haven't played mtw for a while but heres my list.

1. MedMod (or other mod to toughen AI) - can't play vanilla anymore
2. no seaborne trade except for incidental income that occurs from having fleets protect my coastlines. land trade ok.
3. Generals only have 16 units to play with. No reserves, nothing.
4. units can only be retrained, not merged unless under 10% strength.
5. units must stay within one province of their general when retraining (means you can't bring back every unit to 100% real fast)
6. must help allies no matter the cost.
7. armies must consist of at least 4 (preferably more) spear units whenever possible.
8. units must stay with their general, they cannot be swapped with another unless original general kicks the bucket.
9. no destroying ai buildings in captured provinces.
10. generals must be from noble units - no spear, milita or other peasant crap.



this made the games much slower and made me plan my attacks with more detail. Spies became much more useful to monitor enemy strength. No willy nilly invasions as I didn't have the troops and took too long to recover losses.

I also liked the fact I had specific armies ie. my western army, northern armies etc. Not just a mass of troops in that province there. helped give more charater to my campaign.

AI frequently gave me much more trouble than if I just blitzed it like normal.