Why on earth is there no real fighting

[Kommodus]

Kommodus - I think one reason decisive battles stand out in history may be because they were rather rare. I suspect it was more common for losses not to be wildly different between 2 sides.

I'm sure this is probably right. However, would it really be desirable to include these indecisive clashes in the game, as they would have little effect on the outcome? While some battles will of course turn out that way, they don't generally add much to the gaming experience. You might as well just assume that such skirmishes are going on all the time in the background, but that they simply don't warrant the player's attention. I would say stick to the exciting stuff and leave the tedium out.

I think part of your solution (2) - better strategic AI - would be the AI evading battle more and sticking to more STW/MTW epic confrontations. At present, the AI seems able to retreat from battle once but then is caught. This seems a gamey aspect of the turn-based IGO-UGO set up.

This is a good point. The AI should be able to avoid battle unless cornered.

I also think introducing some genuine campaign attrition - due to disease, desertion etc - would be warranted. RTW even reduced this - no attrition for besiegers

This might add realism and challenge, but I think the irritation level that would result would outweight the potential benefits. I'd rather not have my units slowly shrinking until I'm left with a bunch of depleted units when I haven't even fought a battle, and be forced to go back and retrain them (a task I find tedious and boring). Once again, this goes back to the "focus on the exciting stuff and leave the tedium to the auto-management" principle.

It would also be good to make it harder to replace losses - something like WesWs homelands concepts (one house rule I like that simulates this is not to recruit core troops in cities with a culture penalty).

Yes, this is a good concept worth implementing, especially since it would make things harder on the player in the late-game, when you are fighting far from home. If you want to recruit troops away from home, you simply have to rely on the indigenous ways of fighting, like Hannibal did - it takes a long time to change a culture.

Would all this be less fun for the player? Well, I must confess I fought 150+ battles in my Julii campaign and they were usually unbalanced battles I would have won anyway.

It saddens me to hear this. I wish this were the type of game in which you'd fight maybe 1/5 that number of battles in a typical campaign, but each one would be an interesting, exciting clash in which the AI usually outnumbered you and almost always had a shot at winning. I hope that future games in this genre move in that direction.

I guess the way I would like to see campaigns happen is this. You spend a number of turns preparing for war with your neighbor, while he prepares as well. When war breaks out, each power has a large army (maybe two or three at most). The armies clash, and the winning side is able to occupy several cities while the losing side holds on as best it can while it raises another army. Once this is complete, another big battle takes place, in which the previous loser either turns the tide or loses even more lands. Thus, a large empire might be defeated in three or four battles, while a small nation might be crushed after only one defeat.

Small, lopsided skirmishes add nothing to this game. They should have been minimized from the beginning. But then, all this is just my opinion.

[BeeSting]

Certain unit types should be made more likely to desert without pay, like mercenary units. Yet a player should be able to counter this by perhaps having such character traits as being able to hold an army composed of many nationalities together; or an ancillary character could be added to a leader for logistical purposes lessening the affect of attrition to an army. So realism does not need to be sacrificed, it could be abstracted to save a lot of details. And this is no news to gamers yet many have failed to incorporate them by either lack of creativity or simply sacrificing too much of one aspect for the sake of other.

A game does not need to be reduced to small skirmish actions to portray realism. But if need be it should be made like a chess game, challenging a player’s intelligence.

[QwertyMIDX]

VH battle difficultly is bugged, it's easier than medium so play VH/M for the toughest campaign. Also one of the major issues that makes the game so easy is the ability to retrain your units as soon as you've conquered a new city. Yeah, I just assulted and pillaged your city, now join my army and help me fight your friends! I don't think so.

[BeeSting]

VH battle difficultly is bugged, it's easier than medium so play VH/M for the toughest campaign. Also one of the major issues that makes the game so easy is the ability to retrain your units as soon as you've conquered a new city. Yeah, I just assulted and pillaged your city, now join my army and help me fight your friends! I don't think so.

Imagine then, how hard it would be for the AI and how much easier it would be for you to defeat its army.

[Quietus]

If you occupy it, you would then have to defend your existing border plus the new province (salient).

That's why you put your army in the middle of their territories to bait them into attacking. Without the armies, you simply stroll in!

I am sure you understand all this when you mention North Africa, because in MTW the key thing about North Africa as a path for conquest was that you could attack and occupy provinces without widening your front and hence without numbers.

As for the "North Africa" tactic, that is too easy because of the fact that you are fighting on the map edge with the sea to the other side... You only have to worry about getting attacked from the army in front of you or a naval invasion.

The "North Africa" is the best strategy not just because it is the easiest, but it is also the most logical.

1) Trade - The richest provinces are in Byzantine, Egyptian and Spanish territories. The Almohad and the Turks are not bad either. You must have to control the mediterranean for those lucrative trades.
2) Happiness - Place the faction leader in Spain or Constantinople and with control of the mediterranean and the north seas, then you don't have to worry about mass rebellions.
3) Easiest Path- This was the easiest path as was mentioned before.

Without the first two, I won't go through NA. I've never played HRE because they don't have interesting units, but I've played the English and the Danes. I still went through NA. Even if I play HRE today, I will still invade Spain!

You must be talking about a Weaker faction like Aragon, or The Danes then, because I have rarely ever experienced a time when a single battle killed off a faction that wasn't already crippled beyond help.

No, all factions. Take province where it borders all the other enemy armies, they will attack the next turn. If the AI has other holdings far the place, of course they will survive if they have heirs, but the very least, they are crippled.

Sometimes I have seen it do something very unexpected, such as sinking some ships and then sending around six stacks across the ocean towards one of my lightly defended backwater provinces, rather than doing a straigtforward counterattack on my front line.

I always aimed for complete dominance of the seas (and I've did it in all my campaigns). My personal rule is 2 ships per lane (in case there is a storm). If there is a neutral ship there that is not physical threat to my armies, then I just add ships (at least one more than the enemy).

With the North Africa Strategy, the Italians are harmless. When I attack the french or the Germans, I simply sink all their ships at the same time (always two more ships than the enemy), then I attack their lands. But only when I'm ready for invasion the very next turn.

Unlike RTW, those counterattacks in MTW *could* actually win at times on expert. The battlefield AI was a lot stronger in MTW. When the AI saw it had a large advantage it generally used it. It wasn't particularly subtle, but it did tend to overwhelm the player at times.

Trading space for time, and to stretch out the resources of the attacker is a textbook way to beat an invader.

If you have at least medium units with a full stack, you are really invincible. If you place your army in the middlelof their provinces, they will attack at the same time. This is as opposed to pushing them back all the time, until all their stacks are in few provinces.

Of course I don't let the enemy grow enough to make humungous numbers of stacks. I attack as fast as possible. I just make sure I already know what the AI's options when I attack, as well as my own capabilities: Can I build enough reinforcements? Can I build Spies, religious agents and emissaries for every province I take? Do I have control of the seas?

I'm also a builder, so all the provinces are building non-stop. The rush tactic is there only because there are no other options but wars.