Hello, so im newish, This being my first year. Just wanted to ask some of the alot more experienced players if the current situation (the empire being attacked on so many fronts) is normal or of this amount of warish activity is new? Should we be worried? Is PD trying to kill us all off 
Welcome along Jayceā¦
This is, to an extent, normal. And technically, the Empire is still in a better state than it was in year One of the gameā¦ Weāve conquered Skarskind, Seguara, Karsk, Spiral, Holberg, Reikos and Mournwold (7). We have lost Semersuaq, Zenith, Liathaven and half of Morrow. (3.5)
We have more armies, and better co-ordination and support.
The game has expanded, the enemies have upped their game, and the complex balance of stuff is wobbling all over the place 
Weāve even had all-out offensives hitting us beforeā¦ the Jotun into Mournwold and Liathaven, the Thule into Karsk, the Grendel into Spiral, the Druj into Holdberg and Zenith.
Based on Imperial might and history:
One front is barely a war.
Two fronts is a challenge.
Three fronts is a problem.
Four fronts is a long slow defeat.
PD is not trying to kill us off, PD is trying to give us a challenge, after weāve got better at dealing with themā¦
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Perfect, just the answer I was looking for. Thanks geoffrey!
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PD is not doing anything here, itās the players breaking peace treaties and provoking more wars with their actions.
PD is just the machine calculating the effects of those ^^
According to their podcast that is 
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The Empire being at war is pretty much the default state of affairs. Itās a relatively slow-paced game so many of these are the same wars that have been ongoing since the start. On balance, we are slowly regaining lost territory!
We used to be at war with the Thule, to the north, but I believe there is currently peace. We also used to be at war with the Lasambrians to the southwest, but that Orc faction is no more. (ask around in the field for details)
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In terms of enemies we are at war with, itās not often it has been lower than three, although sometimes the other itās been a smaller three, Barrens Orcs instead of Druj for instance.
So we lost our foothold in the Barrens, the 2 regions of Liathaven, and we gained another region of Broceliande, so Iād argue itās probably closer to 3 because we never had that much of Liathaven.
To confirm we have just signed another 5 year peace treaty with the Thule. +
āNormalā is entirely determined by player actions.
PD have made it pretty clear that the war campaign is run so that the people giving the orders for the Barbarian hordes only know as much as the Enemy commanders should do. If we screw up and over commit, thatās on us. If we crush them utterly through superior tactics and coordination, thatās also on us.
The up side of this is that when weāre winning itās because we did something right. The downside (and one I feel a lot of players in the field either donāt realise or frequently forget) is that if we play badly enough we can lose hard, and this can have permanent effects to the Empire.
There is no narrative imperative here. The good guys (putting aside the thorny debate about whether thatās us or the Jotun) are not guaranteed to win. 
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When I read the Zenith WoW I just thought āBuggerā and "How do we attack the Druj? It looks like they have overextended to do this.
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So, last time the Druj were turned back - at Holberg and Reikos - they turned out to have been quite massively overextended. Their forces in Reikos were obliterated, and at Holberg they were strategically trapped into decimating their own troops with large scale strategic magic. Itās how the Druj operate - they donāt seem to care about force protection the way the Jotun, Thule and Grendel do.
When the Druj lose, they lose hard - but making them lose is painful.
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Yeah, I recall the Holberg turn came down to:
Druj, believing there to be 1 Empire army holding Holberg, throw on āEverybody bleed hard!ā and order āAll out Assaultā with three armies.
Empire having snuck in another 6 armies order āHold the Lineā.
Druj, outnumbered 2 to 1 attacking a fortification, take massive casualties. Then courtesy of their OWN magic, they take even more casualties. Survivors do a runnerā¦
Mr_Haystacksā¦ the latest WoW is relevant to your interests
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Theyāre overextending and weāre already making them hurt. It could be a lot worse.
This very question is very current affairs within the empire, and one almost everyone is the field will have an opinion on. Get out there and ask it!
I will however echo a couple of the opinions on this thread; from what the team have told us, from what I have witnessed of several of their previous campaigns (Iām counting Phoenix LRP in this too), and from what I am witnessing in this campaign the situation the Empire is in is from a simulationist rather than narrativist universe.
Iām also flicking back through the Real Historical Wars ā¢ and am trying to find one where a nation was at war along three quarters of its perimeter that didnāt end very badly for the nation concerned. But Imperial Citizens are mostly Human, so spiritually superior to Orcs.
Mongol Empire? Napoleonic Empire? hmm, youāre right, trickier than I thought.
And this is why we really shouldnāt get into a three-front war
ā¦itās a reason why my previous character wanted, at some point, to conquer the Thule landsā¦ because then we have a solid damn border up to the North poleā¦
But having played a few too many 4x games, the most interesting bit is usually the first part, when youāre surrounded by enemies, friends, and āfriendsāā¦ and have to carefully balance things.
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Yea I had read it and almost fist pumped in work. Now we need to stop the Morrow Druj armies turning back and cutting our selves off.
There are going to be parties in the league Friday night.
Unless there are any fast armies they canāt get back to that territory next season. They canāt get through Liathaven to the Barrens due to needing to make a beachhead first. So they have to go Zenith>Unknown>Barrens.
So the Druj have some choices to make
a related question. is there anyway to stop the Druj from moving back? say, if they were to fall back to zenith to get to The Mallium, but at that point Imperial forces had taken a region of Zenith. would they then have to stop for the season to try and fight their way out?
AFAIK there are no ways to stop an army moving.
Theoretically if there were Imperial forces fighting in Zenith they would need to stop there. However weād need enough forces to establish a beach head there.
Also one of qualities of the Urizeni magical army slows down armies after it fights them, so they can only move a territory the following season. Which could be quite handy, but depends if their cycle is in that phase for that power.
edit Tell a lie this suggests that as long as they control a territory they can move through it - https://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Army_orders#Movement
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I know one of the laws/ limitations of magic is that you cant make a ritual that restricts movement, but what about mundane means?
This is one of the Urizeni armyās special abilities
https://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Cyclic_magic#Technique_of_the_Coiling_Chain
And blimey upon reading this army is pretty darn OP when it getās the chance to use it abilities .