A few questions

[caravel]

The landbridges will make all the difference, as they will prevent the AI getting cut off on the islands - so no more Byzantine reappearances on Crete with 10,000 men - and no port...

Without landbridges the islands are useless, in fact some of the islands are useless anyway such as Malta and Rhodes (all that they add is "flavour" and they may be worthwhile if you're adding crusader states factions to the game). I have removed those two and used the provinces elsewhere, but if you're keeping them the landbridges are a must - even if you still have shipping.

[Garnier]

I actually went on to add even more landbridges. I often play England and France, so I wanted their position to be more interesting. What I did was add even more landbridges on the following connections:

Wessex <-> Brittany
Ireland <-> Brittany
Wessex <-> Normandy
North Umbria <-> Denmark
Mercia <-> Friesland
Scotland <-> Norway

So far this has made the game far more interesting. As England, you can't just take Flanders and hold it easily because if you don't protect Wessex the French will invade behind you. They actually managed to drive me out of Wessex in my current game.

I am hoping to see the Danes use the opportunity to invade sometime. It makes England much more vulnerable, which is nice. Also as France, it would mean you have to defend all three of the English channel provinces to be truly safe from England.

[caravel]

I actually went on to add even more landbridges. I often play England and France, so I wanted their position to be more interesting. What I did was add even more landbridges on the following connections:

Wessex <-> Brittany
Ireland <-> Brittany
Wessex <-> Normandy
North Umbria <-> Denmark
Mercia <-> Friesland
Scotland <-> Norway

So far this has made the game far more interesting. As England, you can't just take Flanders and hold it easily because if you don't protect Wessex the French will invade behind you. They actually managed to drive me out of Wessex in my current game.

I am hoping to see the Danes use the opportunity to invade sometime. It makes England much more vulnerable, which is nice. Also as France, it would mean you have to defend all three of the English channel provinces to be truly safe from England.

Interesting idea. What I would say though is that with three French provinces linking to Wessex it is likely to be blitzed in a "Shinano" fashion by the French very early on in the campaign. This will wipe out the English capital and break their economy in a few years, effectively putting them out of the game. If you want contiguous English Territory it may be better to have the Normandy <-> Wessex landbridge and get rid of the landbridges to Flanders and Brittanny.

[Raz]

Perhaps you could make a few one-way land bridges leading out of Wessex into France, but only a single two-way land bridge going from say Normandy to Wessex. Thus allowing easy defense of the province but not constricting England's ability to lash out.