[Squirrelloid]

Except without it the Overlords can actually swat problematic normals, removing an enemy. Being forced to fight on the defensive sucks, a lot.

I mean, in the unlikely event where an overlord manages to take and hold all of a normal's non-capital provinces (likely at 1/trn with their Overlord, which is really painful), they still have to just sit there and try to preach the normal to death, all the while the normal can make suicide attacks at random adjoining provinces to remove temples, with full knowledge that nothing it does will make the capital a weak point to attack.

Once involved in a war with a normal, the overlord has to tie up significant forces (enough to defeat all their provinces plus then defend all provinces adjoining the normal's capital until they can achieve domkill) or be forced to continually defend that border (because Overlords have no advantage in dom-pushing), which means they can't end one threat quickly, no matter how trivial. So then a second front might open up. And a third, and pretty soon whatever advantage you think Overlords have is gone because they can't fight n wars effectively, especially when they only get 1 attack per turn assuming their pretender is positioned somewhere useful or doesn't have anything better to be doing.

I mean, I had to do exactly that. And there was basically a continuous stream of longbows from Man's capital to our border - a situation made worse because I could rarely capitalize on a victory by advancing.

Now, as wars rarely involve starting the siege of the capital absolutely last, obviously cutting off the capital's production and revenues from the normal would permit a war to end (effectively) much faster, and also require a smaller commitment of forces to keep them contained (only have to defend the one province).

An overlord should be able to defeat multiple normals at the same time. This should be what makes them overlords.

Some rules proposals for the next game:
1) Overlords can attack independents regardless of dominion.

2) Create a magic item called Battle Standard. It doesn't have to do much, or even anything, but one must be present in the army for an Overlord to attack a normal outside his dominion.
2a) Make it require 15 gems, and possibly make 7 different ones (one for each magic path other than blood) so that no overlord has problems forging them. This is a significant enough gem expenditure that there are opportunity costs with outfitting another army with a standard. It should probably be a misc item or a hand item.
2b) An Overlord's pretender and prophet automatically count as having a standard without needing to carry one.

3) Normal capitals don't count for Overlord victory conditions, but all starting overlord forts do. (Rethink victory conditions)

4) Normals cannot win on their own. Instead, normals share in a victory by an Overlord. Basically, the Overlord is assembling a team that will win the game.

5) In addition to standard cooperative play, Overlords can take on Vassals. A Vassal is a Normal nation which binds itself closely to the Overlord, but allows the Vassal to win if the Overlord he is a vassal of wins.
5a) To enter vassalage requires agreement of both the normal and the overlord, and probably informing the (non-playing) game admin.
5b) An overlord can only have so many vassals, probably 5.
5c) (i) A Vassal which wants to break its vassalage to a particular Overlord is required to pay an indemnity to the Overlord. (specific amount to be determined, but I'm thinking at least 2000 gold or 1/20 that in gems or any combination thereof - it should not be convenient). (ii) No attacks by one against the other are permitted in the turn in which vassalage is recognized as broken (funds received by Overlord), but thereafter anything is fair game. (iii) An Overlord can never initiate dissolution of a vassalage agreement, once formed.
5d) A Vassal who dies still counts against the Overlord's total allowed vassals.
5e) A Normal may not become a Vassal of more than one Overlord simultaneously.
5f) Overlords should be encouraged to have vassals - possibly by making victory conditions easier for Overlords with 4+ Vassals by 1 fort or so?
5g) The identities of an Overlord's vassals are not required to be publicly disclosed, although we possibly would want to force Overlords to publicly disclose how many vassals they have. An Overlord or a Vassal may choose to disclose the status of any such agreements they may be in, of course. Nations are also permitted to lie about the state of their vassalage agreements.

Ok, that covers:
(1) difficulties in attacking normals
(2) incentives for normals and overlords to work together. In fact, it virtually mandates it