Bwargh,
Did you really expect Marignon to remain at peace with Ermor for long?
And the gift was only 400 gold, if I recall correctly.
Morkilus,
I started with a few more provinces than that, though my capital was under siege. What really hurt was that I only had 3-4 mages. All of them in the besieged castle with my only lab, so I couldn't even recruit more. When I did build another lab and start recruiting, I had to turn some of them to bloodhunting. I was so far behind in the research race, there was no way to catch up.
I don't know if my predecessor hadn't been recruiting, or if Ulm had slaughtered all his mages.
At least I'm having some effect. I wasn't sure.
