May I suggest completely redoing the whole empire thing, like we withdraw our troops from the borders and all that and say 'Hey look guys, we're offering free land, so long as you never war with us' and then just condense the land we own so everyone can fill their char slots with Children and have maximum number of estates? I am still training an army who is loyal only to Armok himself and I intend to hit the Cult Of The Void lands on the East Coast, [Pestilence and Reaveport], in a religious war.
Aww come on. I'm an offshoot branch of the Cult. Non-violent, philosophically-inclined monks. And jack-shit in troops, plus I just gave Tyvian Lords most of my land to drop my corruption a bit.
And aye, I'm planning on negotiating a nice land-trade with local realms in exchange for further friendship, and Graves just sent a request for some land - oh, and that anyone can go take Ichrelban. Better you guys than Harwick, I don't trust that guy. He stole a bunch of our lands in the beginning and barely ever talks unless he wants something, but at least he fights when you need soldiers. I don't think he's a B12'er, plus the behavior, and land-massing, hence my cynicism.
Anyway, we can bring in Tor Kortaur as friendlies, the Black Order in the southwest, maybe Ascalon... Hmm... OHHH! I have an idea! We can grant land-tracts to dynasties who want to stay in/ join the empire but found their own clans, like the Lowlands does. These groups can then ally or war as they see fit, so long as they remain allied to the empire itself on common ground. How does that sound?
So like the Lowlands except that there is one clan to rule them all? A tiny tribute in return for peace? I can get in on that action.
Work on the RASTOA (Royal Army Shock Troopers Of Armok) goes well but for one problem. That fucking bandit. I get an Inn. He burns it down as it completes. I wouldn't mind if it was just Gold, or thalls, or resources. But burning places down is a dick move. I have 30 leather-armored halberdiers to his (roughly) 130 troops, 80 of those heav. Bandits OP plz nerf. Right now my best characters are Lu Bu who has been 'redeemed' by Aodh in light of the recent battle (10:1 KD ratio FTW) and has 51 well-experienced soldiers, 1 of which is mounted .
My other good charactr is Dike Pheranike. She has 85 soldiers ( and is en route to RASTOA fields by boat, and will have to put to land to restock (~90 camp followers brings me about 13 days of sea travel.), the majority of which are archers and have no experience whatsoever.
Due to the size I hope to build the RASTOA to be, I plan on the majority of battles being shoreline raids, maybe going two estates in towards a more populated settlement, then legging it back to the ships so we can actually get back by ship. This is probably going to cause situations where the ships are unprotected and burned/stolen (I think that's a thing) and I have to march through leagues of enemy territory to get to a sympathetic shoreline estate so I can get back by ship.
I am going to need a LOT of camp followers.
In summary: THAT FUCKING BANDIT!
EDIT: Ok, turns out my memory sucks. The bandit has
30 heavy infantry
4 heavy cavalry
15 armored archer
Which I MAY be able to take on the bandit with 30 halberdiers + 85 soldiers from Dike + my characters in the area. Not looking too good though, as bandit chars tend to be tough little bastards with VERY experienced troops. Most if not all of my soldiers have no experience as well, so that throws it more in his favor. How much of an advantage does Experience give, anyway?
EDITEDIT: Dike has 47 archers