I don't know if anyone has already talked about this but I decided to give it a shot and see what you all think. Bandits are a problem, even when raiding lords aren't an issue they hinder villagers and caravans, in some areas almost hopelessly. A number of mods give you the ability to set up patrols but because they are not garrisoned units they are always expensive and are quickly killed off by enemy lords anyways.
My advice, invest in local law enforcement: Manhunters.
These bands of bounty hunters roam around a set area and attack any bandits they come across. Unfortunately, they often get overpowered by their would be prey or become so small from fighting as to be ineffective and on the run. Of course, a simple solution would be to open up Tweak Mount and Blade and scroll down the Bandit Parties list to Manhunters and make their min/max starting party 500/500 and call it a day. If you want to play it vanilla without any cheats (in which case I respect you) then alternatively you can follow the prescribed method:
1. Assemble a large patrol force, large enough to overpower any bandit army.
2. Find a local manhunter group.
3. Follow them untill they come across a bandit group and attack them and join in the fray. If need be, herd a bandit party towards them.
4. Their should be some captured bandits or maybe some rescued prisoners. When you get to the window where you can pick and choose who you want, remember three things:
- Anyone you don't pick goes to the Manhunter Party, Prisoner or Rescued.
- You can throw men from your army into the "rescued pool"
- Manhunters have no party limit.
5. Put it all together and you have your earlier patrol force running around with a group of Manhunters at no expense to yourself. The benfits over a regular player patrol are that you don't have to pay for it and enemy lords won't attack it because it is a neutral task force. This method can be repeated with the same group to make a giant, invincible army or spread out over an entire territory. Either way you can put the bandits on the run and even the hostile armies in Pendor can be made to tremble. Although I suppose that in Pendor you can do the same thing with Questing Knights. Doing it this way also allows you to be discriminatory, for instance the Manhunters in Swadian lands are now more effective than the ones patrolling Rhodok territory.
I also speculate that something similar could be done with Villagers and Caravans, but only if they don't respawn but stay the same until killed. I will definetely look into this.
