It's recommended you increase your fief prosperity and buy up land to support your armies upkeep when you are in a war. The upsides are fewer casualties and hence better odds of success, however the downsides are higher cost and more battles as your group will not be big enough to keep intimidate the larger parties. Quality revolves around gathering a small but experienced band of soldiers to fight your battles. This brings us to quality, which is the method recommended for mid game. For this strategy to be effective later you will need to invest in your leadership skill, otherwise you will soon find quantity becoming obselete as the lord's parties you will face as vassal are not so easily scared away. Quantity involves going to many villages and simply hiring peasants or the equivalent that serve as cannon fodder and to scare away bandits. The optimal option to go with when starting is quantity as it is most important in the early game. At present, there are only two important things required to build the army of your enemy's nightmares: patience and gold (see building your finances), which also reflect the three (practical) directions your army may go: quality or quantity, or a synthesis of the two. Now, from this meagre start, raising an army to take over Calradia seems a daunting (if not impossible) task. The second you leave your starting city, you are alone, with no friends except the merchant you (hopefully) agreed to help.