So it follows that an army would be looking for a good place to 'have a battle', not necessarily looking 'over there at the heavily fortified enemy'...? From a siege perspective yes, they would to take the town. But for a battle between two moving armies...? Hmmm...
T
The impression that I have got, from studying a wide range of European history, is that
usually at least one army would be travelling along the road towards the enemy, then when each army's scouts saw the other army, the armies would form up to do battle, which was generally in a field/farmland somewhere nearby. A lot of the time, armies would observe eachother, camp overnight, and then form up battle lines in the morning.
Terrain modifiers don't really make much sense. This is not to say that the terrain of the battle field wouldn't matter, but in that case even small bumps, ridges, depressions, inclines, etc. in the field could make a big difference. If it just happened that the field was wet, or muddy, that would have more effect than there just happening to be forest in another part of the province.
What people seem to forget is that two armies using similar military tactics would choose a similar battle field. I can understand there being terrain modifiers for English attacking the Scottish Highlands, since the English Army seemed to be set up for fighting in French farmland, but in order to represent this, we'd need some form of "military culture".
Terrain modifiers for battles between two armies who are used to similar terrain should not be so one-sided. Sure, one army will have a better position (and even a very slightly better position could turn the outcome of a battle), but it isn't always going to be the defender. The only exception to this that I can think of is guarding a mountain pass, in this case, yes, the defender will have a significant advantage.
