My knowledge of the game is incomplete and what I've gathered is mostly stuff I've picked up during playing and from my modding excursions. I'm sure someone will correct me where I'm wrong, but the following should be more or less in the direction of correctness.
Brent said:
Do lords have a troop limit?
As I understand it, lords have an ideal size that they'll try to get to if they're not within some bounds. If under, they'll hire up to 3/4 of their wealth. If over, they'll get rid of guys to keep within 150% of their ideal size. When dropping guys, they prefer to keep high level faction troops (so a Swadian lord is more likely to drop Vaegir troops than native ones).
how does the auto-resolve work with high level troops?
Not especially well! Higher troops will do better but over a certain amount of guys and levels it just doesn't matter anymore. Unless there's a very large level difference on average, the larger lord's army will usually win. You can read all about my spellunking into its innards here:
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,58962.0.html.
Does the higher average level preclude their normal recruiting? Or is it all a waste of time and should I just leave the recruits in a castle to make it appear difficult to take?
Higher level troops are better than lower level troops for AIs but not as better as they are for you. Also note that AI leaders don't train as often or as well as players do so lower level troops will stay lower on other lords longer. If your troops bump them above their ideal size, the lord will stop recruiting. Unless you're playing a mod and they've changed the reinforcements templates, AI lords will only rarely pick up top tier troops. That should be enough info to make your own decision
