Lords won't join

[echo268]

So in my 4.2 playthrough, The Stormlands have been destroyed. Many of them joined the Reach, but those that haven't are in exile with me at Shadow Tower. No matter what I do, I can't get them to join me. Renly is nowhere to be found and I have an independent kingdom. It's driving me nuts, as I'll need help if I'm to take Winterfell and the North back from the Boltons. Plan was to let the Free Folk kill of the Nights Watch and then take their castles, make Castle Black my capitol, and go from there. Without the other lords, I can't do that. At the same time, I don't want to allow sandbox mode because I'm not prepared to fight the Westerlands for all of central Westeros.

[Maester Rawl]

Lords don't defect easily in static mode. The best way to recruit them (because you can try more than once) is to offer them a fief. Do that by speaking with your minister and sending a companion on a mission to convince a lord to join. I send one with high persuasion skill, though I can't definitively say whether that improves your chances.

[jdm311]

If you use cheatmenu (<CTRL>+<~> to bring up the menu, type 'cheatmenu' and press enter), you can talk to a lord and try to persuade him to join and the debug info that displays on the screen will show what the chance is he will join. His decision will be a random chance that may or may not result in joining you. For example, if you have a 50% chance that he will join and it rolls a 64, then you failed to convince him. But if it is 50 or less, you convinced him. I don't know the calculation that goes into the percentage, but it probably consists of your relationship with the lord vs the relationship of his current liege, and maybe the size of the armies for both factions.

[King J]

If the stormlands are already destroyed and you don't mind cheating you can cause all lords from that faction to fall out with leir liege so they will join you. Reports > faction orders or sth. like that.

@jdm311 it depends on military strengh (and on the location of their lands if they have fiefs), their relation to you and to their lieges and on the character of the npc.