How about this idea for making battles more fun:

A custom (choose your own troops) battle where each player can only move one troop a turn, maximum, out of his castle. That troop has to see combat (ranged attacks and ranged defense would count as an attack too) before another troop can leave the castle. Any remaining forces (if any) stay on the battlefield to continue fighting while new troops appear.

I think this way the "first strike" problem is going to be eliminated and choosing which troops to send out and when will be of extreme significance.

Anyone willing to try one with me? No forced turns, play as you like. I'll make one up, PM me for password.

SlowOx and I tried to get a couple of custom battles going but experienced troubles wherein the game abruptly quit on us before turn 1. Anybody else had this problem? Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to remember there being a thread about it... I dunno.

Old Moggie

When one player starts the game before the other player has finished picking troops, it will kill the game.

You are a wise King, Neb.

If Requiem could be coerced into it, the battles could be made better by only allowing a certain amount of actions per turn, for instance, using 10 action points I could move and attack with 5 troops.

This would limit the "instant death" problem and make for some interesting choices for the players. Would you move 10 troops but not attack at all? Move two troops up while attacking with 8? Or some treatment like that, with adjustments, there could even be handicaps!

This idea had some promise, I think. It probably would take modifications to make it work, though.