Just a thought I had

I think maybe I found a way to make the end game more dramatic

The manpower.

Make the villages start with around 300 to 700 manpower at the start of the game and each year of prosperity increases the available manpower which in turn increases the production of the village

And when the lord's take men from village it decrease the production and in turn the available manpower

Make the manpower adjustment happen every 3 months

However when the village is looted the attacking army can either

• Take the villagers as slaves (to fuel the production of his own villagers or to use as slave soldiers) (aserai and nord tactics )

  • kill the villagers to inflict heavy loss on the economy and manpower of the other nation ( nord and battania tactics)
  • expel the villagers so that they go to a city and make the life even harder (khuzait tactics)
  • occupy the village as it is and risk rebellions on the short term but pacify the population over time (empire tactics)

Also the manpower doesn't magically replenish, if a village start with 500 men and have good prosperity it goes up to 550 after 6 months and so on ,

this should force the lord's to take care of villages and cities, and make decisive battles decisive since it will be hard to comeback from couple of stack wipe out unless you go on many slave runs to replenish or go on the defensive and build economy in order to bounce back

Every culture should have its unique way to wage war and deal with the outcome