The problem with forts is that this is Stainless Steel and balistas are useless against any building. The "attack" button won't even light up on a siege with only a balista in the army. In MOT and WotK2 we're playing much later and everybody has a siege factory somewhere. So right now, Myth can slowly move troops across my territory and I can't attack him.

And as to these "fought battles". I thought it was interesting until I fought one. The battles ended as soon as TE's armies broke and I was unable to run them down and capture or kill even more of his men. Auto-resolve is much better.