what to do about Connaught?

[runes]

Connaught has the largest empire so far. They own basically all of ireland and show no sign of slowing. I, on the other hand have a very small kingdom (just sepated from gwynedd) and am worried about their massive expansion. All of their lords are boasting minimum 400+ stacks.

Has anyone else seen the massive connaught expansion?

 

[JuJu70]

I've seen other ones like Fortriu and Dumnonia or Mumain.

 

[Thorgil]

would be (historically) nice, if especially the anglo-saxon kingdoms have a strong tendency for expansion.
maybe motomataru knows how to script this?
because its sort of weird if britannia in the 7th century is ruled by the irish for example.

knowing that accuracy is a big goal of this mod, i think it would be adequate if the saxons factions are the most powerful expanding factions.
if it is scriptable... 

edit: i always play on side of the romano-celtic factions, and - beside the historical accuracy, which is kind of elementary - i would love to have a strong enemy 

 

[Idibil]

But this give adventage to saxon players 

 

[Spongly]

Also, it's only historically accurate because that's what actually happened in the real world - there were a number of points where things could easily have gone the other way, and in an alternate timeline, I think that's fair enough.

 

[doomvirate]

And very often Anglo-Saxons indeed have made significant expansions in my games. In one of my games South Saxons conquered Glastenic and East Saxons, and Mierce held great power around their starting point, having captured a few towns and tons of castles. However I did curb their expansions a lot while playing as a vassal to Crafu. Crafu were allied to Pengwern, so it made their campaigns against west Briton factions quite useless. 

I haven't really paid attention to what goes on in Eire, since I haven't got around to playing with the Irish yet, but I can vouch for Fortriu gaining control of north as well.

 

[DarkDiamond]

Of three times I played all Irealnd easily falls into hands of one faction in just as little as 1-1.5 year. 2 times that was Mummain, one -  Dumnonia. But still it leads to conclusion that irish lands are easily conquered, probably due to having only few cities and factions with 3-4 lords each.

 

[JuJu70]

The real problem behind this is the diplomacy mod - it leads to some completely weird alliances and random factions controlling places miles away from their home

 

[runes]

any suggestions to stop huge 4-500 stacks and kings with 700+ or at least shore up defenses so i can counter attack in the future?

 

[Dorrin]

Kill em is the easiest way. Take the offense, not defense. Go hunt them in their lands and take lords prisoner. If you're at the point where you think you can't do that go on offense anyway... Either their marshal breaks off his siege to try and stop you or you succeed in taking their castles/towns while they are after one of yours.

 

[Untitled.]

I recommend gathering big parties and pumping up your castles/towns a bit. It's highly unlikely that you're gonna beat stacks of 400+ with less than 250 men. The chance of taking their fiefs is also very low depending on how far you're in the game and will most likely end up in unnecessary loss of valuable mid to high tier troops on your side as well as a fief swap. Not worth it.
If you wait for their sieges you always have a better chance. If you fail in beating them fully you'll at least slow them down a fair bit and the huge loss in men they'll take might result in their campaign ending before you know which leaves them vulnerable for a swift counterattack.