IMO strat should be brought more inline with single player mode.
each player would be a lord or knight and have to recruit their own troops etc. there would have to be an increase in upkeep per troop for the bigger your army to limit one man having a thousand man army etc to attempt to avoid abuse of a later part of this post
The standing army of each fief should be reduced massivly. a small village etc wouldnt have much more than 50-100 men to defend it without their lord.
Remove troop transfers. This is a fuedal system your men are loyal to you and wont take kindly to being passed around!
This means that to form an army you would have to appoint a general to oversee things. He would bring his own troops and call other lords to his banner. Like in SP the lords would have to gather bringing their own troops and gear etc to the battle. It would need to have an auto follow so you would only see one army on the map.
This ofc means that to march a large army at your enemy you will suffer reduced production/trade and leave your own lands with a much weaker defence. It will also take longer to form the armies with more diverse equipment for less organised clans.
my reasoning for this is that it will make massive armies far less likley and introduce more 1-5 man armies that will engage in battles. This should help smaller clans by making them harder to kill and have more chance of attacking fiefs. (harder to kill because why would a massive clan send many men thus leaving themselves open to attacks when they could send fewer men, still retaining a numerical advantage but much less so.)
Now carebear alliances would still lead to massive armies and there is little chance of homelands being ravaged but they would take longer to make and longer to gather
It is my opinion that this will greatly benefit small clans in a number of ways. 1. they are more likely to have a chance of defending themselves and of attacking and 2. A small clan could do very very well as a merc clan. lending their collected 1-5 man armies out to other clans to boost their battlelines for cash or a fief. this could lead to another way for a new clan to get into strat later in game. Want a fief when its late strat? strike a deal with another clan
this is pretty basic and written on a pad so dont hate meh for the lousy lay out and poor spelling. im sure its full of holes but its a nice idea (for me anyway) More autonomy for the normal players is nice right?
Ideas and thoughts and flames?