Are there circumstances where nobles (not vassals) will lead parties?

[Apocal]

I'm putting together something and I've noticed that many lords and ladies I'm 100% sure lead parties are being listed as "Noble of X" (the title of non-party leading lords and ladies) instead of "Vassal of X" (used for combat leaders) in the encyclopedia.

Is there some situation that leads to this? Or am I just going nuts?

 

[NikitaOnline17]

In my games, both nobles and vassals lead armies. I've never quite figured out what the difference is supposed to be or if this is a mistake.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

This is just a guess, but Clans often have more members then field parties so: Perhaps at the launch of a campaign the ones not selected for field parties are labeled as nobles and it never changes even when they do in fact lead field parties.

This is just based on casual experience though.

 

[Revenant342]

This is just a guess, but Clans often have more members then field parties so: Perhaps at the launch of a campaign the ones not selected for field parties are labeled as nobles and it never changes even when they do in fact lead field parties.

This is just based on casual experience though.

It seems that way. Clans want to have the maximum number of armies in the field, so when one of their party leaders gets captured they send out one of the extra members they have available. That seems to be why you see so many women leading armies sometimes during big wars, because all the normal war party leaders are in jail. Also explains the "as you are not a warrior, you are free to go" release dialogue.

The downside is a lot of these nobles have zero tactics skill so they're at a pretty big disadvantage against other AI parties in simulated battles.

 

[Bannerman Man]

Clans want to have the maximum number of armies in the field, so when one of their party leaders gets captured they send out one of the extra members they have available.

This is the correct answer. This was changed back in 1.4.3 I believe. If a clan has an open war party slot, it will choose the most suitable commander available (based on certain skills such as leadership, tactics, and others) and send them out the next day. Sometimes if a clan has very little money, very few fiefs, or poor quality commanders to choose from, they will not fill all of their war party slots, meaning if you're able to harm a clan enough they may not use their max party slots.

 

[Apocal]

This is the correct answer. This was changed back in 1.4.3 I believe. If a clan has an open war party slot, it will choose the most suitable commander available (based on certain skills such as leadership, tactics, and others) and send them out the next day. Sometimes if a clan has very little money, very few fiefs, or poor quality commanders to choose from, they will not fill all of their war party slots, meaning if you're able to harm a clan enough they may not use their max party slots.

Awesome, thanks.

 

[Stromming]

The downside is a lot of these nobles have zero tactics skill so they're at a pretty big disadvantage against other AI parties in simulated battles.

Actually I made a post about this and Mexxico said he would look into it, not sure if he did though.
At the start of a new campaign in beta e1.5.0, several factions had party leaders with 0 tactic skill, and certain factions have alot better nobles with more tactic skill (if army is calculated on top tactic rather than total tactic this could be a problem) and sturgia even started with 3 party leaders less than other factions to begin with