I gave the game a try. It is a pleasant tactical puzzle, and is very asymmetrical (the AI does not really play the game, and has a different set of rules) :
It has very superficial similarities to risk : armies fighting each other involve your choosing one unit to take the hits each round : damage does not carry over, so it can be interesting to sacrifice a low hitpoint unit to tank hits (for instance, you know the opposing army will inflict 5-20 HP damage (it depends on a dice roll, and the total strength of the army). You can sacrifice a 3 HP piece to take all the damages this round. HP is also the attack power), but it does carry over against the AI (so you can kill 4 units with 5 HP if you roll 20 damage).
In this exemple above, I will inflict 5-37 damage, and take 3-19. I can try to soak them on my strongest character on the left (16 Strength), for a slight chance of losing, or sacrifice one of the ST 6 recruitable characters (only the ST6 characters are allowed to die in the campaign. Everyone can level up). In this exemple, it is obvioulsy better to sacrifice a minor character, or to save scum, and risk the strongest storyline character.
This element (the battles) is not too puzzly, but the strategic part of the game is :
the AI in a province will stay idle (if there is no opposing province nearby), instead of stacking everything on a single province, or try to attack one of your provice if there is an adjacent one. AI always tries to attack if its total strength (=combined value of the stength_HP of the units in the province) exceeds yours. You chose one order for each of your pieces (attack, defend, fortify, heal, craft., rebuilding eco..), but only the strength of the pieces with a defend order will be counted (AI will attack if its strength exceeds defending strength) and take place in the battle (every piece is wiped out if you lose and they had other orders. Orders are carried simultaneously out at the end of the turn, but you can see what move the AI will perform.
Fortifying allows you to soak the AI attack (if the province is fortified, AND the defending strength is inferior to its attacking strength, damage equal to AI strength is applied to the fortification).
The "static" nature of the AI is what makes it puzzly : If you have a chokepoint close to 3 AI province with 30 strength each, and no troop inside, they will chew the fortifications at 90 strength/turn, but if you put 30 strength of garrison inside, they won't attack at all. Note that if the AI attacks, it will attack with all 3 provinces, resulting in a stack of 90 (which will become very hard to take out), but it will not stack its units otherwise.
In this exemple : the 37 Strength AI stack in the North will attack my fortifications(red arrow), reducing it from 140 to 103, while my own stack will attack the 37 in the SE. Note that I I had attacked the province with 0 Strength, both 37 stacks would have attacked my fortified province (for 74 damage). Note also that you can still modify orders after seeing the AI actions.
Enemies get reinforcements on each province every few turns, so you have to find a way to juggle your meagre resources to take them out faster than they can pop, witout letting too many provinces get overrun.
The game seems good for what it is : you have to accept its puzzly nature and asymetric nature, but I have not got very far.
