Between attrition (lost in battle), needing to leave troops behind to control conquered territory, and longer supply lines, shouldn’t the armies have gotten significantly thinner and weaker.
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Let’s say you have 100 well trained troops pillaging the villages across the land. Each village has 50 troops defending it. You don’t kill all the enemy troops. Let’s say you lose 10 of your own and kill 20 enemies, and then the other 30 surrender. Some may offer to join you. All may offer to join you. Some/all may be forced to join you for threat of butchering their families.
You’ve lost 10 men putting you down to 90, but you’ve gained up to 30 men putting you back up to 120. Over time, and depending on loyalty/training, these troops may genuinely prefer being on your side and under your leadership. Or even if they don’t, they have little choice.
Repeat and the numbers grow greater and the losses grow fewer. Your numbers growing greater and stories of your victories across the land make future villages less likely to even fight back and may just accept that you’re the new guy in charge.
If all those villages banded together to meet you on the field, they’d stand a much better chance at resistance. But these troops are not a standing invader army like yours, so this does not happen.
History isn’t as simple as that, but that’s the simplest way I can explain it.
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