In Mount&Blade: Warband each hero has connections in a particular town. You can ask the hero to go gather intelligence from them about the faction that owns the town. The information is generated when the hero returns, so if a town is captured the information will cover the new faction instead of the original faction. It takes up to 5 days and provides information about: * Instability in the faction (% of lords disgruntled, % restless) * Rivals of each lord (lords having a quarrel) * Relation of each lord with liege