I was almost burned out on this game because it kind of stresses me out with all the game of thrones shit. Been really struggling to just get an ahistorical set up to transfer to EU4 and maybe Victoria later.

Stumbled upon "Crusader Wars" and already had Attila from forever ago. Sure it's got plenty of jank from that era of Total War but wow it's fun to actually fight the battle yourself and have every soldier from your army in the battle, accurately simulated as appropriate units, and transfer every casualty back to Ck3. If the battles get too large, like they do late game, just change the transfer ratios in the options.

Your martial skill converts to highly quality units overall, prowess beefs up your commander units, and knights adds special units of knights based on your culture. Commander deaths or injuries carry back to Ck3.

You can still fight battles normally in game if and save this for very important ones. Options for only your main character, or your Marshall as well, or every allied/friendly army.

Expect to wait a few minutes depending on your system to hop between the games when you fight a battle.

Seriously been thinking about how something like this could be used for other Paradox games to spice things up. The future of modding will just be chaining half a dozen seperate games together, each good at their narrow playstyle or something.