Minor Proposal: Reduce the number of provinces in the British Isles

[QuintusSertorius]

In EB1 with 21 factions, there were 8 provinces in the British Isles. AI Casse, left to its own devices, never really did anything beyond consolidating this region, then just sat there. For the human player, this offered a challenging (because there were massive Eleutheroi stacks up there) but ultimately safe base from which to build a powerful empire that could then expand onto the continent.

In EBII with 28 (and eventually 30) factions, there are still 8 provinces in the British Isles. AI Pritanoi, as far as I've seen so far, still never does anything but consolidate the British Isles, becoming massively rich when they do so. I have seen the occasional building of navies and landing of troops in Gaul, but they never do anything beyond that. For the player, it a safe, protected space to carve out your own economic base without risk of interference from any other faction, before you have to consider turning your sights on the continent.

There are more provinces in the British Isles than in Greece proper. Or in Italy. Almost as many as in Anatolia. In moving from EB1 to EBII we actually reduced the number of provinces in Greece, a pretty pivotal and important area in the period. Given the hard limit in the number of provinces (200), and the need to share the spotlight around, I don't think so many provinces in so peripheral and marginal an area is justifiable. My experience of EBII so far says you only need three provinces to get an economically viable kingdom, I don't think the Pritanoi's starting position should merit them more than that.

So here's what I propose: reduce the number of provinces in the British Isles to 4, and redistribute those four freed up provinces elsewhere. Perhaps some to the Balkans more generally, if there's going to be a new faction there (like an Illyrian tribe or the Skordiskoi). Maybe some more in the east. Perhaps another province in Greece. Either way, I think gameplay would be improved by limiting AI Pritanoi and making human-played Pritanoi have to look to Gaul much sooner.