I've been thinking... The restriction of needing an adjacent region to conduct a takeover was lifted due to sea travel... But this is resulting in realms from the other corner of the map conducting takeovers to reduce distance from capital issues (example: Astrum taking over a region on the Madinian isle) and just a generalized tendency to conduct takeovers of very far regions with no hopes of keeping them (Aurvandil taking over Saffalore to use its harbors). Holding these regions is imposible, but there is a significant advantage to doing that anyways. And it looks like it's a trend that will increase. But it's in complete contradiction with how we've handled takeovers since at least I started playing, in 2006.
Sure, it's necessary to be able to continue takeover over sea once the sea routes are removed, but maybe a distance cap should be put? ex, must be within 500 miles by bird's eye of an owned region to conduct a takeover? Otherwise it breaks how it used to take time to slowly progress and expand towards an enemy before being able to consider taking out one of his cities. Now, one can just sail directly to the city's outskirts, move on to attack the coastal city, and begin a takeover. The defenders will never get to use the walls because of the takeover, and the war could end quickly without any of the traditional fighting in various choke points. Then, owning the region will mean cheap embarkation costs to go back home...
Overnight, Fronen could just land an army in Cjelegy, for example, then declare war on the turn they move into Rines while they know Rio's troops to be away invading some other realm. Rio would get absolutely 0 forewarning, and the walls would only be defended by crappy militia (who act weird and rarely ever rally), no mobile troops possibly being able to get back in time. Even if Rio could rush an army back, the takeover would mean that they'd never get to use the walls against Fronen's mobile forces. If they finish the takeover, they could then cash in bonds, and stay there forever, or leave for cheap if need be. This is just an example, but BT and Dwi have plenty of other similar scenarios possible. It doesn't feel right that takeovers can now be done over such a long distance for coastal regions.