Same in the Teutonic order campaign. As landlocked Novgorod I am stealing candies from babies to feed my troops, yet Teutons keep sending more and more armies. I am not outnumbered but definitely outclassed by their heavily armored soldiers. I think in the first 20 turns I had more heroic victories than in whole vanilla Grand Campaign. Good thing Mongols are duking it out with Poland.

Also in the campaign script I see that in addition to bonus income factions get a "last stand" bonus of $10000 if they have only a few settlements left, and the "debt bail-out" bonus of $10000 if they go in the red, finally they all are supposed to turn on the player if he is close to winning.