Joining a faction ultimately involves you in the world's politics. Which are completely non-existant. All it does is let you attack war parties from Kingdoms your faction is at war at... but that's really about it. Sure, you can wander into the empty, lifeless cities but much like your own predicament, you get the feeling the citizens of this world were simply dumped there and told to kill stuff. You've got no sense of the world. Not even a lousy book or newspaper or message boy to say what's happening. Just lifeless messages scrolling across the bottom left of the screen. Lord X was defeated in battle and managed to escape (like you're supposed to care).

[...]

On horseback, you are an unstoppable killing machine. A fast horse means enemy horses aren't a problem and most of the time, you can avoid them anyway and focus on them one by one until they're down. A few minutes later and you're done. Unless of course you happen to make a bad judgement call and your own horse is killed beneath you. This is when combat goes from pathetically easy to ridiculously hard. The people you fight are often as good as you, even when you have full skills. So it comes down to getting the first hit in quickly and then hitting them repeatedly (which knocks them back each time, allowing you to hit them again) until they're dead. If they hit you first, you're screwed as they keep hitting you. Particularly against multiple foes. There's no real skill at sword-play, it's just "avoid getting hit at all costs". You can block but often they just attack again immediately meaning there's no time for you to counter-attack. One-on-one it's not so bad. Just run away from them (only ever so slightly out of range) until they swing, after they inevitably do, turn around and attack yourself. They'll hopefully fall over, giving you ample opportunity to finish them off. Though if you're up against large numbers of footmen and you're alone, then you're in trouble.

That's where your army comes in...​