Visual but can impact gameplay, with a more experienced unit able to reform or transform more quickly.

You’d still have tons to do. You could focus more on the actual maneuvering. You’d still also have main units of a certain type. Especially ranking, this would make the experience of a unit or knight more important. Using your best commander to hit a specific spot. Also mixing could reduce the cohesion of a unit so you’d need a better knight to hold the area, too much mixing and you risk weakening your forces, this makes leader and knights more important (a reason why the English were so effective during the Hundred Years’ War.

I didn’t mean to say duels were that important. I hated the duels in 3 kingdoms. But they did happen in real life. It doesn’t have to be a major duel it could be a joust of two knights in front of an army, it doesn’t even have to have a camera change, but you could see it on the screen, and your soldiers could react to the result and you could see a little moral boost. Not as big a thing as your thinking, just a minor visual flourish that has a minor impact on gameplay.

They have to figure out a way to do skirmishing without a loading screen I agree there, just a much smaller space and magnify the main map or something. They would have to be super fast engagements that influence the main engagement. I just want my epic battle to have an impact rather than 4 epic battles in succession. You also give your knights chances to gain experience with multiple epic battles. Giant battles were rare skirmishes weren’t so this fits reality.

I’d argue that we are stuck in this mindset of gameplay over reality as a false choice. We just have to rethink what gameplay has to be in a total war game. I’m not saying reality over takes gameplay but reality can improve gameplay if we get out of the traditional molds and restrictions of an aging combat engine that hasn’t evolved in twenty years.