England has some of the most incredible units in the game (And, yes, I know I complained about that with the Vards in LotR too, but SS 4.1 ripped the Vards down to size) with retinue longbowmen. I actually played a campaign where I used nothing but longbowmen for battles and beat the game. No generals, no cavalry, no artillery, no spears or infantry of any kind. Whipped the Mongols too, but didn't feel like playing all the way to the timurids, whose long range and elephants would've presented a problem.

IMHO we should consider the Danes. They have a very strong, fun cultural context and an unusual set of troops without any of the really broken types (Few lance cavalry units, no stakes, no early HA, etc.). Plus it's the right mindset to play a viking; a crafty, violent, over-the-top conqueror!

Oh, and if we do the Danes I promise to play a closet Odin worshipper.

I would also like to suggest that we consider changing a few things to encourage conflict more directly. Firstly I think voting should be tied directly to land and only to land. One province = one vote with the exception of the King (And perhaps prince?), who has a set number of votes on the presumption that all the lands are his in truth.

Second if you kill someone you should gain title to all the lands that were theirs when you declared war (Thus preventing someone giving their territory away to prevent it's loss during the war).

Third if you kill the Megas you should become Megas for the remainder of his term. It's not an easy thing to do given all his power, let's reward it handsomely.

Fourth if you kill the King you should become King. Ditto above. We can have the 'legitimate' heir become a rebel by default under these circumstances.

You can see where I'm going with all this. Conflict drives these games, let's generate a lot of it!

I would also like to see a rule put in where any two players who are amenable to fighting each other can ask for a teleport to a mutually agreed site for their battle immediately, or after a set number of turns.

One other suggestion that I have would be to create a 'blood feud' between two groups as the starting position of the game. Two veterans take characters and have them absolutely hate each other from turn one, which will tend to polarize those around them. We lacked that in LotR and it showed in how weak our early game 'fighting' was.

Some things to think about.