[Norfleet]

As I predicted, Ulm is now imminently planning to seize that independent province. As Charon as pointed out, you're soon to be facing a similar situation with Atlantis. In Atlantis's case, since you can ill afford a war with them, given the absolutely huge number of provinces exposed to attack from the sea, and your somewhat limited ability to mount a retaliation, you may just be stuck with it. Best not to antagonize them prior to developing an aquatic force. If the opportunity presents itself and Atlantis continues its state of paralysis, you might wish to close off that problem, though: It's possible that the large force in Atlantis is only that may make it somewhat crucial province to them, plus the fact that being underwater limits partially land-capable and is being retained as the capitol garrison: Given that I recall a fair number of Atlantean troop types are capitol-only,their vulnerability to airstrikes and allows them to mass with comparative impunity.

And I wouldn't say that dealing with indies is "slacking off" against Vanheim, necessarily. In my multiplayer campaigns, I've noticed that, oftentimes, a player who gets overly fixated on a single war against a single opponent will often suffer even more as he neglects to attend to his own internal affairs, thus causing great self-inflicted harm upon his own empire as expansion and construction falter due to inattention.