Not sure if this was raised before, would imagine it might have been
It has
but why don't you enable live player on player battles?
Well.... that's something we're never going to know for certain. If I had to guess, I would assume they prefer to put their time and resources into other ideas. Just because a idea seems cool on paper doesn't mean it'd be simple to implement, or that it wouldn't result in a lot of frustration once implemented
If you have a real time battle the first hurdle is matchmaking. With Player VS AI you have instant matches. You don't have to wait on anyone
With Player VS Player live battles.... now you have to wait on someone to accept your battle request. By the time they accept it they may not even be at the computer. OR even worse, they may have started Guild Expedition or Guild Battlegrounds or be in their Settlement because the matchmaking is taking too long
Basically if you have live battles you're requiring the player to not be playing any part of the game, and to just sit there doing nothing while they wait for someone to say they want to compete in a battle. How many people would then be willing to stick with that feature further down the line if every time they go to battle they have to sit and wait for someone else to either request or accept a battle with them?
The second problem you'd encounter is how long should each player have per move? Against AI it doesn't matter if you choose your next move in 1 second or 10 minutes. No one is waiting on you. Against a player you're going to need to set limits so a disconnect or AFK isn't going to result in a turn that never ends.
The third problem is deciding how you're going to handle disconnects. Is that going to be a instant lose? Is that going to have 30 seconds to reconnect? Is it going to be some other criteria?
What about server maintenance? Is that going to result in a lose for both players? Or is one of them going to be declared the winner? Is the game going to recognise that there was server maintenance as the reason for the battle being interrupted? Once the maintenance is over is the battle even able to be resumed (I'm going to assume no)?
Another question would be is it possible to surrender during a live battle? Or do you have to finish it so there's a winner?
And lastly, what if you have some outlying condition that results in a stalemate? You might start with a mix of Ages in the units. All the higher Aged units die on both sides and then neither side can hit the other players units. Is there going to be a number of turns designated where the match is over no matter what? Or is it a infinite number of turns? Is such a situation deemed as a loss to both players? Or is one declared the winner?
Probably other things I haven't considered but that's off the top of my head
And you're right, I'd prefer my sleep at 2am