We are supposed to act like those uneducated savages!
That's a player problem, not a mechanics problem.
I guess the biggest problem is that some players just hate losing and just won't accept the consequences...
I agree.
Just because the stakes are high, doesn't mean the war has to be long. One of the reasons I love love love the new TO system is that assuming you keep military control over a region, you will take it eventually. No more of these random revolts screwing everything up. I've had that screw over three wars that I personally started (and had it save my realm once), where even if it would have taken two weeks to take a city, that would have been fine, and the war would have been over less than two months later, one way or the other.
I'm not opposed to the new takeover system. I'm quite fine with taking multi-week takeovers out of the game. And imo, it means that takeovers can be done with less collateral damage, hence reducing recovery time. I'm all in favor of small wars being possible... as long as it is also possible to royally screw over another realm and, after months of pounding on them, cripple them for at least as long as it took you to bring them there.
"The soldiers are uneasy about massacring a people who no longer have the heart to resist."
The realm that pushed the surrender button would then actively avoid battles (don't provoke fights or even align on defenders side of a battle the other side tries to start unless attackers are on murderous, say).
Winning is arbitrary, I really don't like mechanics that would work with such things. What would the "surrender" box do. If it gives morale penalties to the invading troops, wouldn't the defending realm want to insta-surrender while continuing to push the war, just abusing this mechanic for a strategic advantage? Sure, some things could be thought of to reduce abuse, but I think it's too vague and therefore would never be perfectible.
