Noob question -- what to do with allied villages?

[zookeeper]

I'm not quite sure how the AI works, do they actually have money in campaigns? I see it as a possibility that they actually have unlimited funds and just recruit whatever they are per-scripted to. Does the AI actually lose anything if the player steals their villages?

They have gold and are limited by it just like you are, they just usually get quite a lot of starting gold and sometimes extra income too (and occasionally a scenario might gift them with extra gold at some point). You can see all this stuff in menu -> status table.

[Ninjuri]

Verrrry interesting indeed, i'm going to have to check that out now.