Cities seem to change hands less in Pendor, in my experience, though maraudering armies might have changed the dynamic.
To the person who was referred to Prophesy of Pendor: make sure you understand the basics of the game first, and have won your share of vanilla battles. Be warned, Pendor has a steep difficulty gradient, and it starts with the very first encounter.
On the contray from what i saw playing the game the map got TOTALLY dominated by the nord wannabees in my game while i was a vassal of the empire (that fell last).
Anyway pendor is all sorts of broken and the only way to play it is to train yourself in bows... and bows are the only weapon you are allowed to use because late game beasties are just... well monstrous.
That nice gemmed rune 2h sword i used to cleave through elite faction soldiers with one swing?
Have fun because most enemies from the undead hordes will take your sword hits as if it was an adamantine maul while oneshoting you and doing the same to even the most elite of units on your side.
I got annoyed and turned off half damage just to nitice... that i still get nearly oneshot (one hit left me with a silver of health and i was building my character for 2h melee with high health).
Its pretty much a case where autocombat screws you over less than actual combat.
Basically by the time those guys start to pop up in large numbers you are supposed to use a runic bow and have a swarm of elves in your retinue to hopefully snipe off most of them before they get to your lines and even then expect infantry casaulties at around 50% if not more.
Hell the mod even gives you a Runic bow FOR FREE when fun stuff starts to spawn.
That's how broken it is.