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You might look at changing up the battle auto-summons, especially on the Marquis. I was able to consistently get almost 30 provinces by the end of year one without an awake pretender in addition to making at least 3+ additional forts. Standard tactic was a small number of supporting units (10-15 or so cheap chaff) slightly back from 2 Marquis who were pushed all the way forward set to hold a turn, attack. It's a cheap enough force to facilitate early castle spam (and thus even more Marquis) while still expanding at breakneck speeds. I'd suggest switching the battle summon to something more along the lines of 1 knight and 3-5 chaff troopers, though even this may allow the same tactic.






Note: Tests run on milkshake, misfortune-3 order-3 pretender. Poorest result was 23 provinces and 3 forts(inc. start) with 1 building by the end of year one. Best result was 32 provinces and 4 forts with 3 building. Average was 27 provinces and 3 forts with 3 building. All builds did 0 research in year one.