I was thinking of a couple of rules variations that I may implement in my
future games, and thought I'd run them by you guys.
First, to reflect the difficulty in running large areas, an action taken
far away from your capitol has a penalty. I'm thinking 1 point for every
province away from the capitol, by the shortest route. Not insurmountable,
but enough to make you see why vassals are a big bonus for large lands, and
why the old Anuirean Emperors delegated everything to the 12 Duchies. It
would also help explain the current fractured state of the nations, since by
the rules as they stand now, the large realms have huge advantages that
would let them conquor other, smaller lands, get more power, and keep going
after bigger targets.
Second, realm spells: I think paladins should get at least the ability to
cast Investiture, since it's rather basic to temple holdings. The paladin
would still have problems competing with other priests, but the temple
itself wouldn't be cut off at the knees, since Investiture is one of their
big things.
I was having a thought about sources, too, but it isn't coherent yet, so
I'll let you know after I let it simmer for a while.

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu