In what ways does this game require more strategic thinking than the Rome Total War games? Where are the mechanics deeper and more meaningfully intertwined?

The fact that you need to go to another game to plat battles looks strange and unhandy. It is as if you needed to play battles and upload results in total war series.

How is the attacker determined in a battle.? I entered a territory the enemy had a siege on it made me the defender . I still won the battle with my 2-0 general and thought okay I'll target the enemy in the next territory. Well that enemy left the his starting territory and I followed him across 2 territories and It still made me the defender?...

Playing my first game (as Arverni) and I've hit some kind of a wall in my game because I can't get anymore generals. Despite both the nation and my leader having the "very good military" trait, no generals are spawning. I've got 4 armies and a navy but a grand total of 1 general, and haven't seen any spawn since about turn 5 into the game. How am I supposed to get more? Side note: is there basically no diplomacy in the game? There doesn't seem to be any way to improve relations with nations other than ver...

I don;t understand how the military upkeep cost in money and manpower works for my army. If I add up the money upkeep cost for each unit, it should be 78, but its listed as 57, That's confusing enough. But then, on the top menu bar, under money, it says the deduction for military upkeep is only -2? The same question applies to upkeep manpower for my army, which has the same kind of disparities between the totals and what is listed under for manpower military upkeep for the army, and the deduction for milit...