What should I do when my faction is dying?

Question

I've finally gotten a good thing going. I'm a married vassal, have two castles next to each other, around 1000 guys divided between the castles and 100 fully upgraded cavalry men in my army. Things were going well.

Unfortunately the king of my faction decided to start wars with two other factions and after a while the rest decided to join in against the one I'm a part of. So, things are not looking good.

Any advice on what I should do?

Answer 1

If you were King/Queen of your own faction, it would be fine. You'd fight a war of attrition (destroying their campaign armies, taking towns and castles, and taking back anything you lose), and after a certain amount of time the factions would all beg for peace (or you could find their king and propose peace).

Unfortunately, your AI king is likely to be dumb at requesting/accepting peace, so will probably keep fighting a multi-sided war for ages. So I strongly recommend forming your own faction (option 2 suggested by spartacus).

Answer 2

If I were you, I'd look at my situation and ask myself this question: "Would I be a better king then my current king?"

Let's say all of the vassals love you, and hate their king, then it might be time to topple the king and change the name on your doorbell.

If you are in a hopeless war, and not able to organize a coup and overthrow your current king, then if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Answer 3

You have 3 options at this point:

1. Gut it out, depending on how much territory your faction has remaining just do your best at defending your remaining land (prioritizing towns over castles), and retake any recently lost town (the NPC lords usually split and go off in their own directions after taking one). Eventually the other factions will declare peace or go to war with each other.

2. Start your own faction. Go and take some territory and demand that the king give it to you. If he refuses, then strike out on your own. Your new territory won't be at war with anyone... yet.

3. Similar to 2, find the claimant to your faction and declare for him.

The benefits of 2 & 3 are, if you already have good standing with the lords in your faction, it should be no problem to convince them to join your cause.