I've seen stuff mentioned across the internet about how to manage CK in order to max out everything. However, all the info I have is scattered in bits and pieces-I have had to spend hours putting it together into a coherent whole just to avoid failing miserably.

Thus, I have two questions;

1) Does someone have a direct internet link to a step-by-step guide for maxing everything out? The only stuff I've ever seen is about building shit, time intervals, ore locations, and who to recruit; I want the rest of it.

2) Can someone give me coherent advice on how to max out unit strength? I'm into act 3 with 376 troops and 62% time, and it won't let me recruit anymore

Well everytime i play i dont get enough Men... road and land security is permanently very low or low :(

so i would be thankfull for every adivse eighter

I always start the game as Neutral but end up becoming Good through my choices, when starting the keep setting recruitment standards to High than training until they reach "Best" and recruit Katriona ASAP and set her to Special Missions and when your training gets high she will offer a better training program netting you "Best of the Best" but you cannot recruit everyone your standards for recruiting have to be "only the Best".

Obviously your people need armor and weapons so recruit Edario & Jacoby to run the smithy and get them equipped right away.

By the time i get Best training and Basic weapons and 2nd armor upgrade the first mission unlocks for them to get done, they should do well with best training and upgrades but try to stick to the main quest to get all the potential Sargent's (Bevil, Light of the Heavens & Jalboun of the Two Blades).

Send Bevil on Patrols, Light will work anywhere but i choose training the men & send Jalboun on Special Missions to send him away from the keep as much as possible as he can be negative for the men if staying at the keep but he increases Special Mission success.

Keep taxes low and on certain occasions Kana will ask about sending out people to collect extra taxes and i pay that out of my own pocket to keep the people happy and sending more Volunteers.

When Uncus arrives to start a shop and offers to help you run a corrupt keep i say no, he complains about high road security which makes his desire for corruption more difficult and i don't need him.

During Neverwinter's evacuation a lady named Joy will be dancing in the streets, recruit her to dance at the keep to make people happy.

Stick to patrolling Land & Roads, upgrade roads to full to allow Merchants, when signing a Merchant charter i choose "The Circle of Friends" as they don't engage in dodgy dealing.

When contacted about signing a charter to start a village you are required to keep the lands safe to keep them happy and they will later send Volunteers your way and this will grow over time and you should have several hundred Recruits and hundreds more Volunteers over time.

By the end i have over 1000 men including Recruits & Volunteers equipped with the best armor and weapons.

this is a list of my choices so they don't reflect an evil playthrough, anything I've left out like locations of people can be found here http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Crossroad_Keep

Tried to attach an image of my newest Crossroad Keep preperation but the image seemed to attach but when i posted it didn't show so ill just have to tell you.

Crossroad Keep Report

General
Time Passed: 100%
Keep Funds: 434947 Gold
Income: 26536
Number Of Recruits: 196
Merchants: 475
Peasants: 512
Peasant Civility: Highj
Morale: Very High

Greycloaks
Numbers: 1708
Volunteers: 1485
Recruits: 196
Greycloak Civility: High
Training; Best of the Best
Unit Strength: Very High
Weapons: Best
Armor: Best

I did all the upgrades mostly from my own money, built the Wizards Tower, built the Ivar's Church.
you can build the Neverwinter Nine tower instead of Wizards & you can build the Church of the Sun Soul instead.

no

Perhaps the best Crossroad Keep walkthrough that explains the mechanics of keep maintenance was the one at the now-defunct ThievesGuild.net. This can now be found archived here.

A second good walkthrough that has much of the same information is the gq-game-mods website here.

The TG site sketches out a path to getting the Warden of the Keep epithet feat (i.e., the "good" path), whereas the latter covers both that and attaining the Dreadlord of the Keep feat (the evil path) as an alternative.

Note that maximizing "everything" is subjective and ultimately not that important. If you want the "best" option, take the path that nets you the Warden feat.

This is the gold mine you're looking for:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150726040201/forum.bioware.com/topic/157201-crossroad-keep-cash-money-flo/

Unfortunately, the original page is inaccessible but you can see most of its content through wayback machine. This person made millions of gold and had everything high.