In AOW:SM you could when you make a map do something similar to what I suggested and it reall works well. Personally I think the more options they allow us to toggle the better the game will be for everyone.

While I generally agree that they wander too far and are too OP early game, I've successfully dealt with them a few times.  Those few times have always been immensely satisfying though. 

I'll get both my sovereign and my initial champion into an army, with either a unit I trained (usually a spearmen, as I'll go that route if I see them near my start) or the two bandits I always start with.  If they're in my territory, I'll pillar of flame them for ~20 damage to weaken them up, then hit them with my 2 champion army.  That's been enough to kill them when I can actually get all of the pieces into place.  But ya, it requires fire magic and bandit lord, or extra time training units.

I like the silver tongue idea as well, that's an awesome solution to the problem.

This does absolutely nothing to address:

If they are blocking a 10x10 (or in your suggestion a 20x20 area), then it really doesn't help at all. They will patrol the area and kill everything you send through, so you still need to get rid of them somehow or restart. The biggest problem I have with this idea, is that, right now, the absolutely EASIEST way to deal with KoAs, is to just get a unit (say a pioneer) to lure them really really far away. Then they become someone else's problem. Yes, I've done this very early game.

Ahahahaha, that's a good one. Sure, 10 minutes to add options to the game. Let me know what you think when you release a mod that try to do this. I'm sure you won't bother to test anything out to see if it works, and heck, let's not bother to read all the crying people do when they don't like it. Honestly, if it was so easy, all of us would have made 3... no 10 games by now.

Any reason we can't just say "turn world difficulty to easy and monsters to sparse" if you are going to whine about the world being difficult.   If you don't like roaming monsters in the early game turn them off, there is an option for this.  

Have you actually tested those tweaks? If you did, you might realize that the KoAs are unique units that are spawned on creation. Not only will you need to make the Lair, you also need to make the units. Then, of course, you would have to make some system to UPGRADE the knights when the Lair upgrades, because upgrading the lair without changing the units would do... well... nothing. Of course, since you are doing 10 minute fixes, I'm not too surprised. Enjoy your burger.

And besides even if it is more work than that why not ask the DEVs to do this. This is the best time for a request last this since the game is still in beta. Hell even if it is a lot more work I and I suspect Jshore and others would like the DEVs to do this. 

Better to ask now than to wait until after the game is released.

(I decided to cut the flame part... because it's childish. Long story short, can't assume much about me from one post.)

If you saw my less impassioned posts, you'd see that I clarified my issue: I don't know what monsters will attack and what will not and that is a problem because it robs me of the ability to plan ahead. The AI knows this information inherently and can expand much faster. I on the other hand, am left having to assume slow and steady is the way to go or roll the dice on the knights or some elemental attacking my towns.

I'll search around for these "awakening triggers" that Deggial_68 mentioned. Maybe that will help. Thanks Deggial!

I think I'll try silver tongue.That was a good idea. Thanks to the one who suggested that and all other strategies.

By the way, how the heck does Bellack know how old I am anyway? Anybody else see the insanity in that assumption?

Ha, I started a new game last night. Founded the capital, several turns later a 3 stack of trolls exited the fog of war, primary being a troll warrior, made a beeline for my capital. On turn 19 they attacked the capital, my one militia, sovereign, and recruited hero didn't stand a chance.

I lol'd.

They were annoying me in a test game this morning too (though im happy to report I beat them with a low level Ceresa, Nochd Nightbringer and a Burning Wraith).  I was kind of proud of that battle and only won due to good luck, a territory bonus and laying on the spells before they got to me (specifically Blindness to buy my some time and Curse to knock out their really tough to deal with Defense).

Regardless I moved them back slightly from starting locations and made them a little more rare (I want them to be somethign special, as is i feel like im bumping up against them every other game).

I like the idea to make a low level version of them and have it level up over time, I'll will probably switch to something like that but I was getting the patch ready and didn't have tome to add it this morning.

Challenge Accepted.

I started on the mod at 5:33pm and completed it at 5:42pm. That included one interruption from my daughter, and me taking a minute to read Derek's post. 

I went and ate dinner, came back and tested the mod.

It took me two maps to spawn the new KOA lair.  I set it to turn into a normal KOA lair after five turns. Here is the results:

Turn 1 through 4:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3878578/FallenEnchantress_1337903241.jpg

Turn 5+

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3878578/FallenEnchantress_1337903281.jpg

Something I noticed: Monsters spawned from the original lair die when the lair upgrades, and the new improved unit is spawned on top of the lair.

Kalin,

One last thing:

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1035077.1331171786!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/image.jpg

Additional notes:

Basically everything you said I would have to do was totally incorrect, including creating the new unit, but I did it anyway because I didn't realize I wouldn't need to until after I completed the mod.

I had 4-5 hours of work left when I read your post, so I had plenty of time to be pissed off and come up with a plan to make the mod, so add 5 hours of planning to 9 minutes of copy/paste and fiddling with literally less than a half dozen values.

I think the Knights of Asok are perfect the way they are except for a major bug with their lair.

They are the only lair that I have seen that if you move onto it without owning it, it pops up a dialogue where the knights promise not to raze your property and reign in their wandering knights.

Problem is they LIE!

They smoked my town about 3 turns later.

If they actually do what the dialogue says, then it wouldn't be an issue at all!

Petty? You consider putting the lair in the game and taking 2 screenshot as "testing" and you call ME petty? Seriously... did you actually PLAY a game with your mod? Of course you didn't because there's no way you could in 10 minutes.

Edit: Let me reverse the situation for you since you just don't seem to understand, would YOU be happy, if Stardock tested all their changes doing what you just did? Forget playing the game and seeing how your changes affects it, as long as you can get it in game, and it doesn't crash... everything must be fine, right? Do you HONESTLY not see what's wrong with this?