Empire controlled village, 0 troops, 300 pop, who didnt fight ofc. Looted tons of gear, however the town held 22k gold. SO basicly when you raid a town and it has no gear, you loot nothing, while attacking the towsn comes at a great risk (people in town can reinforce it, the 5 ticks thingy).
BAsicly it comes down to attacking a village, killing all the people, stripping them of their clothes and weapons, sacking the town armoury and looting all the gear ,but mysteriously forgetting about the chests full of gold in the treasury.
No matter how you look at it, this makes no sense