As I was reading this I kind of realized that more power per unit means fewer casualties in terms of ‘people’, adding in a saving throw accomplishes the same goal in a different way; but then what use is a card like the healer for. I’d almost rather keep the generals as a power bonus rather than a saving throw; it makes more sense to me that way. I also kinda like the fact that casualties are fair; although I agree that a curve may be added rather than always a rough 1-1 with some randomness.
While reading your comment I stumbled into the idea of ‘well how do other games do this?’ Then the answer seemed relatively obvious to me; why not make it so that casualties aren’t the primary factor in scoring?
A lot of war games handle the idea of who ‘won’ based on ‘results’ rather than who did the most damage by using a victory point system. The idea is that every town and well would have a value assigned to it; either deterministic or assigned by map creation. The game then shifts towards ‘save the towns’ vs ‘reduce the casualties’; and it makes saving towns that have been recruited dry more important. Secondary scoring factors could also be added - such as casualties - that help to differentiate the scores moderately.
It still doesn’t solve the issue of faster being better though; although that may be intentional.