??? Last strat it was most of NA and EU marched with hopsitallers, same thing in strat 2. You guys have never been the little guys, ever since you joined the Northern Empire and after.
Just call on your allies on EU and NA side, like Astralis, Occitan, Chevalieres, Malta, Papal Guard, KUTT (kutt's vassals - teutonic knights and swiss), etc. and you have half of NA on your side. You guys are never the little guys or play the underdogs - overwhelming numbers in your favor in every strategus. If it changes this strat, then it is long overdue.
At the beginning of this strat, TKOV was twice the size of kutt or the hospitallers. Bring in people who would side with them from previous versions of strat, and just generally not liking our faction, and you had at least half of NA who would fight against us (as mercs, and potentially with material resources in-game). We felt getting another faction similar to our size in a defensive pact would help assure we werent' wiped from the map in the first month of strat (by TKoV, FCC, Chaos, shogunate, etc) should they all decide to team up and start marching.
I fail to see how that was aggressive (to get an ally for trading, and for mutual protection should it be needed).
and alliance with one of the biggest NA factions, Kutt, who has several vassals as well
....KUTT, and the hospitallers both had numbers in the mid 40's. The Velucan empire had #'s in the mid 80's. FCC had about 40 some members as well. Remnant and Chaos combined would have had about 40 some members (a lot more now with Remnant numbers swelling).
It would be different if KUTT and Hospitallers both had 80 some members and allied, that would be about half of NA, but the KUTT/Hospitaller alliance was no more than 1/4 of the NA numbers if I had to guess, maybe 1/3.
I kinda like TommyHu though :l
Prob cuz he's my younger bro and we're very similar people.