Well, I had time to waste while waiting to be able to play as well, so I caught mention here of researching everything available in Chapter I helping a lot in Chapter II. Therefore I took my time getting to the enemy capital, taking all but the top-left island (because I'd totally forgotten its existence after he had stopped producing units on it several turns prior) before it, but dallying further felt decidedly unfun.
That ended up fine, though, but transports getting intercepted screwed me out of two loads of valuable troops on the eastern coast early on.
And yeah, Karthan is nothing but a terrible nuisance to the player and Faran is hardly better as Sybille has been amassing (and rotating) a huge army nearly undisturbed while he served as a lousy buffer between me and her. Then again, at least they've been fighting each other *some*, unlike either of them and Karthan.
Also, you get way too few cards.
I'm not particularly optimistic I'll be able to beat it on my first try anymore.
