Everything has flaws, even this idea, there are always bad points
Sure, just said I don't see ones, I left it for others to figure out
Also a thing that needs to be considered is feeding troops that have a high food level (like for now, soldiers above a certain level get no food, even if they are asking for it)
Good point, as I remember right there was an idea about feeding button, and even confirmation window of some sort to make sure we don't feed troops accidentaly. Adding second 'total feed' button might be needed but it shouldn't be hard since we have free spaces in the interface after move and attack.
Just a crazy idea, What about doing it similar to Warcraft, but with food? For each food item in Store you are allowed to recruit one more citizen or warrior. No food reserve in store - no recruitment. Hm?
Jeah, now... I'm the radical revolutionist remember ? XD
As sado said minor tweak over major change in mechanics. Food importance is just enchancement of game cool mechanic without changing how thing work.
This idea will making camping way more effective. A camper could just spam vineyards/ bakeries and mass food. Since he is being campy, his men can be fed much faster than the attacker's troops can, so the attacker will always be at a disadvantage.
Camping again, perhaps I should attach a catapult idea together with this one

As far in my games I really don't encounter camping as shown in replay you mostly refer to. Quick sumarise : cursed ravine, 2v2v2v2 teams, fear of you dominating the battlefield in first 10 minutes.
Furthermore, noone stops the agresive side from feeding his troops himself, nor stops him from attack before his troops get hungry. Than probably in the first attack everybody would be thesame, unless the so called camper is very generous liege lord who fed his retainers right after they trained (cool for him)
If the attacker isn't under siege, he can expand much more easily than the camper who is besieged, so I guess that wouldn't be as you said Ben, but that's just a guess
So to speak food industry takes some additional space, good to claim some more land, let the so feared camper rot in filth behind his towers.
Ben, imo it was kind of related to the "hunger" modifications proposed...
Jeah I saw the posts but didn't had time to fully read them than. But let's focus on just camping and two statements I remember.
I don't think the game and community itself should be held ransom by few camping noobs, holding us from improving our game. I remember in the removed post there was statement about 3 hours siege of a camper not beeing fun. Well I can agree with that, but than if game is really decided after futile hour, you can just return your troops to the middle and write to the camper that either he's going out in ten minutes or you're leaving. It shouldn't hurt the ego that much.
There was also a statement about a flaw in design, well I'll quote myself from what I posted month ago - we need more simple script maps with stuff to do (and win) in the middle of the field of battle. Resources to gain, points to hold and win.
Maybe just play the cool people, on more open maps, and maybe scripted ones.
While we're on scripted maps, let me offtop in single sentence: Thanks to the map tournament going on, we gain lot's of cool scripts, but they are mostly 'baroque' complicated scripts creating new gameplay styles, on the other hand what we need is more classic maps with simplest capture points to score victory, or gain resources for standing here and there.
In the end we're talking about +10/-10 bonus, and of course the numbers are furthermore to negotiation. Assuming the swordfighter has 55 strenght? And axefighter 35, in case hungry swordsman meets feed up axeman (hungry soldiers shouldn't be sent into batte at all) they have the same 45 hit chance, however swordsman would still dominate with his supperior armour. The bonus would apply more to fight of the same type of troops making real difference.
Furthermore, of course missle troops might need scaled down modificators +5/0/-5 or so.
Puny lords starving your subjects, such weakness, shame on you...