We ran across a situation where I was out of knights, but she wasn't. She then wanted to use a Renegade card and both of us were disappointed that this was actually BENEFITIAL to me because I then got one of my knights back.

So, we play with this variant: when removing, for example, a red knight to "renegade it" to a purple region, we literally move the red knight to purple's region, instead of removing the red and placing a purple... It looks a little odd, but the play is much better and the whole idea of a renegade "defecting" to the other side makes a lot more sense...