Sorry but just because you don’t want a party of 100 to catch a party of 14 - that doesn’t justify what is probably the most pedestrian strategy map chase sequence in existence- there is literally less logic than pac man chasing ghosts. And btw you ever heard of an advance or scouting party ? Depending on the importance of said smaller party a larger party could send out a smaller one to hold them up or skirmish while larger party arrives as reinforcements.
There’s thousands of ways they could have thought to improve the map chase system but they chose Zero
Until AI advance parties are constantly catching your small party and allowing it to be wiped by a larger party.
The maneuver on the world map is pretty basic but it also offers clear risk/reward trade-off for at least the first half of most campaigns.
Eventually all the remaining kingdoms have parties size 150+ while minor clans and defeated kingdoms are still running around with 30-50 so it becomes really annoying as there is no possible way to deal with both and players have to choose one or the other. Most people go with larger parties because it brings in more income but then the smaller parties constantly raid and lower prosperity which is mostly annoying from a 'clean' perspective, the amount of money battle loot brings in the late game is always more than towns until players control half the map.
There are also perks that allow faster forest or plains speed but they are almost all either/or so if you are plaing in the west taking the forest perks is usually best while playing in the east the plains perks make more sense but the movement system is very basic.
I would really favor chokepoints where castle garrisons could have a chance to intercept enemy parties effectively closing the choke or having to rely on roguery to sneak past.
