I am on my 4th campaign, aprox 10-15 hours in each, and every single time i feel like the factions start to snowball too fast, in 2 of my campaigns i tried to always join the underdog factions to try to stop the snowballing faction to win and i have noticed that for some reason, factions seem to refuse to try to defend their territory, multiple times, i would try to defend a city, alone when their armies are not even that big, easily beatable with some reinforcements... and sometimes you just cant call for an army yourself.
I am guilty of liking to do trading and questing a lot, but i havent even reached clan tier 3 yet without a faction already being snowballing.
I understand that this is EA but hopefully it gets fixed so i can have long term goals in the game and not feel like i have to rush into war to have a more balanced experience.
also joining the snowballing faction is not fun imo either because its just a free W.