Best feedback/criticism thread in the whole forum right now. +1
Also, big armies should move way slower than they do right now, morale should literally keep the army on it's feet so the lords don't drag it out too much, you either use the army to siege something and lose money to feed the large amount of men you're draggin with you, or don't even raise one in the first place.
Something that I didn't quite understand the reason why it got removed was; Camps. I think the camp should be brought back into the series and added a **** ton of new features to it, simple stuff like resting to regain morale, send out caravans to bring food to the camp and keep the army you're marching well fed, and you can also train your troops as you put camps up on your way to your destination. So running into an enemy camp can give you different types of approaching as sneaking in, spying (we have roguery in the game, spying could literally make you follow them through the map in auto-run, if your roguery is too low, you might get caught and you fight your way out, getting emprisoned if you're not able to).
Assassinating the head of the army or kidnapping him should break the army's morale completely as they don't have a commander anymore and the other lords that were accompanying the commander should be highly influenced to simply disband the army and go back to their settlements. Stuff like that could tip the war balance completely towards your own faction, breaking the high morale of the other faction, subduing them into a peace agreement. Also, executing lords whilst they're your prisoners should discourage the enemy kingdom with fear, breaking morale aswell. It could even come to a decision where, in a bargain between both kingdoms, if the enemy kingdom actually asks for your head, your king should highly consider it, if it means bringing peace to your kingdom, since perma-death is a thing now, why not use it?
Diplomacy needs to play a huge part in this game, right now any faction you join feels like they're handing out declarations of war with no consqueneces whatsoever, even when the kingdom is failing to prosper it's economy and even failing to keep castles well guarded with garrison (I've seen a few castles not even having men on the garrison, the only men available was the militia guys, which are actually produced by a construction perk).
Right now, you can't even propose peace with another faction, it is literally greyed-out and you can't do anything besides joining or leaving the kingdom because you don't agree with the king's decisions. Being a vassal right now just plays such a small role in the game that it's preferable to simply go your own way solo, but even that, even not being a kingdom, factions can also declare war on your clan, and you don't even own a settlement.
I legit think declaration of war should first be a propose from the king (AI or yourself) to your council, and there should be an objective that comes with that proposing. Proposing a declaration of war should be in majority not-supported by the council, specially if the faction is struggling to keep their fiefs prospering. Taleworlds needs to absolutely drag the wars out, so it takes way longer to partake in a faction battle. Also, if you're attacking a huge settlement, let's say a castle or a town and you have too many casualties, this should highly influence the ruler to simply declare peace and enter an agreement treaty with the faction by offering something in return (fiefs, money, even proposing a daughter's hand in marriage) so the peace remains for quite some time. And make the declaration of war softlock into a period of time before that faction can declare war again. Like the sworn barter you do to enemy lords. Some enemy lords actually propose to you to stop raiding/attacking their villages/castles for a period of time, and you're bound to that oath till the timer runs out.
In a playthrough, we were actually waging war against the Vlandians, me being a Sturgian vassal and I came across a party of 3 Vlandian lords, I had a bigger army so they ran off, but I went towards them anyways and I opened the menu prompt to wish to discuss something with one of the lords and say that our factions shouldn't be at war, the barter window came on and he offered an oath to not attack his settlements for 15 days, I also offered some money in return, since I can't propose a declaration of peace within my own faction. The peace offer didn't go through, but I accepted the oath to not attack them and I could see my own faction's vassal attacking their castles and other settlements, but if I clicked on it, trying to join them, the "Send troops" window were greyed-out for me with a message prompting after hovering my cursor over it saying that; "You cannot attack them, because you sworn an oath". So I literally couldn't help my faction nor attack their settlements because of an oath I sworned to one of that faction's lords. And this could be introduced to the declaration of war aswell, if your faction declares war on another and they soon come to a peace agreement, your faction shouldn't be able to declare war again for, I don't know, months maybe? A year? And so, the faction you were at war with, also cannot declare war on your faction during that period, and this would resolve a lot of problems with the steamrolling issue.
