Its been a very cool game. Not only are the north and south of England in a very uneasy truce (Robert has claims on every single one of my personal holdings, and a larger army to call upon), but Scotland has now got involved by DoWing me, and the lowland clans are already over the Cumberland border.
Returning to topic - CSK, I quite frequently get DoW'd by my liege in a similar situation to Veldmarschalk. The main trigger is bordering one of his demense provinces, because the AI logic encourages him to claim it, and then pursue that claim, even if its already a part of his Kingdom. The second trigger is being a part of his natural kingdom title, which puts you further down the hit list but still on the list. Being a human makes you more likely to be chosen for the dubious honour of persecution, as well. As both triggers are pretty common situations, I find that once you're on the Duchy tier you have to ditch your liege ASAP. Leave it too long and he *will* try to destroy you. It might take 10-20 years, but he *will* try...and if he's a liege of any significant size, say France or the HRE then you're virtually guaranteed to lose. Short of a dramatic leap of inheritance or an incredibly lucky conquest (both of which are fairly rare, especially that early in the game) you simply won't be able to challenge him. Even the medium-sized Kingdoms like Scotland and England have you hopelessly outnumbered, although with them you do have a better chance of growing quickly enough to put up a fight.
My biggest gripe with it is that although it does, in theory, make a good balancing feature in practice it actually does the reverse. For example - if the King is concerned about the increasing power of your dynasty and wants to limit you, then it makes sense that he should try to revoke a couple of your titles and see the lands spread out more. I do that to my vassals, so I have no problems with someone doing it to me.
However, the King will do it with a vengeance. No matter your loyalty or devotion, he'll target you to grab your lands - even if he's over his demense efficiency level. If he occasionally asked for a parcel of land, or the right to give a duke title elsewhere, I'd tolerate it. Unfortunately, he requests far faster than you could possibly hope to grow - and he'll spam you until you either say yes or get slammed for having low loyalty.
Your options are then pretty limited. You can give away your lands piecemeal until you can conquer enough from outside of the natural Kingdom region to start a new homeland for yourself. Whilst that does work as a strategy, its a right royal pain - and inevitably, the only lands you *can* conquer are weak and poverty stricken, which doesn't leave you with brilliant medium-term prospects. Of course, it can all go pear-shaped if your liege decides to actually DoW you at any point in this process rather than try to revoke (which, believe me, he does), because once he's done that then as often as not he'll claim as much of your land as his prestige allows.
By this stage, its a fight you can't win. You either get mauled and surrender or you have to cheat in some way, shape or form to keep yourself in.
There are only three vaguely sensible options to avoid this situation without editing the game that I've found. The first is to appease your liege in every way possible, pray for an early crusade and pray that your liege goes on it. When he asks for your troops, keep on politely declining and cross your fingers that an event will trigger the Pope to ask why, giving you the chance to renounce your liege (gain independance, liege gets no new claims on you, small risk of excommunication - but nonetheless better than almost certain destruction if you stay in the Kingdom).
The second is to ensure that if your liege DoWs you, you can fight him off - which means you'll need as much land as possible and unless the Kingdom is tiny, a powerful ally as well. If you're in the HRE, your only realistic option is France. In order to do this, you need to ruin your loyalty in every way you can until it falls low enough for you to be able to seek an ally. Being a Duke, and not being able to seek alliances at the game start (as 90% of the AI will), you'll be incredibly lucky to get any worth speaking of. Most Kings won't be interested, and you really need it to be a close neighbour if they're to have any chance of protecting you. Should you get this alliance, the next pitfall is the death of a) your ruler or b) your ally. If this happens, you're back to square one. The most sensible option, therefore, is to 'encourage' your King to DoW you as soon as you have the right ally and a decent enough chance of at least forcing an acceptable peace settlement that will leave you independent.
The dubious third option, which I've never tried but would technically work is to murder your loyalty so much that you can pledge allegiance to a strong neighbour. Since you're not part of his natural lands he shouldn't pursue you, and you'll get automatic protection from your former liege. I've never tried it because I've never managed to keep my loyalty that low, but I suppose if you had the right liege and repeatedly assassinated his chancellors then it might be possible.
Observant players will note a common trend in these three options. All involve total and complete disloyalty of varying scales and a predetermined strategy to either become independent or change lieges for a less dangerous one. Not exactly great gameplay enhancers, or helping hands for someone pursuing a historical-feel AAR.
The sad fact is that there is no reward at all for remaining loyal to a liege and expanding through 'legitimate' means as part of his kingdom. Also, except for slightly random rebellions, there will never be any civil wars (Byzantium excepted) or any opportunities to act as kingmaker in return for favours. Unless and until there are, or unless the AI becomes a lot more lenient on its human vassals, that will remain the case.
In the example in my previous post, my strategy from day 1 was to expect a DoW from the King of England and to prepare accordingly. The AAR tells a different story, but that was the reality - and I was right. The DoW on Shrewsbury was a completely random attempt to annex it to his personal demense. As it happened, that was a really bad tactical decision as his armies were weakened from crusading whilst mine were virtually fresh...but had William I done that in 1070 rather than his son in 1095 then I would have been crushed.
There was no reason why William I didn't attack me in 1070 aside from good fortune on my part. In fact, I've had him do exactly that when I brought this issue up when it was first seen in the betas. From 1066-1070 as the son of the Duke of Lancaster I was DoW'd six times by the King on six different attempts from the original save. There is no conceivable way that the County of Lancaster, with or without the support of Derby province, can defeat the Kingdom of England. Or find an ally who can.
The only ways to resolve the problem were to remove the King's claim on Lancaster (symptom), on my newly taken lands in Powys (symptom) or to go in as him and give away the bordering county of Chester to someone else (partial cure which lasted long enough for me to get my independence). In fact, I had to remove claims on Lancaster and Powys twice before I realised that it was bordering a demense that was causing him to repeatedly claim lands that he already, in the grand scheme of things, owned. :wacko:
but you got the mecklemburg lands which are part of Germany king title - doesnt this make the ai to strive to make these lands part of its demense or something under direct control ? Ive seen the Ai fighting for its base territories several other times 
