Sturgia needs several things to be a competitive faction that isn't free real estate for calradia to eat up when ragnavad inevitably declares war on everyone.
1. Better party templates. 0 Nobles is frankly absurd, EVERY faction should get at least 5 nobles. I'd prefer there to be no party templates as that is sort of what was intended for Bannerlord, but the AI probably needs it (unless taleworlds adds a training skill tied to leadership, that'd be nice instead of making the AI cheat). The fact is, if 1 sturgian lord gets into a fight with 1 khuzait lord, based on their template alone, the sturgian will lose every single time. Sturgia simply cannot compete in any battle of equal size. I like the fact that they have druzhinniks as their nobles, since they're supposed to be a slavic faction with nord/steppe influence, but you will NEVER see a sturgian with noble troops. Yet another disadvantage. Even if they manage to recruit some nobles from a village, the noble will most likely die before being trained up into a druzhinnik since they do not get horses until tier 5 - another disadvantage. Compare this to every other noble unit and you will see sturgia at a clear disadvantage. Even Fian are better and easier to train than druzhinniks for the AI due to the fact they are the best archers around - they don't need horses.
2. Better village economy and production. Sturgia's tier 6 nobles are cavalry. Sturgia also has 0 villages that produce horses. This is a huge problem. I did not even know Tyal horses were in the game until marrying Svana and saw she had a very good horse. Villages not only lack horse breeding in Sturgia, they also greatly lack the furs, iron, and silver that were said to have made Sturgia one of the wealthiest lands in lore. In game, they are always the poorest, producing usually flax or fish.
3. Map redesign specifically for Sturgia. I like the shape of Sturgia, actually, in the far north with some very strategic locations. The problem is, only Revyl and Warcheg benefit from this isolation. Every other town is way too far apart for any faction to reliably defend with the standard 5000 manpower. It takes about 6 days to travel from Ustokol Castle to Tyal. Neyvansk Castle requires you to run through Battania to defend it. Any time Sturgia goes to war, they are at the greatest disadvantage of any faction simply because of how far spread out they are and how long it takes to go from one end to the other. Aserai is comparable, but there are no forests in the desert, and thus its easier to travel across. But other than the Aserai, every other faction has a better geographic and strategic layout than Sturgia. All of Battanian land is in a condense highland with only a few entry points. Vlandia is the dominant faction in the West that only needs to look East for enemies. They have several towns and are all decently close together - easy to defend for one army. Khuzaits are similar and only have to look West. The imperial factions, despite being surrounded on all fronts, still have very good town positioning, and it is easy for them to defend all towns with only one army. What needs to be down for Sturgia is simple - cut them off entirely from the Khuzaits. There needs to be a massive, impassable strait between Tyal and Dinar Castle. This way, Sturgia can focus on a single front, rather than being forced to march across the entire map if they go to war with more than one faction.
also you posted this just today.