I'm sure anybody who's tried a 1 vs 1 match will know player 1 has a looming advantage over player 2. Although VW is a game based around largely utilising diplomacy to win I think it would be interesting to have a balanced 1 vs 1 setup on conquest that has little 'First turn advantage' or FTA. My idea is simple; make P2 on their first turn get 2 men instead of 1 so that P1 has 2 men to start with and P2 has 3 men to start with. Assuming that they expand with no resistance each turn, each turn's territories would look like this;
P1 - 1 2 4 8 16
P2 - 1 3 6 12 24
note that both players advantage over each other never expands at a much greater rate than the other with both players having a 1 territory advantage over the other, then 2 then 4 and so on...
I think it would be an interesting game mode to play around with

thoughts?
The simple, the best.