That's not true though, it can't be challenging because you're not DOING anything about it. You have to ask the player to do something for it to be a challenge. A Challenge is like "can you COMMAND 400 troops to defeat 800?" but "you have 150 troops you control and 500 that will suicide charge... what do tee hee ?

" is not a challenge because you could just spare the poor AI and kill the enemy yourself. But I know what you mean, people will try to say things are "challenging" when there was no challenge to player at all, such as charge troops up ladders in a siege and lose 1/2 you troops "boy what a hard siege" but they didn't even command or make any effort. Where as do a proper siege with destroying walls and good placement and timing and you lose like 5/300 troops "oh how broken, how can you not loose troops in a siege?", well I did more PLAYING THE GAME and got a result for my actions and choices, that's how it should be.
The pro play is to get them into battle and make sure they all go down, while also downsizing the enemy to a size you're sure you can defeat (which may not be needed), then retreat and leave the battle, then attack again and defeat them, allowing you to free everyone and harvest free troops. Our hero, getting max loot and relations, it's okay you tricked us into attacking a larger enemy and watched us all die, we forgive you, WE LOVE YOU!!
Never ever join anyone army.
Bring them to yours and you can control them all. Any AI I can't control is just a type of resource to harvest
. Don't join them in battle unless they're already loosing (or you want to **** them over) because they will do better in autocalc then on suicide charge.
One thing for sure, MORAL, troops fight much longer now and it will equal more downed troops if you were just ramming troops together before. Now more then ever you need to use all troop types effectively to minimize losses......well you can still use just ranged troops I guess, but still. Before it was common to see hundreds of routed troops in a large battle, now it will be just a handful, often like 2 cat-o-phracks that latest the whole battle.
Well that's good I guess, so I can SOMEDAY upgrade their gear without an extra cost to deploy. These poor workhorses, they get strapped on junk loot gear at like day 30 and then are pulled through constant wars the rest of their lives until until I work them to death. Although this time I will likely make them lords.