More control over your men.

The few comands that one has are quite useful, although I'm not sure that they always fallow them...

Anyway, I was thinking that it would be nice to be able to have more control over your men, perhsp implement tactic and strategies. For example, being able to group together cavalry units and tell them to flank the enemy, coming in at the rear.

I also think that sometime the battlegrounds are a bit awkard... I have no idea where the enemy are to begin with. Luckily my men have an inherent knowledge of this and lead me to them. But maybe a in battle map? Less severe hills?

I've already posted an indepth idea here:
http://taleworlds.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=149

I agree that the batllegrounds are a bit difficult to overlook. While NPCs have an inherent knowledge of the position of enemies, the player doesnt know a thing, expect following his troops.

Maybe a kind of radar would be helpful, where you wouldnt see all units, but get an impression of how loud it is in different directions. Taht way you would know the general direction of enemies (horses making more noise than footmen) but wouldnt know how many there are.

Single enemie archer could be almost undetectable on a noise-radar, charging horsemen could be heard a long distance off and fighting could be heard all over the battleground.

Well, how about letting the player make his own noise radar - make the sounds 3D (they are not that at the moment, my headset tells me) and let enemies let out a huge shout when they enter the battlefield. There's nothing like a nice warcry to liven things up...

Better yet: have big groups of enemies make a lot of noise, when they are issuing orders, spurring their mounts and cheering each other on - and leave the warcry for a truly climatic charge! Also, the player's soldiers could let the player know when they detect enemy troops.

Of course, individual soldiers would not cheer themselves on, so it would be possible for them to remain hidden from the player.

IMO this kind of a system would be a lot more realistic than a radar of any kind.

As to controlling your men... In the medieval times, the basic tactic was to have your men in lined up for a charge - fancy manouvers and advanced tactics were very difficult because of slow communication methods.

BASIC SYSTEM

So, IMO, it might be enough if there was a chance to affect the strategy before the battle started, like sending troops to outflank the enemy and perhaps giving some preliminary commands, but once the battle started, the player would be limited to the options Hold, Advance and Retreat (and Follow my lead?). Apart from this, the troops would pretty much do whatever the player was doing - he is their leader after all.

This shouldn't be too hard to do, but would still give an illusion of having some control over your troops. After all, this is not a mass-combat game like the Total War series.

ADVANCED SYSTEM

If, however, you opted for a more advanced system of controlling your troops. I'd suggest having officers who are in charge of their men. The number of officers (and your Tactics skill?) would decide the number of groups you can divide your troops in. Soldiers would always remain in their own group under their own officer. Then you'd be allowed to make a plan in a similar way to the Rainbow Six games. For example, Group 1 - hold this Hill - join in the Charge on my Command ("on go-code Alpha"). Changing this plan should be very difficult in battle and should be limited to Follow, Retreat, Hold and Charge - you can't create fancy tactics in the middle of a battle.

In short, the advanced system could allow:

BEFORE THE BATTLE

1) Divide your men in Groups acting under your Officers.

2) Give advanced plans to your Officers. ("Go here", "Hold this area", "Engage on my command", "Priority target - knights").

3) Send groups to outflank the enemy. These will appear after a while and charge the enemy.

IN BATTLE

1) Give very basic commands to your troops. Any commands given on the field would override and cancel pre-battle plans for that group ("Hold", "Charge", "Follow", "Retreat").

2) Launch pre-set commands ("Group A - Charge!") similarly to the Go-Codes in Rogue Spear.

I completely agree, Whitemore.

I was more inclined towards telling my men what to do BEFORE the battle starts.

What you describe above swords like an alsomt perfect solotion.

The only problem is that it would require a lot of work. The idea would be to get as much result from as little commands as possible.

Troops could be divided into groups similarly to how the player already recruits men and takes care of prisoners. Each of these would have a quick key for choosing them and giving orders in combat (like the Function keys).

There would be a general map, and in the stripped-down version just two functions would go a long way: the left button would give a waypoint for the group chosen, and they would function there according to their pre-battle orders (see below). Another left click would give them another waypoint and so on and so on (perhaps Tactics would limit the amount of orders a player can give to his men). Right clicking on a waypoint would interrupt the plan and make them stay there until they go their "Go-code" (see below). After the Go-code they would continue to the next waypoint.

Basically the pre-battle order could be given with a few drop down menus:
- Priority Target menu (Footmen, Archers, Knights, Mounted Archers)
- Engage menu (At Will, On Command, When Attacked)
- Combat Stance menu (Aggressive, Normal, Defensive). Aggressive groups would seek and destroy, defensive would hold their ground, normal would engage the enemy when it got close enough to their position.

The in-battle would be restricted to a few quick keys:
- Choose the group (F1, F2, F3...)
- Give a general order (Engage, Halt, Retreat, Follow Me).
- Launch pre-set plan ("Go code Alpha, Beta, Charlie" - these would have to be renamed).

And then there might be a quick key for a power rush:
- General Charge (all groups are automatically chosen and ordered to Engage: they let out a warcry and charge - archers, of course, won't charge - but they will advance into range).