[Maerlande]

That makes sense about the Arena. I hadn't thought of that. And given that the AI always joins arena fights, it's going to break the allies eventually.

I'm currently working to learn map commands. So far, I've been using just the automatic pretenders created by Semi Random which does put good scales and equipment on the pretenders. However, it doesn't give extra provinces or troops. I've read some of the older comments about avoiding death scales for AI's. I've used the supplies trick as well. It doesn't seem as critical using better independents. They don't make the giant armies of crap.