> When I am farming for resources either near my kingdom or far away, how do I protect my forces from attack?  Is there a warning system that an attack is coming?  Will I have time to send reinforcements?  As a lower level player, should I run and live to fight another day?  Especially if I have no more safe conducts - what to do?

> When I am farming for resources either near my kingdom or far away, how do I protect my forces from attack?

You answered this yourself in your last sentence above: Safe Conducts.

> Is there a warning system that an attack is coming?

No.

Even if there were, as is true for incoming attacks on your town, enemies jump next to your tile or boost their marches, so you have no time to react, anyways.

> Will I have time to send reinforcements?

No concept of reinforcements for tiles.

You could have an order mate or friendly order attack your tile, being ready to withdraw your troops when they get near, essentially reinforcing the tile, but they would have to unshield to do it.

Best you can do is withdraw your troops. As soon as you do you can send a replacement, but not until. The tile will remain unoccupied until your replacement troops arrive. [This is how you attack your attackers. If they stay there long enough. But only if you are unshielded - else you will bounce.]

- this is how Alpha killers protect their kills for their order mates. Upon kill, massively attack the alpha tile, then withdrawn them when your mates says they are ready to send.

Remember - espionage on a tile always succeeds.; and unlike your town, you have no castle defensive bonuses. They will always massively attack with far more than you would send to yield the tile. Thus you will always lose your troops.

>  As a lower level player, should I run and live to fight another day?

Yes. Troops are too expensive at those levels, and you need them for yielding to grow.

Some will reiteratively send small numbers to yield, on the premise that they will arrive and depart faster than any attacker can get there. e.g. 1k troops. (Myself, for the minuscule points gained, I'd rather spend my time otherwise.)

>   Especially if I have no more safe conducts - what to do?

Don't yield.

It is arguable only to use safe conducts on alpha silver camps. Safe conducts are so few, you want to maximize the value you get out of them. (Silver brings most points, and an hour's safe conduct is an hour's safe conduct - regardless of the rss type involved.)

Try not to fire up a 1h Safe Conduct until there is only 1h of yielding left. So you can lose the itch off your back that you're going to get nailed with only 3 seconds of yielding left to go! :)