Personally, I've been playing a lot of Europa Universalis IV with the Elder Scrolls Universalis mod.
At first, I started with a tinynation of Altmer in the center of the Summerset Isles, and I slowly managed to make alliances with the neighbors and wage war on surrounding Altmer factions while they kept forming coalitions and petitioning the empire for help against meuntil I conquered the summerset isles and left a few smaller factions as vassals.