I personally think it's time that the effects of looting on realm control be seriously reconsidered. It greatly bothered me when I observed on the outside the war between Ibladesh and Perdan/Caligus (and to a lesser extent Carelia v CE) that it appeared that realms simply didn't care about gaining lands directly anymore, they would instead just put to the torch everything of their enemies. As it stands, this tactic seems to have disproportionately gained adherents simply because it is so effective. This is amplified even more by the fact that many realms have difficulty simply getting enough characters to hold on to what they already have. Why bother taking over a region you know you won't be able to control if you can just deny its use to your enemy with much greater ease.
If you look at this type of warfare you see that its actually much more in line with the incredibly modern ideas of asymmetric warfare and scorched earth warfare of Sherman (yes yes the Romans et al would salt the earth of Carthage etc, but that is something much more permanent than what BM simulates). So the question becomes then, should the game mechanics push you towards trying to deny your enemy the use of lands, rather than taking them over for yourself from the outset. I've heard people say in the past that it is ultimately harder in the end to actually control lands that you've really done some hurt to, and that may be true, but (and it's a big one) people have rightly figured out that if you simply beat your opponents into submission and destroy their ability to fight, you can take your time assimilating new regions into your realm. Hell it actually works in your favor given the scarcity of characters to fill estates. By taking your time you can slowly accumulate new characters to fill the spaces as your gold/noble increases.
In summary, the paucity of people to fill estates, and the overbalanced effects of looting have changed the nature of BM warfare away from outright territorial gain to one of area denial. I find this change to make the game quite a bit less fun, and actually damaging to the spirit of the game. Whereas before new nobles might hope to prove themselves in battle and be rewarded with the acquisition of new functioning lands, they must instead grind away at their foes, and then grind away at repairing the damage they have caused to the lands they desired.
