Yes, Your Grace: How to Make Allies and Manage Lord Income

To form alliances and maximize weekly income in Yes, Your Grace, you must open the kingdom map at the start of each week, dispatch carrier pigeons to reachable lords, and calculate whether their weekly gold or troop yield justifies their upfront cost before signing a treaty.

All regional diplomacy requires carrier pigeons sent from the kingdom map once King Eryk unlocks the royal aviary. You cannot recruit lords through throne room petitions alone. Because a pigeon takes at least one full week to return a response or prompt an emissary visit, send your birds immediately before hearing petitioners so you do not delay weekly income or military reinforcements.

Lord Requirements and Resource Yields

Every noble demands an upfront concession before pledging weekly resources. These typically involve direct treasury payments, assigning a royal agent (the General, Witch, or Hunter), or passing specific decrees.

Lord	Upfront Requirement	Primary Yield
Lord Etton	Allow illicit "dust" trade	High weekly gold income
Lord Grego	Gold payment or moral leeway	Reliable weekly gold and soldiers
Lord Friderick	Agent assignment or dispute support	Substantial infantry contingent
Lord Miron	Diplomatic concessions	Balanced weekly gold and soldiers

How to Evaluate Upfront Demands

Before agreeing to an alliance, evaluate how quickly the noble's weekly payout offsets their initial requirement:

Calculate the gold break-even turn: If a noble demands 15 to 20 gold upfront but yields only 2 gold per week, you need 8 to 10 weeks to recoup your treasury investment. Secure these lords early in the story; late-game alliances with steep entry costs rarely turn a profit before the campaign ends.
Audit agent availability: Loaning your General, Witch, or Hunter locks that specialist out of peasant investigations and castle defense for one or more weeks. Only pledge an agent when your food supplies and castle happiness are stable enough to endure a turn without their help.
Protect food baselines: When a lord requests food supplies in exchange for coin, check your granary reserves. While extra gold provides purchasing power, low food triggers starvation and civil unrest, which directly suppresses your weekly tax collection.

Managing Conflicting Loyalties and Demands

Certain alliances are mutually exclusive or require severe moral concessions. Siding with one noble can permanently alienate another, and trying to satisfy both usually results in losing both treaties.

Lord Etton provides high weekly gold, but his contract requires you to permit the illicit dust trade in Davern. Cracking down on the trade or sending an agent to raid his smugglers causes Etton to withdraw his alliance and treasury support. If you plan to rely heavily on hired mercenaries and castle infrastructure upgrades, accept Etton's trade concessions for the cash flow. If your strategy focuses on high peasant morale and traditional kingdom defense, reject him and secure clean lords who provide direct soldier levies instead.

Common Alliance Failure Points

An alliance can collapse after signing if you violate its conditions during weekly throne room management:

Approving conflicting petitions: If an ally requires a specific practice to be banned or permitted, signing a contradictory decree from a commoner immediately cancels the pact. Read petitioner terms carefully before making a ruling.
Ignoring kingdom map alerts: When an exclamation point appears over an allied territory on the map, dispatch a pigeon or follow up right away. Neglecting these check-ins can cause a lord to withdraw their soldiers before a major battle.
Levying unproven accusations: During council investigations, do not accuse an allied noble without hard evidence gathered by your agents. Baseless accusations dissolve treaties immediately and remove the lord's weekly coin and military contributions from your ledger.