So having observed Oceania's aggressive behaviour, I decide to bait a trap, I boost my border province with him to PD 30 and put the majority of my military might, plus a small army of mages there. I am confident he will attack and his knights of the depths will be utterly destroyed.
He attacked...but only 1 army (out of 2, less then half my force) and no mages turned up to fight. He trashed them.
Why?
Well, I set the mages to site search and my prophet to preach. I got 'lucky' and discovered a site which turned up a castle, which of course mean't that by the time Oceania attacked only commanders/mages set to patrol would fight him...ARRRRGGHHHH!
So over half my army and my mages sat on there rear ends in the castle watching the 30 PD + other half my army be squished.
Now my 'new castle' is under siege, soon to be in Oceania's hands and I now have not got a big enough army to protect my mages long enough to destroy Oceania's forces. Especially as Oceania has brought up reinforcements.
Talk about 1 factor creating a utter military diaster...sheesh...the lesson of the day...when defending a province put all your forces on patrol.
I am going to scream in a dark room now...