Mount&Blade/Fiefs

New to Mount&Blade 0.89x is the ability to own and manage holdings (referred to as fiefs) with more polish than the castle ownership of previous versions.

Acquisition
In order to acquire a fief, a ruler must offer it to you. There are two ways to be offered one:

Reward for allegiance
If you are not a member of a faction there is a chance that a king will offer you a fief in return for joining his faction once your renown is high enough for him to take an interest in you. If you have angered a faction that faction's leader will never offer you a property. If you refuse an offered property you will displease the leader offering it (making joining his faction harder) and he will not make the offer again. If you join a faction before its leader offers you a fief he will never offer you this "allegiance reward" property, so it's up to you whether you want to wait around hoping for an offer. Joining a faction is permanent; other leaders will not offer you a property in return for changing sides.

Captured castles
Several castles are dotted around the map, controlled by various factions; once you are in a faction you are able to lay siege to the castles of your faction's enemies (see Siege tactics). When you capture a castle it will become the property of your faction; if there is a village very close to the castle it will also become your faction's property. Every time you conquer a castle your king will give it to one of his vassals, and the village (if there was one) to a different vassal; there is of course a chance that you will be the chosen recipient of one of these new assets. When it is offered to you you have the choice of accepting or refusing; if you refuse it it will got to another vassal instead. The calculations used to determine which vassal gets a property are partly based on renown and partly based on luck, so there is no easy way of determining whether you'll be offered a fief after you capture a castle.

Taxes and produce
Regardless of how you acquire a fief, doing so allows you to collect taxes from the populace (these taxes accumulate, so you don't have to visit every week if you don't want to). In the case of the castle you will also see your banner flying above it. If the fief is a village you can buy food from the villagers or force them to give you goods, but as with other villages this will lower your reputation towards them.

Reputation
Once a village belongs to you or to your faction you can no longer burn it. If you have previously burned a village that becomes your fief the townsfolk will remember and hate you, but you can still collect your taxes as usual. As a general rule, if you intend to conquer castles you should avoid raiding nearby villages belonging to that same faction.

Villages
Unless the villagers dislike you (see Reputation), you will get the "Recruit volunteers" option; unlike the villages your faction owned from the beginning, captured villages will offer you Recruits of whatever nation the village originally belonged to.

You cannot post a garrison at the village. If the village is attacked (see Raids) only the Farmers are there to defend it.

Castles
Faction troops of varying skill levels will gradually take up residence in your castle to defend it. You can add them to your party by choosing the "Station a garrison" option, and you can also deposit men in your party in the same way. You can also drop off or pick up prisoners. Heroes cannot be stationed in the garrison.

Men left in a castle cost the same weekly wage as they would when in your party, and their wages are automatically paid (along with those of the men in your party) at the end of each week.

Fief management
Various improvements can be made by choosing the "Manage this (castle/village)" menu option.

Castles
No castle improvements are implemented in Mount&Blade 0.892.

Villages
For your village you can pay for improvements to Housing, Irrigation, and the Mill. All structures start at Level 0. Construction costs a lot of money and will take a while (a month or more), and each level of improvement costs more money and takes longer to build. You can decrease the cost and construction time by increasing your Engineer skill. Note that the Population size will continue to display "N/A" even after building Housing because this feature is incomplete.

Raids
From time to time enemies will try to raid your villages or besiege your castles; when this occurs you can head there and drive off the attackers. If it's a village being raided the Farmers will fight alongside you.