Currently I hold France, Germany and Italy geograpically and I'm the only thing holding back the muslim invasions. The byzantine empire is crumbling sadly. I understand that the Byzantines get the bonus for historical reasons, I have no problem with that (you're talking to a history major here). It would be nice to have an added bonus since I have protected Europe for 2.5 generations though. It's frustrating when I offer protection to a border duchy, successfully defend thembut can't exact a "toll" from them. Ideally holding the border provinces would be best but not at the price of weakening myself at home. I really need the developed home provinces to maintain a balance of power, but I also need to build up frontier defences intelligently (AI building habits are >< at times).
I kinda want to have the discussion with my vassals "If you want to remain free give me some emergency powers; otherwise have fun dealing with the Emirs."
In any case I'm just disappointed that for any empire in the game the demense limits can't be modded in a straightforward manner. I frown at hardcoded limits. Iwas hoping to mod to a x3 kingdom bonus so my intrigue 6 ruler could hold 9 provinces.
kilarious
Side note: In a recent Byzantine game I had a good ruler and was able to hold 22 provinces (I held 20 all around Thrace). This was critical for fighting the Turks and the Mongols. They generally beat the crap out of the fringes of the empire but once they reached my powerful base they're power was crushed and the tide was turned. Guess I'm out of luck in the west.
