Jaune has may good points. The empire is evil...... Evil.
It would take a unified front to defeat them because should CE be invaded it would have the backing of Talerium, Tara, and Strombran which is more then half the map now. In the past no one card to join to gather in fear that there realm would be destroyed or they were involved with their own petty wars, fast forward and there realm gets destroyed anyways.
They only thing that would break the empires grasp is if one of their allies turned on them and they have the backing of what ever scrap realms are left.
