Battle Time Length?

[Durango]

A 20 minute average seems reasonable to me, not too long and not too short.

Reasonable perhaps, but ideally the game would be so moddable that you could have 5 hour battles if one so pleased. I want to fear going to battle again

Total pause button wuss as well here. I enjoy it as something akin to a game of chess. Sure it might drag on but I just enjoy maximising strategy and minimising me having to micromanage 20 units.

I see...I too enjoy a slower game of maneuvering, akin to chess.

But the pause button? No way man. Might as well have your mommy bring you milk and cookies while the AI does their turns

And definitely agree with the earlier posts about how it's more fun making unusual events happen and playing with the balance of power. One of my favourite things to do is to invade an entire large faction with lots of neghbours, then abandon it to rebels and see who steps in to fill the void, started quite large wars this way. Or giving away some adjoining provinces to a faction that are well away from where the rest of their provinces are and see how long they last.

Or try to survive limiting yourself to only a maximum of three provinces no matter what. Anything other than destroying everyone as fast as you can. I don't want to kill all my neighbours, they're my friends!
Unless they cross me, then I'll bury them.

With the improved diplomacy system it looks like there's tons of fun to be had with this style. I'm going to try and create a complex web of alliances then start WWI early.

Grand Coalitions, yes. With me in the shadows, profiting, orchestrating, scheming, and turning friends against foes only to satisfy my dark desires of chaos and disruption.

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical....some men just want to watch the world burn."