Successor game rules, draft one.

[Vladimir]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

4) MTW/Risk-style system. Similar to phased movement, but players submit orders to move based on province proximity. For instance, any player can move their army up to two (or one, or three, or whatever) consecutive provinces per phased turn. When players enter a province with a hostile force, a battle occurs. Battles are treated as they are in MTW, namely that if one army is moving into a province with the enemy, but the enemy was stationary that turn, the moving army is the attacker and the stationary army is the defender and may get a terrain/settlement advantage. If both armies were moving, it is a meeting engagement and occurs on an open battlefield without one side getting a terrain advantage. This is even faster than (2) and (3) and very likely to result in a battle, since people don't need to move close to each other in a province, they just need to be in the same province. However, this doesn't allow for the same level of strategic detail as (1) through (3) and generally limits people to deciding whether to attack or defend. This also will make the neutrals sit around watching for a while, though for not as long as (2).

This seems like a simple yet flexible system. If the player does not specify the umpire will assume they are taking the most direct route. However, the player can also specify tactical moves to end their movement on a hill, hidden in forests, and etc. The presence of a spy in an army should allow it to avoid ambushes, choose favorable terrain, and etc.

Maybe I’m thinking of a merger between (1) and (4). A hostile army shouldn’t be able to move freely through a hostile province. Simple turn-based movement doesn’t account for the use of watchtowers, spies, and scout reports that allow the defending army to react to the threat in real time. The defender should have the advantage, say, in a weighted dice role with the above sensors figured in.

[Cecil XIX]

I remember that at the beginning of LOTR Tincow had the swell idea of having the players vote on what type of PVP battle would be fought, with the idea of keeping things moving. Could we do something like this here?

At the start of each PVP war, there could be a poll of the choices Tincow listed, minus whatever Zim doesn't want to do. Perhaps restrict the voting just to the combatants, since they'd presumably want to get it done quickly while still caring deeply about the outcome. Zim could cast the tiebraker.

This could allow for a trial-and-error process to see which of the five systems work best, and would also allow us to adjust to the fact that some wars are more suited to the more interactive methods due to closer proximity. For example, a war between Bohemia and Austria would be resolved fairly quickly even in option one since Prague and Vienna are so close.

[ULC]

I remember that at the beginning of LOTR Tincow had the swell idea of having the players vote on what type of PVP battle would be fought, with the idea of keeping things moving. Could we do something like this here?

At the start of each PVP war, there could be a poll of the choice Tincow listed, minus whatever Zim doesn't want to do. Perhaps restrict the voting just to the combatants, since they'd presumably want to get it done quickly while still caring deeply about the outcome? Zim could cast the tiebraker.

This could allow for a trial-and-error process to see which of the five systems work best, as well as the fact that some wars are more suited to the more interactive methods due to closer proximity. For example, a war between Bohemia and Austria would be resolved fairly quickly in option one since Prague and Vienna are so close.

That actually seems like wonderful compromise, and I'll support it! I also like 1 and 4 from the list, but 4 only if we can have the ability to specify strategic movement.