So, in my latest game as Wales, I noticed that Cornwall's "de jure drifting" counter had almost reached 100. England had been pretty vulnerable before; First Norway won the war, then there were constant revolts (resulting in the Norwegian and English crowns splitting with England owning more than half of geographical Norway, and de facto Norway's capital being in the Orkneys), then the House of Godwin took back the English throne, then Scotland, aided by France, invaded and took a sizeable chunk out of the northern parts. Finally, during another bout of vassals revolts, the Danish king decided to press his claim on the English crown and won. I could've taken Cornwall at almost any time during these tumultuous times, but I simply assumed there would be more of them later and went to work securing ky holds in Ireland and my first born's heritage of Bretagne, as well as my other children's inheritance of other Duchies. Then, I finally noticed the counter - 70-something out of a hundred. That sucked.
Denmark, at this time, owned not only the Danish lands and England, but also said 50%+ of Norway, was way to big for me to take on. So, I waited. Surely Denmark wouldn't be able to hold on to all these foreign lands, right? There would be independence wars all over, right? But no, it was completely stable. And the counter kept ticking down.
So. It was time to act. The Dane King might have been a god damned saint, but his heir was a spoiled brat without ruling experience (and with only a daughter to inherit him in turn, the fool). And while the Danish spymaster didn't exactly enjoy the thought of murder, he quickly laid his moral objections aside as I I presented him with a gift of gold. And then, we started plotting regicide.
After the Saint's demise, the new Fool King could do nothing.
All of his realms revolted in nothing more than a week or two. England is dotted with tiny few-province realms, excepting the relatively large Lancaster and Northumberland, only the counties northeast of the mouth of the Thames stayed loyal. The Norwegian provinces broke free. All independence wars. And even in the Danish heartland his rule was foiled as the duke/count of Slesvik started a succession war for the throne.
Half of Cornwall is now mine. England is splintered. The remaining Danish settlements has been sieged and taken over and over (resulting in peace for Lancaster, Northumbria and another count so far), and hasn't been able to field any men at all in a long while. I simply hope all revolting realms will be able to win their freedom, as such a fractioned England would be great for my future ambitions. When I return this after noon, I'm going to find out if I can join the Duke of Cornwall's war to ensure their victory at least, so I will only have to face a two-county realm when I want to take the Devon half of the duchy.
This game is great. This game-on-the-game has been awesome. My only regret was that I had to go out of character to do it, but looking back it was totally worth it anyway