Raids are fast moving attacks designed to devastate enemy provinces and to pillage loot for the coffers of your royal treasury. During war seasons as many as eight troops (approximately 30,000 warriors) may raid at one time, so raids are of more consequence than you might imagine. In addition to bringing in wealth for you, a highly successful raid can ravage a province from one end to the other, causing such havoc and destruction that it yields no wealth whatsoever to its controlling kingdom for that turn. Raids may be conducted on any turn and are especially lucrative during peace years. Preparations for a raid must be made one turn in advance.

For each raid you will make decisions as follows:

1. Assign one army to the raid. The army assigned must be located in a province adjacent to the one you are raiding. The army assigned may be a provincial army of any size or an active imperial army of eight troops or less. A raiding army will carry out its assignment and then return to the province where it was located at the start of the turn. If your provincial army contains more than eight troops, the eight most experienced will participate in the raid.
2. Decide whether to raid the whole province or simply its trade routes. Raids on trade routes are less risky but more damaging to the income of a far away kingdom than the one controlling the province. If you attempt to raid trade routes and none are present, you will instead raid the whole province.
3. You may assign one of your characters to command the raid. If you wish to place a character in command who is not presently assigned to the raiding army, then you must issue a command order on the same turn which assigns him to the raiding army.
4. Make a battle selection. You may choose DISPERSAL, OPEN FIELD, or SET PIECE battle. Disperal means dividing up and fleeing from engagements with defending troops. Raiders drawn into open field or set piece battle tend to loose any loot which they have gained unless victorious over the defenders.

All raiding armies will retreat from battle after sustaining LIGHT losses (25%) while defending troops will only retreat after taking HEAVY losses (75%).