History X: Wish Not One Man More

I've simulated 16778 battles so far over 1363 years of history. The attacker has a record of 1073-15712. Atrocious! Why the bad record?

First of all, peace between major nations forms too easily! There needs to be more war between these larger entities. Secondly, secession is too volatile. Small cities will throw off the yoke of their much stronger leaders, sometimes immediately after founding. I thought I was pre-selecting sites that were still controllable but something is going funky. The small city then fruitlessly attacks the larger nation. Thirdly, castles are basically unassailable, especially because these small rebel bands are leading tiny armies against them.

There are a few things I'll tackle to address these issues.

1. Peace is preferable to war, but long-term peace is hard to obtain in this world.
2. Work on secession dynamics, make it more difficult at the very least.
3. Don't attack a castle with a garrison many times larger than your own force.

These factors currently lead to a proliferation of hegemonies, many tiny kingdoms in a smallish area. That's ok from a historical perspective and could lead to some interesting effects, but I'd like to consolidate just a bit from a computing perspective.

Click for larger image. Infrastructure numbers in red. Battles marked by black Xs