Mount & Blade: Warband

This is how I would describe "completing the game". You unlock this by taking over every Fief in the game. That's every City, and every Castle under your command.

By now you've probably found the right soldiers for your cause and if not, its best not to go for this yet and learn more about the game world and the soldiers.

Below a small checklist of things you'll want to prep before starting your faction and go to war:

- First off, you want a good builder in your team to shorten wait times while you attack cities and castles.
- You want to be renowned so you can bring loads of soldiers, Don't bother attempting this with an army shorter than 150 people, you will be able to take some city's and castles but you'll easily get overwhelmed
- Build relationships with Lords, they'll might join your cause.
- Save money, it can buy you mercenaries to strengthen your numbers (even if they are weaker than trained men). I found grinding tournaments to work well and help you hold great feasts later in the game
- Be proficient in combat, learn whatever comforts you, but make sure you can fight in the arena's to earn a quick buck, and get through guards to enter city's, you;ll be able to quickly store up on food in besieged towns and hire extra help.


Once you are settled with a castle or 2, maybe 3, maybe even a city. Its time to work on your faction:

- find lords you are in a good relation with (20+ preferred)
- recruit a few lords to fight with you, get them a Fief to help them build an army.
- Get more Fief's, hold on to them, don't hand them over yet
- recruit a few more lords, they're likely to join as you got free Fiefs

Once you got a couple of lords and a couple of Fiefs its time to micro manage.
- hold a Feast
- Ask every lord who they think should get the Fief.
- Keep notes, give the Fief to the lord with the most votes to make him happy as well as his backers.

Using this you can have many Lords without them Defecting for being angry. It's inevitable that Lords will leave so make sure the big City's are with trusted Lords and make sure they keep happy.

Once your Fiefs are given to various Lords (make sure to keep a city or 2 and Castle for yourself, and your court, it will make you money)

Before marching for War, get more Troops and train them in the training area if you must.

Call for the next March and get more Fief's, rinse repeat till you got everything.

A few minor tips:
- If you have no Lords it might help sending out a named character from your party, give them a Fief and they'll build a little legion of there own.
- Unhappy lords aren't worth your time and investment. If they deflect, just get back at them in no time
- don't accept lords'pledges if they are negative towards you, they're likely to deflect, but being Fief less, they are likely to get votes from other Lords, who get dissapointed for not siding with them, when giving the Fief to someone else.
- If a lord with many Fief's somehow grows hostile, kick them out, if saves you from recapturing all there Fiefs, if they own a city and take it with them when they deflect, all Villages surrounding it will be lost as well, harming other Lords in your Faction


In the end it comes down to trial and error, its fun to micromanage your Lords and Fiefs, but its also hard work. It will take quite some time to get there, but the battles will be glorious

Happy hunting

Ok. I have just obtained this achievement and decided I would write an in depth guide. The one solution already here I feel isn’t deep enough, I certainly could have done with more information prior to my attempt. In general information on obtaining this is fairly scant.

I did this on my first attempt becoming a vassal of the birds initially. Ok here goes;

EARLY GAME
This is a grind. No way round it. First decision to make is what you want the make up of your army to be. I chose exclusively Nord for the first half of my game, and concentrated on getting as many huscarls as possible. My reasoning for this being they are by far the strongest infantry unit in the game. If used correctly, they can batter an approaching line of enemies with brutal missiles before cutting through a horde like butter with the right control. Anyway I digress. Choose your army style.

Then concentrate on recruiting volunteers from villages whilst levelling up yourself and your character. It’s worth visiting village centres and speaking to the elders to see if you can help them with tasks as if you can build a relationship with them they will give you higher numbers of recruits and often better quality ones. In between doing this, slowly build relations with your chosen factions lords by doing tasks.

Also essential early game is the fighting arena in any town. Here you can join a last man standing contest and level up your fighting skills rapidly for pretty much free and make small amount of money if you do well. When your character starts to get stronger, join tournaments, bet on yourself on every round of your confident and you can make 2600 denars each time, and level up your skills some more.

Skills to focus on as you level:
I would concentrate on having at least 9 strength and agility initially then split your attributes between intelligence and charisma. Every point into intelligence give you an extra skill point to spend which is crucial early game.

Put points into leadership to increase your party size limit, iron flesh and power strike to make your character tough enough to make a difference in battle. All other skills are pretty much none essential but if you want my advice, trainer is useful for levelling recruits, path finding for your party travel speed.

