Ideally, recruits should/would be recruited from the fiefdoms themselves. With the calling of the banners, each region would be bringing forward units, they wouldn't all be syphoned through a central location like the capital unless ordered to.
Right now a majority of the capitals are either under siege or under constant attack, leading to it being nearly impossible to recruit up a unit and organize an army.
In reality, if there were any men left that hadn't been recruited previous, they'd be recruited in the countryside. [ignoring the unrealistic speed in training time and the massive amounts of dudes our little fiefdoms seem to mass produce :p]
Because of game mechanics, we really can't fight back with anywhere near the strength we could muster "normally" without sneaking in and out of the capital with units on evade and hoping that we succeed. A kind of funny tactic considering that the city we're supposed to be recruiting from is either under siege or actively being ransacked. [I have a mental image of some guy running into a burning bar and saying "Oie! You dudes! Follow me! You're now archers!" "YARRR!" "Jolly good! You in the front! You're the Captain! On to victory!"]
Hence my comment about it being like command vehicle sniping. In any RTS, its possible to win by killing off the worker units or command vehicles that bring the ability to create or maintain infastructure to bring in the combat units to instantly win the game. Its gamey and annoying but a viable tactic if you don't mind reaching outside the spectrum of realism within the game.
And yes, I realize that there's magic and the like in BM and its not considered "realistic" in any shape or form. But the terminology seemed closest to appropriate.
