Not knowing the code at all, I can only speculate. Insurgents are tracked. Normal police work, hanging rebels, etc. The higher that particular figure is, the more likely it is you will be attacked and robbed by bandits/pirates in that region. Rogues would be the most likely, with Core control being least likely. I don't know if this is the case, but since multiple factors are involved, I'd be fairly surprised if this wasn't one of them. Not quite what you were getting at, but..
As big as regions are - and we actually know how big these days - I march my 10 troops through a region with 10 hostile enemy troops and we'll have a battle. The odds of eleven men meeting another eleven men in the likes of the Desert between LN/LV and the Grand Duchy would, you'd think, be slim. Size really doesn't matter, so in which case if there's consistency, it doesn't have to matter for your suggestion either. If this is happening more than once in a blue moon, I like your suggestion. If its as rare as most here seem to imply (first time in a long time), is it not already balanced enough? Doesn't mean your solution isn't worth implementing either way but, for all the concern about this, its not really a fix if there's no problem to be fixed.
An Elder would be more use than gold at that point. The Lords can build the first level, pay for as much expansion as needed, but they can't expand a Temple already in their lands. Counter-intuitive if you ask me. Shouldn't a Priest be required to make holy a place of worship, but adding a wing to the Temple not such a big deal? Still, not the topic. With a bit more thought over the last few hours, the most likely reason I see a Priest with loads of gold is administration/logistics. You can't transfer what's in one local treasury to another, and often you'll have a big build-up in one Temple or a group of 'em, but not a copper in others off the beaten track or with ambivalent local lords. Or, in the case of SA taking over Caerwyn's lands with VE Temple's which need their treasuries emptied because there's no chance of them staying open when their new Theocracy is established. In such a case, a Priest is ideal because they don't have the same order of fealty as Knights or Lords and won't have troops coming in that might cause something of an incident with the new residents. In that case, they actually need to take the gold, have it on them, and risk losing it to bandits. Wartorn country makes sense, but also lower control and likely other similar factors. Having an honour-guard escort them as far north as they can go before meeting Astrum's armies would, in that context, make sense.
