As asked by James, I repost my view of enhancing the game experience. Hope someone who can do something for us, the community, will take a look.

In my opinion the game has one major flaw:

Wars are (with one exception) pointless.

Why? There is nothing to fight for, except RP-honor. No country needs more shires, as there are plenty of free ones around or the country is supply-blocked (by the number of knights) anyway. Money is never that short for countries and the plunder income doesnt matter that much for knights - to wage a war.
Additionally the absurd problem of defeated countries that wont surrender occurs (Saxony-Poland, Serbia-The Coalition).

How to change that?

Introduce the aforementioned core-shires, like it was in EU3 or RTW: Europa Barbarorum, and get rid of the number of knights territory limitation. The possessed (rather occupied) non-core shires would generate negative income (quite high). Core status would be gained after long term ownership of the shire. The countries will then have territory representing their actual might (political, financial and military), not just numbers. Wars will be worth fighting, money will mean power and true diplomacy should take place. No more neverending wars.
Too much power for the big ones you say? Now land is limited (and finally can be conquered for real) and noone would allow one-country-world-conquest. Additionally creating a core should take a while and be costly.

Game mechanics

If the mechanism cannot be implemented as an addition to the existing system, the cores could be represented as buildings in each shire. The core is created when the building is built, but it takes a long time to do so and without it operational, the province generates negative income.

Final word

Of course the numbers must be balanced, but i believe it can be done with at least small effort. Someone earns some money off this game, so i think he should contribute a little bit anyway.



With best wishes,
Marauder