Playing a Lokhir Fellheart Campaign in Eastern Cathay is reminding me of the old adage "Never Fight a Land War in Asia." I swear I'm re-enacting the Japanese Nipponese Conquest of China here. I spent the first twenty turns going crazy on Easy Mode, smashing the local Warlords and capturing two coastal provinces in their entirety, and the next EIGHTY TURNS without capturing a single settlement (and keeping it) because Lokhir Fellheart is a Maritime based raider and I was hoping to have Allies and Vassals protect the interior, but first Clan Eshin and the the Dim Sunz, a Savage Ork tribe were fighting with each other despite both being my Allies and both being at War with the Cathayan Main Factions.
So I eventually took out Clan Eshin... and now have spent decades worth of turns (tens of turns) slowly taking over City after City, occassionally going back to replenish and upgrade my units thanks to my Black Arks, before slogging through the interior and trying to create a Savage Orc Manchukuo State as a Buffer between me and the Cathayan Hordes SO I CAN FINALLY CONQUER THE CATHAYAN COAST FOR FFS.
I thought capturing the Ports was going to be not too hard twenty and thirty turns in but I was drawn into these prolonged land based campaigns sieging cities and gifting them over to my incompetent local allies because I know if I get stuck here... I'll have to keep fighting Cathay in the interior in perpetuity. I just cut off the Great Bastion from the rest of Cathay... but Miao Ying and the Northern Provinces just confederated with another Warlord Faction farther West and doubled their size again. I just hit Turn 100. I just wanted to stir fry! 😭😭😭
