defenders, rather than just trying to ensure
the defenders beat everybody on their own. This will leave you more money and men for your campaigns and
improvements to your realm.

Final Thoughts.

After over 160 hours playing Mount and Blade Warband I know it is a great game and I know how it changes
over time and just keeps on getting better with every passing hour. The difference between your first few hours
playing this game and your last few hours before dominating the world is huge. Tactics have to be revised or
even scrapped as the game develops. Things you once took for granted have to be reevaluated. It is simply not

possible to use the same tactics all the way though this game but it is possible to define roughly the points
when these changes start happening.

For example, Companions relationships with each other are important for Knights and Lords then Kings.

Companions relationships with you is important for Kings, but not so much Knights and Lords.

Marriage is a gateway to Kingship and Feasts and is important for Lords and Kings a like but more so for Kings
since the rule of your realm depends on it.

Relations with other Lords is important for if you want another King to give you property. But is also important
for you as the King who is givng property to a lord because a low relationship may lead to a negative one when
giving property to other lords. That Lord may stop responding to your orders during Campaigns. Something that
is not really an issue if you are a Lord but a campaign losing issue as a King.

There are many examples of issues that change over time, for example when I went from being a Lord to a
King, I thought assigning property was the way to go for improving my relationships with my own Lords. And
whilst I may boost 1 lords relationship with me, I harmed all the others. So I talked to them to find out who they
favour and assigned property that way only to find at best I limited the harm caused but did not stop it. So I
ended up with most of my lords hating me and being listed as my enemy.

Whilst my real enemies all loved me because I left them go after being captured.

It is an odd thing to know my worst enemies where my own Lords but the reasons where easy to see, assigning
property pisses them off no matter what you do. You can give the fiefs to a lord most like, but the rest will hate
you for it. If you make them traitors and cast them out, their relationship with you will slowly start to recover. But
it proves the Lord to King Relations using the provided system does not work as well as it might. And things go
badly until you realize that and start adapting to that little flaw in a great game.

In the end feasts not fiefs is how you build your realm.

But every Lord slowly grows to hate you until you give them at least 1 property.

Enjoy.