I continued the campaign by giving them unlimited money with console command and now they are in constant war while having double strenth of every other faction,boring gameplay.
At first i thought ok maybe they slowed everything down so the game would last 100 years until i found the real reason why they were not fighting.They were broke with no chance to form army.
Im ok with them being the underdog but these guys were doomed from start.Btw they were paying tribute to two factions and getting payed by one so i dont think thats the reason of their bad economy,something is wrong or broke idk in which patch as i havent played since july '20.
Your conclusion about them being broke is what I've figured aswell.
All my plays(read I never play'em) and they get wiped of the map in 5-10 yrs tops.
The faction I'm with rarely are at war with them.
The main problem is that they end up paying too much tribute and once that sets in, they cant even maintain garrisons.
In the current game Rhemtoil Castle that is owned by Caladog have 94 tropps but -7 due to salary..
At the very least imo a garrison should be able to have about 90-100 in castles, and 200-300 in towns.
So basically a few of the things that is "wrong in the game in this regards" is that they for instance is paying Aserai 1400 denars pr day.
They are paying Southern Empire 1200 pr day.
None of theese factions shared any borders with Battania at the time of war, but they decided to be greedy, and knew that Battania would fork out for peace.
Vlandia is getting 4,5k
Western Empire is getting 4k
Sturgia is getting 5,4k
Northern empire is the one they are at war with atm and they want 4,5k.
Total power of Battania atm is at year 5 of my play 1,6k starts at 5,5k roughly same as all other factions right?
They have list 1 town Marunath cause you know they had a throng of useless milita in it, but a puny garrison(under 100)
They have lost 1 castle Abercom or what its called the one next to Vlandia.
Thats it, they even have Veron Castle they took from Western Empire.
The mechanics of endless tribute is just "bad for the longevity of the game" it needs to be 30 days with tribute, then after its 0.
That way the factions have a chance to "rebuild".
The other thing that hurt Battania more than other factions though, is that they have the policy of Canton, which cuts their income by x% but they get +1 milita(which is useless..)
So with the prime location that they have with several hostile neighbours all got nice borders with'em they end up in this cycle of slow decay.
Canton policy needs to be reviewed and change, as the benefit of +1 milita just isnt good enough.
Since the milita in ai vs ai is useless(even worse vs player)
The "Battania" issue really needs to be looked into.
This outcome also happends if I just start the game, and hide in a "safespot" and speed time along for hrs of game(like over the nite etc).
The few times I've joined Battania they are fine(but so is any other faction that I join, but never do I see the others be wiped of the map that early).
Some games I've seen Southern Empire also be wiped out, but thats typically more due to them being unlucky and loosing "good lords" early on, which is rng.