Birthright: Chimaeron

That latter idea is sort of like what Zedfrost was like.

You can make units more expensive, or you can just reduce the amount of gold in the game. Either would make things smaller. Returning to force pools is another option.

Is there any desire to do real time battles with Maptools? I used it alot with doing online D&D. I even setup a server and programmed tokens. Battles could be run by the players and results given to Juan afterwards. It is free.

I would suggest limiting training grounds to Training actions performed in that province. And Training armies action is now limited to a single province. Multiple locations not providing any benefit.

and/or

Mercenaries, should be available again. Fighters will no longer have an absolute advantage as any proficiency deficient regent can hire armies. The fighter has less expensive, and more loyal armies as the advantage.

If adopted consider applying a transit time before units become available. This way there are no instant armies. This time can be static (based on what a fighter might accomplish) or randomly like build actions.

Mercenaries may also be required to make morale checks, to avoid quitting a battle each rounds.

A lot of feudal armies historically suffered significant attrition when levies went home to see to their crops. Troops also tended to desert the further they were moved from their homes especially the less professional forces. Increasing attrition to reflect this might help reduce army sizes though it would need to be easy to factor in to avoid becoming more of a pain than it would solve.

Armies could also be more of an abstraction... Ie you just have a total army of a specific level and no more units... We are facing the balance between details and man power.

I'd favour eliminating training points (and non-special buildings) entirely, and instead just limiting musters by the number of province levels. So someone (or an alliance) with 10 province levels can only raise 10 units (5 tier 3s, 1 tier 5s, or whatever) in a single turn, to keep things sane... no saving up 500 GB and then making an army appear out of nowhere, for example. But everyone would be on a level playing field for how many units they can train with an action, it's the cost, balance, and effectiveness of those units which would differ.

One trainingground only sounds like a good thing. An option would be to get rid of traininggrounds and give a 1 TP /thaco increase. That would make warriors much better and at the same time, make singe class characters more desireable.

Also, I think there should be no automatic mercenary contracts. It offsets the cost of the armies not currently used to much.

Making the limiting factor on how large armies can be the number of actions needed to train them doesn't make sense to me, even if it is balanced between characters... I don't think there's ever been a historical war where average training time was what decided who won.

Need clear rules on engagements. Maybe new nwps and rolls made against each other about being able to retreat or disengage or force someone to stay in battle or suffer major losses in a rout.

I like the 1 Training Ground and Shipyard with palace feature concept.

I think army units should be more expensive and 'built' aka trained in the same random fashion ships are built. Making units more expensive cuts down on number of units. Cutting down on available gold cuts down on numbers of everything.

I like the idea of a free bodyguard/retinue unit(s). I would say tie the number of units to bloodline strength, like tainted get 1 unit, minor get 2 units, etc.