Makes me kind of wonder why people don't just align all their non-city and non-stronghold regions to the capital and leave the cities and strongholds as sole members of their respective duchies. That would make maintenance mostly a breeze, and for those lonely cities, who cares, unless they're really big, in which case...make that your capital. Strongholds can hold out on their own anyway so meh. Always been a fan of intentionally letting resource sink cities stay rogue (meaning high consumption for gold income that doesn't justify the dedication of food and knights), take over all surrounding regions, and have a nicely located big city as your capital. The occasional monsters and undead from those cities can help ward off too much peace and give some free training.
Unfortunately not many locations allow for this too well. Oligarch on EC could work as well as possibly the similarly located Topenah.
