If your peasants are revolting, if you're not giving your serfs a square deal, you'll be having sleepless knights trying to get your realm in order. Try following our fantastically feudal tips.
Overall strategy
Your first goal should be to increase the population of your first county through successful farming. As soon as you have the men to spare, build an army to guard the town cross. If you don't, the county will be undefended.
Get involved in stone, iron or wood production as soon as you can, or save up funds to buy the resources you need. You should start production as soon as you have excess men, but you need a decent population (at least 1,000 men) before you get much output.
Once you start production, you'll have to weigh the benefits of arming your troops with weapons first (which toughens them greatly, and makes it easier to acquire new counties) or building a castle (which increases your ability to fend off attacks).
If you plan on expanding into a couple of counties quickly, you might as well wait to build a castle until you expand your kingdom. A castle is less useful in the centre of your empire - you're less likely to be attacked there. Don't expand too quickly. It's important to keep each of your counties happy and growing.
Successful agriculture
You may find it easier to specialise in one crop type in each county. If you mix crops in one county, you will be faced with drawbacks that come with each of them, and may be more likely to be short of food at any given moment.
Each crop type feeds people to different degrees, but each type also grows at different rates. Feeding and growth levels are balanced so that each crop type produces the same amount of food in the long run.
Use as many fields as possible without causing a decline in fertility, and without requiring an excess of serfs to maintain them. For cattle and sheep, a greater number of fields increases birth rates and decreases death rates. For grain, only use as many fields as you have labourers to farm them. Sometimes cattle and sheep die from old age, and no amount of farming can prevent it.
With any crop, there are events that appear from time to time that kill or destroy some of its stores. Therefore, it's always a good idea to have a little extra food to cover these events.
Raising sheep
Try not to eat your sheep. They don't give birth fast enough to replace what you would probably eat. They are a cash crop, in that you can raise them fairly quickly, and sell the wool they create for gold. Sheep are an indirect food source, however, in that you can use the money that comes from wool to buy grain. Used in this way, they can feed as many people as any other crop type.
Because merchants have to convert wool to grain, you must wait for them to arrive in your county (and they must sell both grain and sheep). Therefore, it's wise to build up a small stockpile of grain to hold your people through dry spells when merchants don't arrive. To get a sizable flock in a reasonable time, you may wish to buy additional sheep from a merchant.
Bear in mind that sheep give birth during only one season per year, unlike cows, you won't see them growing every season. However, their annual birth rate is higher than that of cows.
Raising cattle
Try not to eat your cattle - they don't give birth fast enough to replace what you would probably eat. They are a viable food source, however, in that you can eat the diary produce they generate each season without killing them. As with sheep, invest in your cattle by buying more cows because the herd grows slowly on its own.
Farming grain
Always make sure to keep some grain stored for sowing. If you forget this and miss a sowing season, you can lose a whole year's worth of food. Remember that the grain you harvest has to last for four seasons.
When you allocate labour for sowing, make sure you have enough men to harvest the resulting grain. It takes 1.5 times as many men to harvest as to sow. If you can't fully harvest the grain, you may want to cut back on the sowing to save on grain and labourers. Don't overplant early on. One field can feed plenty of people, and to farm too many hurts your fertility for little benefit.
Consider using grain when you're starting out. It is the cheapest crop, although it's very labour intensive and, unlike cattle or sheep, you can build up a grain stockpile without having to worry about maintaining it.
Building an army
Any type of weapons at least double the usefulness of your fighters. Build or buy weapons as soon as possible. Use maces and axes for a more aggressive army - they are better on the attack. Use spears and axes for a more defensive army. Arm your soldiers with maces and spears if you are short on gold, because their wages will be less this way. Archers and crossbows are invaluable for whittling down foes from a distance. No moderate-to-large army should be without them. Use knights if you can afford their wages (and their doubled production cost).
Fighting ground battles
Surround enemy fighters to attack from different sides. Attempt to lure the enemy into a marsh, and attack from the edge of the marsh. Use knights to outrun or outflank the enemy.
Use archers at the start of the battle. Keep archers out of hand-to-hand combat, or they'll stop firing. If you can lower the enemy's morale from a distance with archers, you may be able to cause a rout without getting hit once. Eliminate enemy archers quickly.
Designing castles
Don't place the central defensive point on the outer edge of the castle - that makes it much easier for the enemy to launch infantry attacks on it. Add plenty of storage space for food and men - halls are good for this. While building, look at the info box's listings for men and food for guidance.
Castles tend to be capable of storing about two seasons' worth of food for their largest possible garrison (at normal rations), so, you may want to garrison the castle with fewer than the maximum men, so food lasts longer.
Remember that a moat buys you extra time in a siege, and requires only labour to build. Try for a concentric castle design, with the central defensive point in the middle. Try starting with a small design, and expand later.
Towers, gatehouses and keeps add a defensive bonus to all fighter, ladder and tower attacks that occur within one square of them. Therefore, the best-defended castles will place these structures no further than two square apart, so that their defensive areas meet. Build a gatehouse on the castle, otherwise you will be unable to sally forth or attempt escape from a siege.
Defence against siege
If your forces are large enough, try taking on the enemy in battle, but be careful because you don't know what the enemy is armed with until you attack. If you plan on sallying forth, garrison your castle with some armed troops. If you don't, then don't waste weapons inside the castle walls but garrison the castle with peasants.
