You can check game settings by loading up your turn, clicking on 'Options', and then selecting 'View Game Settings'. In this case you'll see that indie strength is set to 5, which is default. Bear in mind that this is late age, so indies are going to have a generally better level of equipment/armor than they would in earlier ages - more heavy infantry, crossbowmen, etc.
We're playing on a fairly large map for the number of players we have (works out to 17.5 provinces per player), so most people should still have some room to expand, as well as time to recover from any initial expansion stumbles. That said, I'd be careful openly advertising strength or weakness in a game without graphs!
...unless, of course, it's a trap...
