I can sympathise, but I cannot agree that imprisoning those smug sons of dogs isn't actually a fun loop.
The loop seems to essentially be:
1. Take a bunch of prisoners with the Riding/Scouting perks that make it impossible for them to escape, or build a governor who can almost make it impossible for them to escape.
2. Wait until you can make the enemy lose a bunch of strength at once and then force a peace before they have time to put out more parties and/or hire mercs to replace what you just got rid of.
1 is pretty much doing what you always do, beating lord parties, except you need a specific build on you or compfam to avoid leaking like a sieve. The lords/ladies tend to blend together anyway, meh.
For 2, if they have the ability to just set up more parties or hire mercs the next day, why should they give up then and there? It just feels arbitrary.
But people don't in general want to change their behaviour; they want to be able to win THEIR way instead of TW's way, and ... it's not that kind of game.
I'm not sure what you mean by either of these sentences. By this logic, there's no point in suggesting any changes to the game at all because TW designed it the way it is and you should either take it as it is or mod it if you're on PC. Would armor have been buffed in 1.8.0 Beta if people hadn't hounded TW about it? Would TW have improved OoB and let us decide what formations we wanted our companions with in 1.1.0 Beta if people hadn't complained?
I don't actually know what it would take to make war decisions better (more intuitive, satisfying, etc), but it's definitely not by shrugging and saying "TW doesn't need my input, I'd have to be a spoiled brat to want anything anyway."
Not that I don't have my own reservations about Five Buck's war score suggestion, but what makes it any different from this one?
- AI vote choices are now influenced by their Personality Traits.
Look, I know how this is gonna sound, but f*cking GET GOOD.
There is a way to not ever let the AI interfere with the policies you want.
Stop whining and start actually influencing the AI's votes. Not *thinking the AI should vote in their own interests or at least be swayable*, but winning
the way the game politically tells you is a win.
Granted: the traits are misleading, and there are a thousand AI errors in the way they vote especially since they all trend toward Tier 6 eventually, but,
if you're letting the AI vote against your policies or vote for foolish ones, it's a choice.
But people don't in general want to change their behaviour; they want to be able to vote for policies THEIR way instead of TW's way, and ... it's not that kind of game.