Are villages worth it in a rebellion?

Solution 1:

Are villages an acceptable substitute to towns?

No. No number of villages substitute for a town. If you rebel against Harlaus, you're looking at constant attacks and raids from your former mates until one faction is basically destroyed. Owning a town gives you:

• Strong position for siege defense
• Place to garrison troops
• Marketplace to buy and sell
• Tavern to recruit mercenaries and sell prisoners
• More income from taxes
• Enterprise opportunities

It's safe to say most of your villages will constantly be looted or in the process of being looted until you really do damage to Swadia. Towns and castles can dissuade attacks with a big enough garrison and you can get an easy win if you personally defend them.

The only catch is that castle and town income depends on surrounding villages and trade caravans, which probably will all end up getting looted by Harlaus and his boys. So don't expect to maintain the same town and castle income.

As the other poster mentioned, villages follow the allegiance of the associated castle or town. So in your example, you would lose Jelbegi as well as any other villages that aren't owned by your two castles.