Now you're down to 18 and if you do the math, we were surviving against (and beating in skirmishes) Sorraine and GDD as two realms with nearly double that noble count, and beating you guys badly as three realms with 2.5x that noble count.
Three realms? What are you talking about? The realms fighting Cathay were Sorraine and GDD. (Well, that's *after* some slick political maneuvering changed it from EVERYONE V. Sorraine, in which Cathay was more than willing to engage in a one-sided gang-bang against someone else.) It may *technically* be three realms against Cathay now, but that's pretty much your own fault. Your ruler has been extremely hostile and provoking on the ruler's channel. (Which is great, because it keeps the war going.) While Sorraine and GDD were already at war with Cathay, she deliberately brought Myern into the war against Cathay.
When it was Cathay v. GDD/Sorraine, you guys were losing, as evidenced by the fact that we took Lenamaziel back, GDD was roving your lands looting, and we were launching assaults against your capital. (Mostly because it was the ONLY region we could attack. We would have much rather attacked somewhere else.) Sure you were winning the occasional battle, and so were we. But beating us badly? That's a ridiculous stretch.
The entire Sorraine/GDD war against Cathay slowed to grinding halt for a couple reasons, even before Arcaea imploded. First, Sorraine/GDD sucked at coordination. Not because "coordinating is HARD", but because we sucked at it. And because we didn't give a !@#$ about the war, mainly because of the second reason: The battle front was a single region sitting between _two_fortified_cities_! And on Cathay's side it was your friggin' *capital* which you stocked with a militia force that by itself was nearly as big as our entire mobile army! And our our side, GDD packed Colasan with nearly as much, I think. No one could do anything. IIRC Cathay attacked Colasan a couple times and lost miserably, and the north attacked Anacan a couple times, also losing miserably.
This isn't anyone's fault, and I don't blame you or GDD for going the militia route. It's become a pandemic problem. Gold is way too plentiful, and player count too low. What's the best defense? Stock up in militia! Entire wars have ground to a shrieking halt because one or both sides just started cramming regions full of militia. The Sorraine/GDD v. Cathay war is only one of them. Myern's entry into the war (which Cathay's ruler insisted on fighting) doesn't change anything. Neither side can do crap to the other except waste armies.
More nobles is a great argument for why some particular war should be won or lost, especially these days when nobles are so scarce overall. But it only goes so far. Double the nobles? Maybe. I don't think I ever really counted. It just didn't matter. What did matter is that even if we had full participation of both the Grand Duchy and Sorraine, we couldn't have broken through Anacan. We tried and lost several times. When GDD went through PoZ lands to loot Cathay and draw Cathay's army away from Anacan, Sorraine tried to attack, but had to rush the attack and botched it, because no one from GDD bothered to tell Sorraine they were doing it until it was almost over. (Yeah, we sucked at coordination.) Cathay, for their part, also launched a few equally pathetic attacks on Lenamaziel and Colasan.
Face it: The war sucked. For both sides. That's why people are leaving. Not because one side is losing, but because wars on FEI just aren't fun for either side. Too many fortifications and choke points. Not enough nobles to bust through them.
In contrast, your side completely crumbled as soon as we put up any resistance
Yeah... no. The entire war fell apart when Claudio decided to become emperor, and everyone stopped caring about Cathay. Several nobles left Sorraine and GDD to join the newly formed realms. Sorraine stopped fighting to gather forces to prepare for a fight against the reformed empire, and GDD was gutted of nobles. And ever since, the war against Cathay has been fought half-heartedly, if at all, mostly because no one cares about FEI.
FEI is falling apart. The only two realms that have enough nobles to really function are Cathay and Arcaea.
As an aside, my character just recovered after being wounded for nearly four days. A lot has changed in four days. Too bad none of it really makes the island any better.
