The need to hold the walls...

[Vlad Tzepes]

Good ideea. And there are several smaller plaza's in bigger cities - I use them a lot to regroup before attacking the central one. IMHO, it should be about key-buildings to be captured, more than just open spaces in a city. You could imagine those little plaza's being put in front of those buildings (or you would ask for a Stalingrad way of conquering floor by floor the governor's palace, hehe).

[Lochar]

I was a little disappointed by this too, as if I had a good approach I could bypass the troops on the walls and just rush my forces in the center and defend it for 3 minutes.

But there are problems with not taking walls first.

1. The towers - most approaches to the city center passed by a few of these and they really took a toll on my troops.

2. Unless you made a few rams , sometimes they die before even getting to the gates, thus the need to open the doors by capturing the gatehouse.

I do think a check and balane should be in place so no city center rushes can cause a capture, as it usually takes a few minutes for troops to get off the walls, but so far I enjoy sieges more than open field battles just for the wall fighting that takes place.

[Simetrical]

Try playing an assault as the Romans, defending against the Macedonians, with typical troop setups. Then tell me there's no need to defend the walls.

-Simetrical