Hello all! I am a long time MnB fan, playing it off and on for many years. I'm not really very good, but it's fun. Recently I've gotten back in, and started up another Prophesy of Pendor run. Before my questions, some context. Instead of being someone's vassal, I wanted to try the Kingdom of Pendor run. I wanted to really sell the narrative, and not just rebel from a faction, taking their territory with me. I was to be the Queen, bending my knee to no other lord. And for a while that was okay. I had won over 25 tournaments, collected ~150 veteran soldiers, found a group of 6 companions that didn't hate one another, and collected over 400k denars in savings. With that done, I set my sights on the Empire. Having suffered through brutal wars with Sarleon and the D'Shar (the latter of which they were still fighting), the Empire was by far the weakest on the map. Reduced to 2 cities and 2 castles, the Empire was looking bad. While they unsuccessfully tried to p