I need both the campaign and the manually fought battles for TW to be much fun.

For me, it's the battles that are what are distinctive and impressive about the TW series. I remember reading that the whole thing started off as a demo of an engine that showed hundreds of little men charging around in battle and that was how STW was born.

If I just wanted a campaign without battles, I would play Civ4 or maybe try the Paradox games many Orgah's love.

However, battles without the thread of a campaign to hook them together would be completely uninteresting to me (I've never played one historical battles ever, in a TW game). I'd rather play a campaign with autoresolved battles than battles without a campaign.

I agree with Nowake about STW2 battles though - they are a little too fast paced to be that enjoyable. (In that respect, the sieges feel better paced - despite the flawed AI - just because things happen more slowly). I should try that slower speed mod, I guess, although it will make archers even more powerful than they already are.

In my only full length STW2 campaign, I did end up autoresolving right at the end, when it was obvious I would win. It was not that fun (and not that fast - it was like playing whack a mole with one rebellious province or vassal after another). The most fun battles tend to be the early ones where you are just establishing dominance by superior generalship or the backs to the walls one where you are holding onto a province you should really be losing.

The autoresolve in STW2 is very tempting though - it seems far more favorable to the player than the punitive ones in previous titles.