There has been a little discussion about the role of guerrilla warfare to take out outposts and resources in this game, especially as it relates to the attractiveness of spamming weak units to attack your opponent. I have a suggestion that I think allows this to remiain a viable strategy, while also making it less annoying to try to defend against.
I understand that this should be a valid strategy, but sometimes I think it gets so carried away it detracts from the enjoyment of the game. For instance, I like to focus on recruiting champions and designing fancy units, just cause I think it is more fun than simply having a lot of generic militia under my command roaming around (even while understanding that the spam-weak-units strategy may be superior in terms of winning the game). One annoying aspect of the approach I use is that by mid-game it typically results in having a relatively small number of specially-designed mixed army stacks (generally 7-to-8 stacks each consisting of 1 champion, a few defense oriented blockers, a few archers/mages, and some mounted "shock" troops), along with a few administrator/governor champions in my cities. (Medium map, 4-to-5 oppenents).
When the AI declares war and starts spamming peon units in mass quantities and sending them after my outposts/resources, my 7-ish stacks spend all their time just running around chasing them down and killing them - BORING. If I ignore them to mount an attack on the enemy cities, I have to sacrifice all my well-planned city/outpost structure, and then ultimately have to come back, clear out the territory, and rebuild, and when I do that the guerrilla warfare starts on my recently conqured territory - ANNOYING.
I thought a logical way to counter this issue was to build my nation around natural chokepoints, so I could effectively block off access to my resources by placing a few well-heeled army stacks at these chokepoints to keep the hordes out - seems like a rational and legitimate strategy to me. However, the hordes still stream by my stack that is "guarding" the chokepoint...3+ relatively weak enemy stacks come at the same time - while my stack attacks one of them, the other 2+ stream by me on that turn, and then I am back to chasing them all over the place, often not being able to catch them for quite a while (by which time even more weak hordes have poured through the chokepoint and spread across my territory). This happens even if the chokepoint is only 2 or 3 "squares" wide, so the enemy armies have to literally move right by my strong army, which just happens to be spending the turn wiping out in 30 seconds one enemy stack inches away. Building up enough stacks to occupy every possible "square" so no one can get by is too expensive, too annoying (have SO many units on map to cycle through), and too ugly.
Wouldn't it make sense if every stack/unit on the strategic map had a ZOC as they do on the tactical map (the width of which is maybe impacted by the strength, or movement ability, of the stack?) that would prevent opposing armies from passing by without getting stuck and have to engage? This would still allow the use of guerilla warfare in open areas, but would allow a defense built around thoughtful use of land and natural defenses to counter this approach - seems like that would be both more strategic in terms of offering various ways to succesfully play and more enjoyable.
if that makes sense, a 2nd point would be would it also make sense to allow a nation to build walls (ala the Great Wall of China) to protect it's borders/funnel enemies to chokepoints that can be defended?
