Finished a Hard Empire campaign around turn 130. It was really bizarre.
I started off by staying in Reikland and building it up without starting any fights. Did diplomacy everywhere possible. Had to chase off a few roaming savage orc tribes. Went blue skills on Karl, for recruitment discounts, lightning strike, reduced army upkeep, and increased resupply. I ended up doing this for every army but Balthasar.
Eventually, Parravon decides to attack me, so I march South and smash their heads in. I end up with half of two provinces, which annoys me, so I declare war on some additional bretonnian factions to control two full provinces, then make peace again.
At this point, I have a quest to fight 5 greenskin armies, but everything near me is dead, so I send Karl east and start a war with the main Greenskin force. I just sack their minor settlements as I head North again, planning to eventually attack the Vampire Counts from the south. I've also recruited Balthasar and a third General at this point, who have recruited full stacks.
Instead of attacking the VCs, I have Karl work his way through his quest chains. I'm still at war with the Greenskins, but they're not near me, so I ignore them. I have two armies sitting around doing nothing, so I decide to attack the Norsca tribes. Balthasar attacks the southern line of coastal cities while my other general attacks West and than North. This is a slow process due to attrition, and these two armies end up doing nothing else for the remainder of the game. Every turn is just a half move to encamp and regen some of their losses from the previous city. While it's a slow process, there are a few big benefits. One, I get like 4k every other turn from sacking their settlements. Two, attacking Norsca tribes seems to give positive influence with basically every faction, so now everybody is trading with me and forming alliances despite me only controlling 3 provinces. Three, it means that the Norsca never get anywhere near most of the Empire provinces, so they're able to build bigger and better armies than normal.
I realize around turn 90 that via military alliance, the only provinces I lack for victory conditions are the VC ones, and Averland, who are the sole hold outs. I send Karl and a 4th general to deal with the vampire counts, and with a TON of war coordination, I wipe them out in a few turns. I then follow up with Averland, who also falls after a few turns.
Around this time, I suffer my only real losses of the campaign, when a Chaos army snuck through the middle of the continent to attack Reikland. I quickly called up a 5th general and army, but ended up just chasing him around after he razed two of my minor settlements. He eventually died to some nearby Dwarven allies.
Then the main chaos forces spawned around turn 100-110... just in time to run into my 5 armies and another half dozen allied armies in the Kislev area. With Lightning Strike, Karl single-handedly dismantled 2 of their armies and sent a third running back near the Bearsonling camp. Meanwhile, a Witchhunter found Kholek with no army and assassinated him. Unfortunately, it still took me another 10-15 turns just to chase down their remaining army, at which point I won.
I ended up in direct control of 5 Provinces, but allied with everyone but the southern human settlements, and Greenskins. The main Dwarf faction had a rough game and only controlled the Silver Road. Pretty much every minor Dwarf faction was still alive at the end of the game.