Loyalty

Loyalty represents the trust that the people have for their ruler. A khan whose subjects are not loyal risks losing his Castle. A Castle's Loyalty is displayed in a drop-down-menu, where the current active Castle's name and coordinates are displayed.

Loyalty is used for:

• Conquering Castles – a Castle can only be Conquered if its Loyalty drops to 0. When people are not loyal, they do not care if you will be dethroned and another ruler will come to power.
• Defining March distance – Loyalty determines how far a March can go from the Castle. The maximum distance is calculated in travel time. For every 1000 points of Loyalty the March can travel for 1 hour (ex: if the Loyalty is 5000 a March can go 5 hours away, in one direction). An army which isn’t loyal wouldn’t go very far from its Castle because the Castle is unstable.
• Returning Marches – If the Loyalty of a Castle drops under 3000 all Marches (except for Transfer) sent from the Castle turn back. When the Castle's rule is unstable armies return so they can protect it in case something happens.

Loyalty can be changed by:

• Noblemen – when a Castle is attacked and the Attacker has Noblemen survived after the battle every Nobleman reduces the Loyalty of the defender's Castle. Every Nobleman that survived reduces the Castle’s Loyalty by 300 to 600 points, and no more than 2000 points per Battle (these numbers can be increased by using Motivation). An Order can reduce the effect of Noblemen by up to 80%.
• Time - Loyalty is time-dependent and it restores itself over time. The rate of recovery depends on the level of the Order.After a while people forget why they were mad at you.
• Knights - There are items that, when equipped, give a bonus to the loyalty regeneration per hour.
• Participating in a Battle with Noblemen as Defender – when the Defender participates in a Battle where the enemy has Noblemen, each Nobleman killed by the Defender restores 300 - 600 points of Loyalty. Displaying the dismembered remains of an enemy Nobleman on the square has a striking effect on the population’s Loyalty.

Loyalty is so vital because when Loyalty is low the risk of the Castle being lost increases and Armies wouldn’t want to go on long Marches.

If the attacker's Noblemen are unable to lower a Castle's loyalty, there is a label showing that this is so either because the Noblemen perished in battle, that's a defender capital castle or because the attacker's Order is not of a high enough level.

Players whose Castles have less than 10 000 Loyalty are not deleted for inactivity. This is done so that a player trying to Conquer such Castles has a chance of success.

Here is a table showing the amount of loyalty restored per hour, depending on Order level: