Welcome aboard, deguerra. It's true there aren't any generals available, but you're welcome to sit in on the Diet and comment on things, as was done in the beginning of KotR. Regarding defensive battles, Zim was a big help with getting things working and I should say that I did indeed find a workaround. It's not perfect, but if you order an army to attack another player faction, then switch the current faction to AI control while it's enroute the Human controlling the defending faction can fight the battle. I intend to use this when I take control of factions the HRE's at war with so everybody watch out!

As for players killing players: I'm hoping that with players having their own land and armies, they'll feel more confident that they can start trouble and get away with it. Having players assassinating each other is something that I'd be very much for in theory, but a careful balance would need to be struck. Success can by no means be certain, attempts must not be made to often, and the perpetrator should have to expose himself to great risk in order to do it. If I knew what the formula the game used to determine assassination success odds was, I could probably have players use assassin against each other exactly the same way the game was. I probably wouldn't show them on the map though, and I'd probably need to tweek the numbers to prevent things like assassin spam. It is something worth pursueing though, probably once we've got settled into things.