Daniel McSorley wrote:
> All the above is just from my experience, disagree if you like, I’d love to hear it.> To knock down a wizard, just rule up your provinces when you get a chance, he’ll lose power at the same time as you gain it, net effect he loses fast.fighter regent). It always seems to be
lightning bolt. Course, they are outlaws after that, but heck,
they don’t care - they seem to prefer hermit wizards anyway …
OR, convince the regent that its in their best interest to keep the
sources strong, so wizard can use magic in defense of the land. That’s
a pretty powerful arguement - which fighter regent wouldn’t want magic
on their side of the battle. However, what can the fighter regent give
comparable in return? “Uh, I promise to be really nice to you …?” 
> 1 Use law holdings to collect all the GB you can.
This amounts to about 1 or MAYBE 2GBs of the taxed regents collection,
per holding. When one makes 3-4GBs a turn, that isn’t such a big loss.
Frequent use of the table proved that to me.
> 2 Play guilds against each other, and temples too, so you have a clear
> majority of law in each province, and can collect more money.
One word: alliance (between the guilds or temples - or both! And when
two people get together who make more money than you do individually,
there is big trouble for said regent). Again, experience DMing my BR
campaigns.
> 3 Don’t allow temples or guilds to have troops. Strongly discourage
> fortifications.<
One phrase: Who doesn’t have enemies? Prov. ruler’s got to have made
some enemies - guess who the guilders/priests go to first?
> 4 Take 50% of every trade route. If they don’t like it and won’t pay, shut it down with a decree (another reason to have higher law holdings than their guild holdings, see page 60 of the Rulebook).<
Works for as long as said regent finds out who the ruler’s enemies are,
and then guess who doesn’t get money anymore - and finds an army
marching towards their capital. Granted, I’ve used the excuse that no
feudal lord in their right mind would allow such a thing, even to hurt
enemies, but they then just go hire mercenaries …
> 5 Fortify everything. Castles are the best investment you can make, it’s automatic defense in depth. Even if you have no troops stationed in a province, they can’t just raze your holdings, they have to neutralize it first and wear it down. other, but mysteriously only raze XYZ Guilds in the lands you occupy.
> Bluster, rattle sabres, and withdraw, apologize mutually six months later. The guilds will never know what hit them (same goes for temples).