Now I accept that it's lost it's strength due to raze merely burning the land and not destroying it but it is still easy enough to pk a prov you want dead if you have a good team.
Battle groups were a REQUIREMENT in the top, how can you call them garbage...? The monarch had only to say, "These are your 3 targets today, go." and we depended on our monarch to decide who needed hit, then the monarch (as I type this I refrain from typing regent as that's another thing I'm still getting used to) watched us go to town. Back then, he was too busy staying alive to worry about joining a chain. Then came the banks and everything changed. Hybrids were crap in all but the most elite hands, noone knew how to successfully merge more than one role because the balance of the game made it EXTREMELY difficult (read "nearly impossible for many ages").
If I had a team of dedicated players who could follow chain orders and knew how to run a prov, I'd f'ing STOMP you...