I am confused by what you're saying. How can one summon 3,000 troops if they're not actually in charge? I mean, I thought us amassing forces that range into the thousands (and paying them) was us earning them and the right to order them around and using them to conquer the realm thus earning the right to rule them. In other words, I'm not sure how the "other way around" can even occur.
Anyone can summon a lord into an army with enough influence. A tier 2 clan can summon a tier 5 clan dude with a meager 20-30i. Therefore, there isn't really a difference between T2 and T5 clans army-wise since everyone can summon anyone they want, given enough influence. That's point one.
When everyone has tons of influence, the line between T2 and T5 is further blurred by the fact that even a relative nobody can summon anyone they want at any given time, thanks to 40i per day, credit goes to unnerfed CoC. That's point two.
Therefore, when everyone has tons of influence, noone is more influential than the other. It matters jack if you have 1k or 1mil influence, because you can still force any lord to follow you around like your personal pack hound. That's point three.
The summary point is that because of overbuffed influence, the player is always in charge of armies whenever he/she wants to be. Lords spam armies too, but disbanding them is cheap as dirt.
And again, we technically should be able to reach a point, depending upon our actions, of where we're the raid boss of the game so to speak, imho.
I'd say we still do, just depends on how much time it takes to get there. Again, even with CoC removed outright, there's enough ways to earn influence to always disband any army and summon anyone you want. The AI just doesn't do that much,they prefer a couple smaller armies to one big blob of death the player can unleash.
You're totally right, it all boils down to personal preference in the end. I'd argue that MnB is intended to be a long journey, but that would still be my interpretation of mechanics from earlier MnB's and nothing else. Whichever direction vanilla Bannerlord takes, we all still have mods, thankfully.Now maybe in your opinion and or your personal tastes (and many), this occurs too quickly. Obviously, this isn't the same for many others.
And no, I didn't really picture you at all, well aside from your avatar, lol. But only because of love that content creator so I can't help but picture him and hearing what I am reading in his voice, haha.
That's a totally unintended side effect, and one I haven't noticed till now xD. Now I can't help but read my own words in his voice, and I don't think he'd like what I'm writing too much.