Questions

[Imp]

You can make it what you desire, the goal in all battle types is to destroy the enemy & capture the victory hexes with the minimal casulties to your force.
Delaying is simply defending assuming the defender has not had time to fortify & the attaccker has not had time to amass a larger force.

You can reroll victory hex placement till you get something you like or place them manually if you wish, I often do. Can also adjust scatter vs 3 grouped sets percentage on the splash screen at game startup.

You can also make victory hexes more or less important as desired by adjusting the individual value of each victory hex.
Also the higher you set timed objectives the more important they become.

Setting high values for the hexes & timed objectives makes the battle more urgent if you are attacking.