I believe there should simply not be a distinction between a battle and a skirmish. By that I mean scouts, foragers and lead elements of armies should be able to skirmish with each other and these skirmishes may or may not escalate into a decisive battle. Now I know CA will never make a system like this, but this is what I think it should play out like:
You should have very few field armies. Each field army is a major investment in money, manpower and political capital. If the game is set in a feudal system, it should also rely on the goodwill of your vassals, who would contribute their own forces and who may or may not desert or betray you. Likewise, it should be organized at least into a Van, Main and Rear for Medieval periods, or into Corps in a modern setting. As the army marches, these elements are strung out along the roads and may be several hours' march away from each other.
Now imagine a meeting engagement. As the armies approach each other, you are taken to a tactical map. The tactical map is much larger than your usual Total War battle map and features a good number of roads, villages, crossings, chokepoints, etc. As the eyes and ears of your army, your cavalry corps is first on the field. The enemy is still invisible to you, so you send cavalry in march columns down the roads to cover the different possible avenues of approach. Suddenly, you spot the enemy's own cavalry on your right; they have secured one of the river crossings. You deploy your forces into battle and engage the enemy's vanguard, and send them back across the river. You send word to the other corps that you have spotted and engaged the enemy.
Suddenly, you spot enemy infantry across the bridge; it seems that the main body of their army is present in force. You decide to play for time, setting up horse artillery along the river bank in the hopes that they won't call your bluff. You get word that I Corps is arriving, and their lead elements are starting to make it onto the battle map; however, it will take them quite a bit of in-game time to make it to the river crossing. Furthermore, the enemy demonstration at the crossing may conceal the fact that they have sent a flanking force on the long way around. What do you do?
If you feel you cannot hold the crossing on time and there are no favorable positions for you to hold, you might decide to withdraw and leave it at that. The "battle" would then have been a skirmish and nothing more. If you do decide to commit I Corps, the enemy may very well start to commit more and more forces to the area and the skirmish would escalate into a full-blown battle in which the fate of the entire campaign is at stake. The beauty of it is that there are no artificial distinctions and the battle could pan out in any way in a completely organic manner -- it is entirely dictated by the terrain and where and how the armies met, and how they began to feed more troops into the engagement. This same scenario could play out with foragers sent to gather supplies and meeting the enemy's foragers, which could also escalate into a battle if both sides like their chances. This is completely feasible with modern technology and would only require CA to use their heads a little.
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