I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the topic of the Empire. I tend to agree with Aveyond and Theodric on how I approach such factions in a game, and at the end of the day, the discussion is more a case of given that the developers were intent on rendering their motives sympathetic, and also given that they played such a huge role so far, would an entire expansion have been better suited to that end? I'd say yes. Ilsabard is a vast territory as well, and it'd be interesting to see something like the Bozja story given more screentime and possibly more coherent writing. Their plot threads were running in parallel until Elidibus exited the scene anyway.