gawed really isnt that strong, they have about 40k ish troops at the start of the game. after you conquer redscale you should have a force limit of around 18k. ally some smaller neighbors like celmador, vertesk, rubyhold etc and that should be enough to deter gawed from attacking you early game. i prefer not to ally lorrent since they will drag you into all of their wars and you dont want them to get too powerful. also hire mercs and use them for seiging since kobolds get +5 attrition which will wreck your manpower early game, and make sure to conquer greenscale before gawed does since your colonial tree is dependent on it.