[PoP] Looking for Solo Kingdom advice after a heavy loss

Hello all!

I am a long time MnB fan, playing it off and on for many years. I'm not really very good, but it's fun. Recently I've gotten back in, and started up another Prophesy of Pendor run.

Before my questions, some context.

Instead of being someone's vassal, I wanted to try the Kingdom of Pendor run. I wanted to really sell the narrative, and not just rebel from a faction, taking their territory with me. I was to be the Queen, bending my knee to no other lord.

And for a while that was okay. I had won over 25 tournaments, collected ~150 veteran soldiers, found a group of 6 companions that didn't hate one another, and collected over 400k denars in savings.

With that done, I set my sights on the Empire. Having suffered through brutal wars with Sarleon and the D'Shar (the latter of which they were still fighting), the Empire was by far the weakest on the map. Reduced to 2 cities and 2 castles, the Empire was looking bad. While they unsuccessfully tried to pry territory back from the D'Shar, I swooped in and stole the castle Maras from them. And thus, the Kingdom of Pendor was founded.

I did the practical thing and immediately hired a merc company to help with defense. We pushed off a few attempts, and everything looked good. I founded the Order of the Griffin, and went about making them happy as I built up my troops and awaited my chance to snipe more land. A chance, sadly, that would never come.

All at once, weeks after taking Maras, 9 Lords descended on my castle with nearly 1,500 troops between them. I was shocked. I had plenty of troops, but not enough to hold Maras against those sheer numbers. Especially not Maras.

I gathered up my 200 strongest troops, hired the Raiders, and left my castle to meet my enemies. The battle was kind, and brutal. We narrowly lost, but in the process left 900 enemy troops dead, with more still wounded. My troops suffered only 50% casualties (though ever Raider fell). The Empire's lords dispersed, no longer able to mount an effective siege, and I sued for peace, assuming such a rout would warrant it.

And here is where I lost all steam. I went to collect fresh troops from the world to replenish my numbers, and had barely recruited 80 before I was told of a new siege. I returned to my castle, and was shocked to see those same lords, accompanied by over 1,000 troops in total, sitting on my doorstep. And this time, I could not swoop, the siege began before I could even return, and my supply of true veterans was still low.

So here I am. I am about to lose my only territory to the weakest faction around, and I'm at a loss for how to proceed. What should I have done differently? How can I field enough troops to defend such constant sieges? What does it take to get a truce?

Thank you for reading, and for your assistance.

Submitted July 31, 2018 at 04:54AM by Runemaker https://ift.tt/2M8F0nO