Silent reminds me that I wanted to make another update to this discussion:

I got about 600 days into the game, and eventually reached a point where the game fails, and I was disappointed.

The issue is actually an extension of the world map AI issue I mentioned in the article. I eventually got to a point where in order to advance my goals, I needed to start taking over cities. This required cooperation of several lords (at least) and a bit of an in-game time investment. It takes several days of building siege engines in order to attack.

Here's the issue: The lords are impatient and easily distracted. Something in their AI makes them place passing caravans and scouting enemies higher on their priorities list than helping me with a siege. So any time a caravan or weak enemy walks past the siege, the entire group breaks siege to chase them, sometimes half-way across the world, before returning. If they're still gone when I finish building the siege engines, I cannot attack, because I will lose without their help. If you don't attack while the siege engines are ready, you have to rebuild them.

I finally took one city after dozens of attempts, but trying to take a second city was so frustrating that I finally quit the game. I could have accomplished my goals if the lords under my command had just stayed to help.