I think the rules are pretty clear that a player can fight a battle started by a captain; the player just has to be "involved" rather than initiate the attack:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
(c). - Battles: A player whose avatar leads an army that is involved in a battle will be expected to fight that battle. This will involve downloading the savegame of the battle, playing it and then uploading the resulting savegame. Uploading the post-battle save must be done within 48 hours of the pre-battle savegame being uploaded. If the deadline expires, the battle is autoresolved. If a player cannot fight a battle that is assigned to them, the battle may also be fought by any player whose avatar will also be present in the battle. Under no circumstances will a battle be fought by a player whose avatar is not present in the battle. If there is no player available to fight a battle, it must be autoresolved. If there are no allocated avatars involved in the battle at all, it must be autoresolved.


However, they are also pretty clear that we cannot recruit in provinces that are not ratified:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(b). - Gaining and Losing Provinces: All conquered provinces must be ratified by an edict, which can be passed at the session before the conquest or be applied retroactively at the first session after. If a province is not ratified in this manner by the end of the very next session after it was made, it must be given away or abandoned. While a province is not ratified taxes must be set to the highest level possible and no recruitment can be made in that settlement. Any province conquered and ratified becomes part of the King's Demesne. At the time of conquest, the conquering noble can refuse to hand the province over to the King, but this puts him in a state of Civil War with the King. The King can be prevented from giving any province in the Demesne to another Noble by a two-thirds majority vote of the Council.


Conquered rebel provinces can be regarded as ratified, but not German. I think this rule was supposed to represent "physics" rather than "politics" and to slow us down vs the AI. So I am not sure we should "play on" and deal with it in character. Staufen seems to be a prime case of where we are really stretching things to rush the AI - not even properly defending our conquests - so us taking a hit seems justified. I vote we back up before OKs move and delete the archer recruit.

BTW, I think by the rules Staufen is the King's unless OK refused to hand it over at the time of conquest. The timing matters here - we debated it and although there was disagreement, I think the rules as written reflect the onus on a "rebel" noble to come out and openly defy the King at the time of conquest rather play a waiting game.