one of the warring factions would eventually emerge as a winner because the loser faction wouldn't be able to replenish their soldiers.
And the looser will sue for peace, paying heavily or simply being barred from hostilities for X time. Absolutely NOT anything like how they behave now, where the worse off they are, the more they want for peace, to the point where a completely crush faction will never accept peace and will just be locusts forever! This is a point I can't overstate enough:
The loser needs to LOSE, not "be prevented from losing and get a short break, then back to war".
I understand "why" the AI works like it does and how it reduces snowballing, but it's a
very common complaint for players that they never understand or agree why the enemy won't pay them for peace when they're losing or completely de-fiefed. And the "agree" is the important part, you can explain it but that doesn't make it interesting or satisfactory to the player.
More importantly, the factions would need to take time to recover
Yes, take time to recruit and build up thier troops and funds, doing things like issues and bandit hideout clearing, things that make them seem like part of a world and NOT a endless wave of tower defense enemies.
I think this is the most difficult thing to do, but from what I have noticed it seems the food lasts for too long, and morale penalty for the besieged is negligible.
For sure, this is a problem. It has been shown to me to be actually possible, but IMO it takes far too long and I have not been able to completely starve out anyone when I've tried. For me the garrison reduced to a certain amount and then wouldn't die anymore, but I have been shown by
@Apocal IIRC that it can be done. I think instead of using the same consumption mechanic, it should accelerate after the town has been under siege a certain time or when the food hits zero, it should then become faster and faster to drop troops, not ever slower. Of course they should be able to surrender as well before starving out.
Now...do people want that? Honestly, don't think so.
Well TBC I don't think the player at mid-game and beyond should be in anyway bound or restricted by the anti-snowballing bandaids the AI is. If the players want thier faction (or solo pseudo-faction) to pursue and outright destroy and occupy other factions without letting them recover, they should be able to. If they want to play nice and cycle through wars at the pace of the AI, that 100% should be their choice. But if they want to refuse peace and paint the map, that should be up to them.
IMO the current ruler/election system basically kills the mid-late game completely and needs to be altered to give the player full control of thier kingdom. What is the point of making a faction if it's the same exact thing as being in another faction?
I cannot stress enough how much of a red flag it should be that it's at least 10X easier and faster to just take on the entire map as a solo clan then it is to form kingdom and collect vassals! The vassals just create more problems then thier man power can ever help with since you can't make them do anything strategically, you can't control fiefs/garrisons for security, they can even vote peace and release all your prisoners, then vote war with them again the next day!
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