Hey everyone. I have my 400+ days character Matt Ward in Beta 8; i am a Lord of the North, 100% loyal to King Robb Stark. After a short time as mercenary for his army, i swore fealty with my sword and became his vassal. First, with a good bit of help from my army, we wiped out the Lannisters and took most of their holdings in the Westerlands (minus Casterly Rock, Kayce and a few villages taken by Renly aka the Stormlands). However, i was only given the village of River Road. Oh, well, defeating the hated Lannisters was enough of a satisfaction for me (who cares if Renly took the Iron Throne :P). Then, i slowly expanded and upgraded my army, with the intention of convincing Robb to attack the Iron Islands: not only they are sworn enemies of the North since thousands of years, i like quite a bit their castles and i wanted one for myself.
Of course, in the meantime i somehow managed to earn the hate of my village for whatever reason.. I like so much my smallfolk :3
Anyway, Robb declared war on the Iron Islands on my suggestion. I did some mistakes suggesting lords to attack some castles and a few including Roose Bolton and Lord Locke were captured, but in the end we prevailed and took all their castles. My men were important in the conquest of Pyke and Hammerhorn but unfortunately, for a matter of timing, i never was the one to start the siege. Even when i convinced like 5-6 Lords to support me for the assignment of Hammerhorn, Robb gave it to Rickard Karstark. I have no interest in fighting Renly, Dorne or the Tyrells, let alone the Riverlands.. But i want a castle .. Even a small one, i do not ask much i suppose :P A castle has so many advantages like being able to dump soldiers in the garrison.
Now, to the original question: is there any way to get a castle in peace time? Maybe trough some political manouver i have not discoreved yet? :)
Wow, glad things have gone smoothly on your play through so far :).
A word on villages and relation. I have found a bug regarding the way your religion effects your relation (this was a brytenwalda thing). It seems to make the village hate you no matter what. So that will be re-written and fixed for the next update.
Secondly, you could build a fort from the camp menu. It wont get attacked and doesn't have as many options as a castle (I have expanded on this for the next update) but you can garrison troops there and use it as a base of operations. Just one thing though, make sure you build on plains if you in the north, one other bug I fixed was no scene for forts built on steppe terrain ;).
Wow, so that is what forts can be used for! :D
Thank you so much.. But i still want a castle 8)
I am glad it was a bug, i tend to try to make people love me in most games so i was kind of bummed because every village hated me no matter what.. Just because i respect the Old Gods .. What is more strange though is that in my first good beta 7 playtrough i worshipped the Old Gods and had Weeping Water as my fief, a village in the North which supposedly should keep the same gods (but for some reason, i think some places in the North worship the Seven Gods, and not just White Harbor).
By the way, this playtrough was even too smooth, very unGame of Thron-ish i would say ;) Too few defeats, too easy to defeat the Lannisters. You might want to check again the balance, possibly the North might have too many lords compared to the Westerlands (you could give more troops to the Lannisters? More lords too?).
In case anyone is interested, i also just wed Wylla Umber (not sure yet if marriage is worth 20k stags..) and discovered how trade can be a very good business! How, and i pledged my allegiance to Lord Wyman Manderly, my second favourite House in the North. Not sure what advantages it gives besides free rest and if there are any requirements (the feudal system could be expanded a bit to fit Game of Thrones better, with minor lords following the directions of more important lords and bigger Houses so there is also more progression from like "House Forrester" level to Bolton level of importance..
P.S. I do not know of any Wylla Umber, did not find her in the wiki, on the other hand there is a young Wylla Manderly.. One very brave young girl, you would know if you had read ADwD :p