My Rajesh Sarranid Raider has been doing great. Looting villages is a great source of money, right? But there's always the threat of some lord with a huge army swooping in and crushing. But here's one thing that's occurred to me: castles, no matter how large and powerful their garrison, cannot move against you without a lord leading them.
So I quickly exploited this. I would scout next to a Rhodok castle, and after confirming that there was no lord, I would loot the village, no problem, then high tail it to a non-Rhodok town.
There's always risks. A patrolling lord could attack me, but hey, I always save before doing anything major.
Not only am I looting Rhodok villages, and thus depriving their leadership of small amounts of income, I am getting thousands of denars, and now I can raise a grand Sarranid army. I have 27 men currently, about 13 are recruits, the rest sarranid infantry. But I intend to recruit many more, and when the Rhodoks are at their weakest, I will strike and take hopefully a town or castle from them.
...But then again, they are the toughest faction to siege, so I have no idea how well this is going to go down in the long run. Any tips to prevent my future army from getting pincushioned by crossbow bolts in a siege? I figure that making my army stand a good distance away from the castle until the enemy runs out of ammo is a decent tactic.
Any more anti-Rhodok strategies?