Muscling through mid/late game

[Swordsman]

Dalthius,
I agree completely. I've played all the games too, and love them. But the fact remains that once you hit "critical mass"-- whatever that is for you (20 territories, etc.)-- you are basically certain of victory and it slowly becomes less fun. Turtling is hard for me, as I always get tired of stupid attacks and want to smite my foe for DARING such a thing when clearly he has no chance at all.

There were only two exceptions to this for me, both in the original MTW:
1) Eras: I almost always started in "High", otherwise I would win (or reach critical mass) in the "Early" era and never make it to the cool units! If only M2TW would let me start at the equivelant of "High" I would be one happy camper!
2) Rebellions/civil wars/re-emergence. While certainly hokey in some ways, it sure kept an element of paranoia in play. No matter how close you were to winning, you could never be sure someone wasn't going to pop up with a bunch of stacks at the worst time in the worst place. Okay, maybe it seldom actually caused you to "lose", but the SUSPENSE.

Bring back eras!

[rosscoliosis]

Dalthius, the "sandbox" thing is pretty much the way I think of it. The victory condition is pretty darn trivial anyway. However, micromanagement does become quite tiresome once you have a large empire. But then if you stay small, you still have that countdown in the back of your head, ha. Well, that's how it is for me anyway.
I do like your idea, though, HoreTore, I'll try and use that in my next campaign. I'm really looking forward to the expansion because it sounds like the campaigns are going to be much more goal-oriented and allow for keeping a smaller footprint.
After beating the game with England, I think my next campaign will be with the HRE, seems like that will stay chaotic a lot longer with fronts on all sides, haha. ;-)