Other than to take land and to keep your war magic up.

No matter how many people you send and how badly you win, you STILL get less than 100 goods worth. This is really silly when 30 crafters can make ~300 goods every year in the end game. You will never, ever, run out of goods except in the first few years because it is absurdly easy to get goods.

And the funniest thing is that a cattle raid can easily net you 90% of the value of a full raid with 1/5th the forces sent.

50 weapon thanes and 200 footmen plundering a tula only nets you like....35 cows worth of goods on average? This is quite sad.

You don't raid to take goods. Those are just a nice bonus, but they're easy to get, as you said, especially with a clan devoted to trade and crafting (as I assume is your case since 300 a year is a lot).
You raid to get cows. Those are far more precious and useful than goods, and are difficult to obtain since most clan won't trade them after a few years.
You raid to please your warriors, or to continue a feud.
You raid to keep your warmagic strong.
You raid to weaken a rival clan, so that their own raids won't hurt as much, or to force them to accept political compromises.
You raid because you want lands, tribute, or revenge.

And mostly, you raid because it's fun. ;)

You're an orlanthi! Think like a barbarian, not like a bean-counter strategist!


Really, goods are simply not part of the equation. Just a nice bonus.

The problem is that you dont raid to get cows, thats what cattle raids are for. Also its really easy to get infinite cows by stacking cow related bonnuses (to the point where you have to keep culling your herd as you run out of pasture land)

Raiding only seems to be something you have to do keep your weaonthanes happy, your warmagic strong and to seize land. Otherwise its just not worth it. For some reason plunder is miniscule from raiding even though winning should allow you to take pretty much everything the clan possess (like you know, in real life when wars are won).

For me it is. But I get the impression we don't play the same way at all.
Your reference to scouting with 48 weaponthanes, or cleaning out magic items, gives me the impression you powergame, while I don't. Last time I won the game and became "issaries Queen of Dragon Pass", I had around 15 WT (24 when I spammed mobilization in times of trouble).
For me, getting 30 cows and 25 goods, and crushing the guys who kept raiding ME last year, was a decent haul for a summer raid. Nothing game-changing, but it added up nicely, especially the cows after my herds were decimated by some random event.

As for "I should take everything", I think a successful raid is more "taking a few outlying farms and looting them, and running with everything you can carry" than a full assault on the central village and chieftain's hall. And I'm kinda grateful it is : I don't want to get a "game over" screen each time my defense fails (i.e. "often", especially in the early game). Think of what a successful troll raid would mean...

Its really not about power gaming. In order to test the game, i needed to cheat.

The underlying issue is that if you want players to do something, there has to be an incentive to do. Raids are large scale, costly affairs...the plunder should be a lot more valuable than a simple cattle raid, but it's not.

So you cheated to create extreme conditions, and the game broke. Which sounds... kinda unsurprising?

When you play normally, raids ARE OK. risky, not really powefull (it's more chipping away at enemy clans than dealing a powerful blow, but since that goes both ways), but worth a try. A typical raid enguages maybe 12-20 Thanes and 120 of my warriors, not the hordes you're unleashing, and the spoils I get are pretty much the same as yours. It has been scaled so that small clans have a fair chance to get a significant result, and players don't get trapped into a spiral of death (lose raid --> lose men and ressources --> inefficient at raiding and can't recoup his losses --> lose more raids...)
Sure, cattle raids are usually a safer bet, but a full raid gives other advantages (weakening another clan, vying for a political advantage, pleasing the more bloodthirsty members of the clan, snagging some lands...). And the loot is better, although not by a huge margin. But loot is only one of the possible motivations, here, and not the full focus of the raid.

I think you're approaching this game the wrong way. You're seeing it as a strategy game with hard numbers, and looking for optimal play, while it's really a RPG with a strong emphasis on the "R". If you don't play it as it was intended (i.e. by "playing with the mindset of a barbarian lord"), I don't think you're going to like the game. I might be wrong, and I hope so (it's one of my favorite), but your other posts seem to confirm that.

If you want more goods, take prisoners!

I just make raids to avenge other raids, or to to make the others stop raiding (once I started making 2 reaids by year against an annoying neighbour, and thanks to the treasure I was always winning, so he stoped attacking me.

killing and capturing your enemies people, land etc. I rarely cattle raid. and May capture thralls sell them back for goods how is that not worth while. at some point you may need more land you can't get that with a cattle raid. the gods demand blood as a religious tribe it is your job to appease them. but if you don't want to crush some poor clan under your heel don't because you don't have to do anything you don't want to. repercussions.... probably but damn them all