NotSerfs

It's hard to understand the need to try.

I'm just opening this up as a place to discuss ways and means to help lower level players level up, thus increasing the overall power level of our alliance.

There are 3 main bottle necks on the road to power that I see and experience as a habitual reincarnater:
1. Information: This is one we actually do a good job with in the forums, the rookery and soon-to-be Facebook.  We have good resources and places where people can learn the finer points from our own experiences.
2. Silver: This is what leveling up comes down to at the lowest levels.  Getting the buildings upgraded increases your level, command points and power.  But these cost silver.  Getting that inflow is crucial through the first 70 levels or so.  More silver also buys more sworn swords which means more power and the ability to get your own stuff in adventures, AvA and adventures and challenges. 
3. Time on challenges, quests and adventures: Reincarnating means trying to burn through book one and if you're trying to get all the fealty houses it's beneficial to do this as fast as possible.  There are times where having another sword swinging through a challenge can be a great help.

#1 and #3 are places where alliance help has been critical to getting me through faster.  Challenges used to be an enormous time sink as I might have a SS committed for an entire day trying to hack and slash my way through to some relatively good gear.  But nowadays, I have several go-to high level folks that have no problems joining my challenges and within just a couple of hours my sword is free and I have the good loot.  so far its been the biggest tangible boon provided by being an alliance member.

#2 is perhaps where we have yet to truly tap in, and where the greatest potential is for growth.  Experiementation has led to some nice discoveries:
When someone barters me from a higher level, we both get silver.  However the one "attacking" sacrifices their SS for relatively small rewards.  But the smaller guy benefits by both the silver AND the seals they get from a successful defense. if you haven't gotten your obsidian dagger yet, this would be a great way for the upper level person to do it.  Perhaps FB or the forums is a good place to match people questing for the dagger with people needing the silver.

this is just opening the dicussion with a few of my thoughts but there are probably other good ideas waiting to be shared!

Okay. When I make the jump I will throw it somewhere besides the building and test the theory. I'm stark right now, so...extra command point?

I would say it's a huge bug that, maybe, has never been reported to DB. Thank you very much Daza for the clear explanation.

I, for one, have put all my permanent talent points in the fealty buidings but will keep on doing it until DB publicly announces a change in its perm building policy 

There's been a a lot of confusion about that one little talent point and where to put it.  So I'm going to address this and put to bed some rumors but also maybe raise a few questions.  I'm on my 5th reincarnation and have discovered how these things work by fiddling with them.

Placing the permanent talent point is the last step right before reincarnating into your new life.  You've read the wikis, you've done everything else but this is one step you do NOT want to screw up because if you do, you won't get your fealty building that you ground away on for the last few weeks or months or even almost a year!

The good news is that it is practically impossible to screw this step up.  But nothing is ever completely fool proof because there is always some fool who is also a genius.   The first time I did this, I had read the wikis and blogs and forums and like a noob, I picked the default; the place the game chose to put it.  And as you can see in my pic of the Greyjoy bonus, I did NOT pick the "unlock Fealty Building" talent!  I picked the bonus that gave me 2% more Harrass.  And every since then, I've been a lover of all things skirmish.  At level 13 during my Tyrell incarnation, that Greyjoy building opened right up and I had iron and fish to go with my horses and grain. 

However, being a Martell was not as much fun as being a Greyjoy, so I put my talent in the "proper" spot.  I certainly did not want to risk repeating that one.  And then I became a Stark which was almost as much fun as being a Tyrell.  However, I again went with the game default and now have an aid bonus of 2% which rarely gets used.  Being a Targaryen was more fun than the prior 2 plus we were in AvA so I waited until level 100 to do my reincarnation.  And in that one, you can see where I put my permanent talent point.  And it appears as though I now can field an extra sworn sword that I couldn't before. 

In short, I have put my permanent talent point all over the talent tree and have never failed to get my fealty house at the appropriate time.  So now you can learn by my foolishness and actually pick which talent you would like to take with you on your quest toward the iron throne.  There ARE some considerations:
1. How long do you want to linger before the next reincarnation?  The better talents tend to be higher on the talent tree.  But for Tyrell and Stark, I didn't feel like going to level 90.
2. Different talents for different houses.  In hindsight, I should have picked one of the level 65 talents, where it was 2% attack AND defend for my Greyjoy house.  I'll probably do this with my Baratheon house with the battle talent.  Many people covet that extra command point at level 90, and indeed I did grab it this last time out because I'm not as into spying. 

But I am curious: what if I spend gold on a talent and choose to use my perma-point in the intrigue talent tree?  Will I not get my house?  It's not something I'm interested in testing at the moment and haven't met anyone else who was that curious but it might be useful to know!

Another question, which I will be able to answer eventually, is what would happen when revisiting a house.  I plan on returning to my Ironborn ways and if house Martell appears after that, I my end up going back and forth again.

The one thing I DO know is that you do NOT have to spend your permanent talent on the level 13 spot, which might arguably be the most worthless place inside of the fealty tree once you got the building built.  However, if you HAVE done it, I certainly don't blame you for your caution.  Afterall, I did it too, even after disproving it through my own experience!

Hopefully this will lessen the anxiety about reincarnating as well as add to the tactical strategizing involved that we enjoy about this game.  That one talent point is not a game changer at all so I'm not terribly upset about those I have misspent.