2)
Become a mercenary for a faction and constantly defeat and releasae lords you war, do the village quests and decline the reward - this will do you good twice, you´ll get honor and a village relation increase and it´s very important to have a few villages which love you as you can recruit off every village you´ve got positive relations with despite warring their origin faction and the more relation you´ve got and the higher your relation with a village is, the more and higher tiered recruits you´ll get, up to tier 3.
3)
Depends on your playstyle. The easiest tourney around is windholm - hatchets only - followed by Sarleon - jousting only. You can bet in ever round on yourself and earn 20k the first time with full odds plus there´s a minor chance in each tournament that you´ll be rewarded with a special item by the town steward, including the noldor tourney.
7)
Keep it tiny, around 50 heads strong - up to 15 Rogue Knights/Adventurers/Hero Adventurers if you can afford them, NPC companions, and split the rest evenly into excellent archers like Ravenstern Rangers and Kiergards or Empire Crossbows and Pikers/Legionaires or Ravenstern Rangers and Fierdsvain Armoured Axers and go after the smaller parties, like Vanskerries, minor Jatu and Snake Cult Armies and the various rogue knight treasure hunters for fun and loot.
Once you fight lords you´ll need more men but you´ll have enough game expierince by then to realise which troops to field against which enemies and why it´s an unwise move to attack 6 Knights of the Dawn with 25 Ravenstern Archers, 15 Milita, your companions and yourself. It´s called gaming experience or more amusingly, Epic Vaseline Moment.