About fixed houses: It's good that we've rediscovered them, but let's not forget that we had good reasons to move away from that system after KotR. Igno's attempt to forge a new duchy and my attempt to create an imperial county were both attempts to do things that fit perfectly into the kind of game we wanted to have, but they were both ill-fitted to the rules we had. In fact, I once sent a rules inquiry to econ about what I could do if I became Duke of Austria (I'm sure you'd all be *shocked* to know I was trying to figure out how I could use the position to benefit Prague). I asked if I could use the position to establish Bohemia as an independent county and then abdicate, or if I could move the capital to Prague and turn the Duchy of Austria into the Duchy of Bohemia. I was very surprised to hear that that I couldn't even do the latter.

I think we should start the game with three previously established, permanent houses as in KotR. But as the game goes on, it should be possible to rebel and establish new Houses, which are not permanent and must be fought for.

If we're worried about expanding too fast, we can always use Deus lo Vult as our mod. That adds a lot of extra expenses to the player faction.