Help for Empire campaign on VH (Old World)

[sakkothegreat]

I am close to giving up with playing as the Empire, not even Clan Angrund's campaign felt so frustrating to me.
For the first 20-30 turns you are forced to turtle up in Reikland because Skullsmasherz immediately attack you with one full stack army and a half stack one, while you can only maintain one full stack army. By the time you've built walls in the settlments they are endangering and subsequently moved on Grung Zint and razed it, Skarsnik has already conquered all of Karak Norn's territory. This means it will take forever to eradicate the Crooked Moon Tribe (something you HAVE to do, since they are going to declare war on you as soon as they run out of dwarfs to kill), due not only to mountain attrition but also due to the fact that they've started taking territory from Clan Angrund and Karak Hirn, so you'll have to go way down south to destroy them. At this point you have upgraded Reikland through all the gold you've sacked from your aforementioned enemies, and your home region earns you between 3000 and 4000 $.
Even if you've managed to snatch up an additional province via confederation though, you're still miles away from the sort of income you'd need to maintain two full stack armies and another half stack one, which is really the bare minimum for facing frontally the 5 Chaos armies that are going to curbstomp Kislev by turn 110, every-single-time. Kislev, as all the northern imperial provinces, would rather get destroyed by Chaos than concede any kind of treaty towards you, so you're always by yourself* when facing the Chaos invasion. Realistically, at this point you don't have enough turns left before the chaos invasion to conquer 4-5 provinces and secure that income either.
I tried not going to Kislev's help and focusing on conquering and upgrading 2-3 regions around Reikland after wiping out Skarsnik: the norscans and the Chaos armies razed everything in their path and descended on me with multiple doomstack armies raised thanks to all the gold they had sacked and raided from Kislev and the northern provinces.
I tried changing my strategy from the ground and going after the Vampire Counts and Von Carsteins early on to win the loyalty of the southern provinces: Skarsnik attacked Reikland while my armies were busy far from Reikland. The same happened when i tried to conquer as many provinces as I could straight away.
I feel like nothing works for the Empire at this level of difficulty: any tip from experienced Empire players would be much appreciated, I'd rather not restart on Hard if I can avoid doing it.
*no military/defensive alliance means Kislev and the other provinces won't join you in battle

[Elitewrecker PT]

I've never seen the orks move from grung... EVER. And even if they do... They're orc boys, with no waagh

[sakkothegreat]

Really? From what I've gathered, on H, VH, and Legendary they always come for you as soon as they recruit a full stack army.
Orc boys still smash Empire swordsmen, and it takes some turns before you can recruit halberdiers. And even after you're able to recruit them, it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game of whack-a-mole with their full stack army, who always outruns you using the Underway. You can't catch it unless they screw up and make a bad movement in your territory and you can't go straight for Grung because they'll attack your un-walled minor settlements.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Don't they start at war with Marienburg as well. Always played very hard too.

[sakkothegreat]

Yeah they usually start a war with Marienburg as well, but rather than pulling back their full stack army to defend Grung Zint they just keep harassing Reikland

[scottboy81]

maybe it's random as to how much orcs progress, I did empire as my first campaign knowing nothing about the game and remember having no orc problems. The dwarves seemed to have wiped them out from what I could see. I didn't antagonize the vampire counts and they seemed to remain neutral mostly towards me while I was dealing with the chaos lords invasion.