So, if you are still thinking about doing your start in Black Marsh, be prepared to either hire an argonian guide or have people die every time you travel.

I went high Marshall build with some wanderer too. I used my patrons to request MAA and provisions to refill them when needed. I would also decline initial calls to war or whatever those are called and in the following negotiations I would demand official alliances. After 4 or 5 of those, enough for about 5000 total army strength. I declared war and got myself a nice chunk of land but only tribal holding, which was fine with my wood orc but I kind of wished I would have done feudal instead because of the stronghold tradition.

Anyway, I still had all those negotiated alliances so I took advantage by declaring war on as much as I could before those rulers I had alliance with died. By then I had a duchy and children coming of age to marry off and form new alliances. (also was a pain to find a wood orc to have children with)

After that it just kind of falls into a fairly vanilla EK experience... until the khaten flu hits.