I was pretty active in this iteration of Strat. I earned a lot of gold via trade runs to the desert of both NA and EU, farmed a lot of troops and armed them very well. I had a 1600 man army that I raised from the ground up, with maybe 10% help from my mother faction, and that was when I was a PART of that faction on Strategus. When FCC declared war on CHAOS, I left it, and left the men and gear I had gained as well. I didn't want to go to war with a faction who has a zerg mentality, who had at that point, lost more troops throughout their wars than WE had gained AND lost remaining more or less neutral, and who continued to grow on the corpses of defeated factions- though not necessarily those it had defeated.
My policy now is to attack whatever I feel like- diplomacy isn't needed for a brigand. While discretion in who I attack must of course exist, it will be a personal decision for my merry band! In general I favor attacking members of factions who have turned their back on their independence to join a massive conglomerate. Sparvico, former Kingdom of Duprix member and fiefholder, who joined Occitan with said fief in tow, and the massive enclave of factions who have forsaken their colours to join a large one, members of Fallen, Remnant, AoW, HG come to mind.
These factions could have, as the Berserks and Acre, made an alliance with the a larger faction and kept their own hues instead of staining the map with more monochrome. Outside of that, the allure of crates plays a heavy part in a target. I had actually meant to attack a Tojo, but I thought by the time I caught him and his 2'000 crates he'd get reinforced. Since I had already quick-marched, I target switched to Jake, formerly of clan LOTS AND LOTS OF JOLLY KNIGHTS. The ultimate goal of any brigand, of course, is to try not to attack anyone who's going to win, having only one quite small army afforded to me by the grace of Ildist, as payment for my troop recruiting, and no reserves to fall back on.
I hardly think CHAOS is in a position to feed me troops/gear/etc anyways- though I may go asking, before it's to late, for a portion of what I gave to Dhirim when I left- with a damn near 100 man faction breathing down their neck they can hardly even offer me a place to hide from my own bill collectors.
In general, the following is true of my relationship with my clanmates (Noodles, for example, is not a clanmate despite being in Republic of Mates- fair game) within CHAOS and Republic of Mates:
I will never reinforce them.
I will never get reinforced by them.
I will not coordinate attacks with them in an orchestrated matter.
I will not attack them.
That last one also holds true for any other 1-10 man faction out there, such as Jesus and Friends, The New Qalyut Republic, The Peerage of Leading Calradian Exemplars, Sons of Odin, FIDLGB, Gmnotutoos Super Kawaii Desu Desu Japanese Schoolgirl Ninja Death Squad, and even DL/Anders. More colors on the map should be encouraged, even if it's just on dots and not villages.