have you tried steam tanks?

I cant imagine a steam tank could carry me

The Empire system needs sorting out at some point, with the norsca update, I find that the empire ai cant deal with norsca anymore and will always get destroyed (on hard anyway), the northern and western empire always seems to be in ruins.

One of the biggest issues is loosing authority, from dead electors/lost capitals, when there is nothing you can do about it:(

I'm glad to see this as a topic. I've been attempting the Empire (Franz) a lot recently, and I have been finding it pretty difficult even with the 'Easy" sub mod. I run into similar issues, except I tend to also have major issues with the Beastmen. Manblight tends to come out of no where with 2 20 stack armies and burns m cities to the ground, usually when I'm trying to curb the Norsca or vampires. From what I have seen, the strategy as Franz is to just let the Empire die and focus on yourself. Dealing with Norscan troops specifically, I am unsure how to deal with them.

Battle Difficulty matters a lot. Rebember that Very Hard is +20% stats bonuses to enemy, Hard +10%, Normal +0%, Easy -10%.

@Commodus: Empire AI cant handle anything after CA rework. They dont confederate at all so are pack of small factions ready to be killed. New update will change a lot of flaws with their rework. You will be able to buy Authority at any time for example.

its just seems a little cheap that a half stack from norsca can beat a full end game stack of empire on hard, magic just seems to be useless against them also

That sounds like big mod conflict, check your mods. Norsca are not that strong, especially that we did not changed any of their stats this update.

That is some great news V, being able to buy authority will help alot:) don't make it too expensive:P

if the values of authority loses could be changed to max-1 as well, that would help, I think its currently -2 for letting an elector die then more for loosing their capital.

Additions to ostlands/norlands starting armies/and/or making their starting settlements higher level with a garrison already being built would go towards helping the ai vs the norscans.

Ya its definetly my 3x skill points mod, so every norscan general has pretty much max stats, and most are immortal because of their confederations.

Authority isnt that big of an issue, if you just refuse confederation a couple times, then revive the factions that got stomped by chaos and vamps. For example I just beat the vampires and have almost all of empire land to myself, except for like a hand full of settlements which is an elector count with just like a minor settlement just so i can refuse confederation with. I'm sitting at like 9 authority rn, lowest i ever got was -3.

Empire AI still in decline, dont build anything usefull. Very rare defensive builds, absolutely trashed by Norska, or Rakart, or Orcs, or beastmen, or VC. They must able to defend, at least for some time(

The problem is that it now takes longer for major settlements to grow, and they need level 4 settlements to get decent garrison without defense buildings, which AI is not guaranteed to build. Yes, in many of my campaigns the empire get demolished often because they garrison remains pitiful for a long time.