Once you have repeated the above processes for a significant amount of time and levelled sufficiently, it’s time to become a vassal. This will allow you to take part in battles with allies and build your renown. Renown grants you fame but more importantly it increases your party limit. Concentrate on getting your party limit to 100 with a high ratio of elite troops. When you capture enemy lords always release them initially to gain honour. Right to rule is another key factor in how other factions perceive you. It will raise very slowly initially until you start to amass vast amounts of renown.

START YOUR OWN KINGDOM
Once you have an army of around 100 of which most are elite troops, then you are ready to take your first castle. I would advise waiting for an opportunity to arise. Wait until a faction becomes weakened. In my game it was the Swadians who started to lose territory as a result of warring with the Nords for which I was a vassal. Choose your time to strike, then renounce your allegiance to your king, hopefully if you have a high relationship with him you will still hold a decent-ish relationship. Attack the weakened faction. If they are at war with your previous vassals then this will gain you a common interest and they are less likely to declare war on you.

***I have made a guide about sieges, how to minimalise your losses whilst maximising your kills. Look up my channel Krushner20 on YouTube if your interested***

Once you have taken your first castle, generate a court with a follower, then send an emissary to your previous vassal, seeking favour. They will approve due to your common enemy.

You need no more than 3 lords initially and I would wait until you have at least 1 fief to give them each or they will get unhappy quickly. Put all efforts into taking as many castles from the weakened faction as possible. When the lords come to your court, recruit the best ones. Award each a fief, they will start to build armies and this gives you resilience if another factions declares war against you. If you get a peace offer from a faction ACCEPT IT. It greatly increases your right to rule which is what prevents everyone declaring war on you.

DEFENDING AGAINST A WAR DECLARATION
First off its worth noting that if you have saves prior to the war declaration then if you reload it there is a fair chance the declaration won’t happen or it could be delayed giving you some extra time to prepare.

If not and your starting to panic, be confident that with your army of 100 elite troops that you can smash most armies if you use strategy and skill. The best tactic is to wait for them to siege a town or castle. As they assault it, move in and join the battle and stand on the battlements supporting your troops. If you have the right troops their losses will be horrendous and yours shouldn’t be too bad. If you get caught in the field, use strategy to your advantage. I have made a few videos on my channel demonstrating how to control your troops effectively in battle and this is the key to victory with not many losses. In brief, if you have Nord huscarls, hold your position preferably on a hill, close formation and wait for the enemy to smash themselves against your ranks. Please check out my channel for more info as it’s quite hard to explain and easier to demonstrate. I have beaten armies 3 times my size quite easily using efficient strategy.

Replenish your losses with new recruits and always try to keep your army towards 100. Look for lords and castles with loads of prisoners as you can recruit them directly if need be once you defeat them. Don’t forget to award yourself some towns and castles to generate income this is important as your army grows.

MID TO LATE GAME
By now you should have a number a fiefs and should look at wiping out the weakened faction. Then, bide your time and preferably wait for another faction to have war declared upon them before you do so to. You can declare war any time through your advisor by sending an emissary. Then it is just a case of systematically taking over the map. I had a few sticky moments where two factions declared war against me but with my ability to control battles and influence outcomes I came out on top and you can do if you play smart. The AI fortunately is often pretty stupid.

A NOTE ON GLITCHES
There is a common glitch where a faction will not end even though you have taken all its holdings. If this happens do not worry. It happened to me too. You just have to track down the remaining lords and capture them. Once you have them all, the faction will end. Most should defect anyway after the last fief is gone.

I hope this guide is of use. Please provide feedback and I will add to it if need be or answer any additional questions.

The other two guides are already good but I want to add a tip for those stuck in the endgame and the last faction won't disband/ can't find the king. I should note as well that under no circumstances should you take peace. If you do, then you will have a very hard time trying to find a enemy lord to start fighting.

Head around to your owned fiefs and create messenger posts. If you have more fiefs, then this becomes more effective in nailing down the lords that are performing hit-and-run attacks on your territory. In your city or castle of choice, make a prison tower to prevent any captured lords from escaping. The Rhodoks had about 13 lords and once 6 were being held in a town or by another lord, they disbanded.

Additionally, if this doesn't work, you can empty out a faraway castle in order for one of the enemy lords to take it. This is supposed to lead into that faction's king spawning there (if he isn't anywhere on the map), but this never bore fruit for me. Instead, it was a reliable tracker in order to find one or two lords since they gathered around the empty castle.