How do you get granted a castle?

So far I have been granted 2 villages, being a vassal of Swadia. Every time there's a castle due to be granted to someone, the King chooses some other guy or himself ("After much consideration, King X has decided to grant Castle A to King X" lol).

I have a good relationship with the King and a few other lords. My problems are:

• 99% of the time when I ask for task from a Lord they don't have anything for me
• I can't siege a castle myself because my army isn't strong enough to assault
• everybody refuses to follow me to siege one
• actually participating in sieges is some of the most tedious and unfun gameplay I've experienced in a game in quite some time. I try to avoid it if at all possible.

My questions are:

• When a castle is unclaimed, do I actually have to hunt down talk to every Lord of note and ask them to support my claim? Or will they just support me if they like me.
• Is my only option for increasing relationship to follow around some Lord and hope he gets into a battle I can help with?
• Is there any factor I'm missing here?

All the newbie guides I've read don't give enough detail on this game mechanic.

Submitted November 16, 2017 at 07:34PM by Occidentally http://ift.tt/2yRTp0E