I want to paint the map my color, and it's the traditional goal of a strategy game, so why would blobbing be bad?
If you want an alternate route, Axioms already has a very easy solution to the question of "how do I make this big empire less powerful than a group of small kingdoms that add together into a similar size," with your attention points. Not only resource inefficiencies and corruption, but with unrest events. The farmers are unhappy from a small drought. The kings might meet with them personally to shuffle food around, while the emperor might have to rely on the local military commanders' best judgements for dealing with the unrest. I'm sure that'll work out fine!
A good way to combat my desire to blob is to make it worthwhile for me to ally with AIs. Make them more efficient with the land than I'd be (easy for Axioms), and make them trustworthy enough to share technology with. My favorite example is Alpha Centauri's surrendered states. If you're winning a war hard enough, they'll try to surrender, with a permanent* alliance, give you all their tech every time you talk to them, and occasionally donate units to help out. Even if you then let them get stronger than you, they'll stay your vassal. And so I always treated them well, reciprocated by giving them all my tech back, and donated shiny new planes to help them defend themselves. I often even gave them back most of their cities.
*They still don't like major atrocities.
Obviously, that's still blobbing. But get me an AI ally that's worth conquering the world next to, and is trustworthy, and I'll share the conquered lands with them.
Perhaps there's room for a better long-term reputation system than Paradox's system of "They've answered the call to arms every time we've gone to war. We Trust them, but they're badboys and need to stop."
You could have them remember how much war score we've contributed to difficult wars. I saved them in a defensive war that would have ended them, and together we conquered parts of the rival that did it, so they have much more tolerance before they'll feel threatened by my rising badboy score.
You could give them long-term goals, and give us some sort of bargaining table. The AI wants all of Africa, but I want trading ports on the coast. If I give 10% war contribution to conquering the area, they'll let me have 10 counties and there won't be a relationship penalty for holding lands they want. Maybe I then give 70% war score for the area, and start and win a few wars for them, which I can use to buy off their interest in Australia and claim it all for myself. Or maybe they're strong enough that they think they can easily win the area alone, and don't want my help in claiming the area. Maybe they want me to do something with trade, or set up spy rings to bring down a rival, and 30 years later, after they conquer them, they'll give me the trading post counties without me having to send troops down at all.
Axioms might not be the best game for such a system, if your kings are people, and might change their long-term goals every time they die, but perhaps they're likely to continue their father's ambition if it's going well. Or perhaps they don't change that easily, since my own goals don't change just because my king dies.
The more I think about it, the more I want this diplomacy system.
On a different topic, have you heard of Song of the Eons? I wanted to post about it back when you were asking for such games, but decided to wait until the first properly playable update, which was supposed to be last month. It got delayed, so I'll share now. It's a Paradox-style 4x grand strategy, in a fantasy world, across varied tech and development levels. It is a beautifully over-detailed simulation that puts Victoria to shame.
The Agents system for population especially reminds me of Axioms.
While I'm talking about it, the write-up on their plans for the dwarves looks very promising and should amuse fans of Dwarf Fortress and 4x games.
I addressed SotE in the post to LuuBluum. Perhaps one can go too hard on simulation.
As for the other stuff, if you to my blog again you'll find a variety of posts related to what you are talking about:
War/Campaign Planning Diplomacy/Politics Stuff
https://axiomsofdominion.substack.com/p/war-planning-overview?r=i2fsj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webTrust/Fear/Honor/Respect/General Opinion
https://axiomsofdominion.substack.com/p/potential-character-values-respect?r=i2fsj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webReplicating The Roman Socii And Auxilia System
https://axiomsofdominion.substack.com/p/the-socii-and-the-auxilia?r=i2fsj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webIntelligence Network, Espionage, Intrigue
https://axiomsofdominion.substack.com/p/intelligence-and-networks?r=i2fsj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webFriends, Allies, And Retainers
https://axiomsofdominion.substack.com/p/friends-allies-retainers?r=i2fsj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webConspiracies and Charters(The Illuminati And The Magna Carta Basically)
https://axiomsofdominion.substack.com/p/conspiracies-and-charters?r=i2fsj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webAgainst "Unrest": Rebellion And Revolution In Axioms
https://axiomsofdominion.substack.com/p/rebellion-and-revolution-in-axiomsMaybe 7 or 8 more posts tough on adjacent systems that connect to these but I picked the ones dealing with specific things you mentioned.
Of course the real thing that prevents blobbing is that Axioms at my ideal map size has 40000 provinces and the world is basically 10x the size of Earth. That is discussed in my fantasy geography post. Also discussed: Rivers!! Boats!!!! Giant Inland Seas!!!!!!!!
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Topic: Strategy Game Discussion: How Stop Blob? Should Stop Blob? Maybe Blob Good? (Read 1978 times)