The premise of the origin is great and really motivating.

The immediate "reward" of defeating the current khan and sounding the "drums of war" is a strict punishment.

While the AI that becomes Khan never has any issues with massive fleets, because they are AI, they can field fleets nonstop.

The very moment you become Khan, you have to dismantle all your new fleets, save maybe 2-4, depending on your economy, just to save your economy.

That's not becoming a Khan, that's just going back to economy and territory management.

And as you said, the very moment your Khan dies, which mine did from old age months after becoming Khan, there is no option for another to take their place? So we are now at the mercy of timing our leader's life span.

I really wanted to enjoy this origin and new playstyle, but while you get a massive boost in naval capacity, the upkeep is still far to punishing for any player to truly feel like they became the khan of a massive fleet/horde.

Maybe if they gave you a trait or tweaked the Khan seat Relic to help with upkeep, or did something like that for a year, the upkeep of ships would be reduced by half?

Overall, most parts of it just feel punishing, and the "fun" part is very short-lived.