Hey y'all,
Currently, if you're playing on a Battle Size that is lower than the amount of soldiers present, the battle will utilize a reinforcement system. I say reinforcement - and that is what it's called - but what we're really talking about here is a spawn system.
The problem with it is that if you're playing on any setting lower than the amount of soldiers in a given battle is that it gives an unfair advantage to the losing side. For the sake of simplicity, let's imagine two armies fighting with a 100 battle size limit, and both armies are using exclusively infantry. One of them advances because it has the advantage in terms of troop quality, and the first 50v50 skirmish ensues. The advancing army comes out on top and loses about 20 men, whereas the defending army loses the better part of 40.
What this should mean is that the advancing army wins this skirmish. What currently happens in this game, though, is that the defending army gets reinforced with 40 men, while the advancing army gets 20 men; both are back at 50, and the melee can continue. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this at all - it allows the battle to play out as fairly as possible for people with limited processing power (or in battles with too many troops to count) without giving one side any advantage it didn't already have.
The problem arises when you start to notice how these reinforcements reach their armies: all armies have a set spawn point, and this is where all of the reinforcements spawn in. Instead of 50v50 turning into 10v30, what we have currently is an advancing, winning army often getting surrounded by the sudden appearance of fresh troops, while their own reinforcements are oftentimes hundreds of meters away. This makes fighting at an advantage ironically quite dangerous, since killing the enemy essentially gives them free replenishment, and if you're fighting anywhere near their spawn point, you will soon find your winning, numerically superior army surrounded by an enemy that was losing hard just a moment ago.
My suggestion is to simply do away with the respawn system. Reinforcements are essentially unfixable since it will always give an unfair advantage to the losing side, even if you make the spawn points dynamic or lock them to the edge of the map; so long as the defenders are close to the edge, we will be in the same situation with troops appearing out of nowhere and suddenly surrounding enemy formations. I think the best way to solve this is to break big battles up into skirmishes, where a proportionate amount of troops fight, and after the battle is over, another skirmish starts, losses and routs all accounted for. Warband had a system that was similar to this, but it also had the dreadful middle-of-the-map respawn system mixed in.
Note: I am not saying that all big battles should be skirmishes. If your PC can handle the biggest battle sizes, then the battles should be as big as possible. I'm merely arguging against the respawn system as a whole, since I feel that it really puts a dent into the quality of battles. Spawning (troops popping up on the battlefield at any point) as a whole is just bad in my opinion, but reinforcement at the edge of the map could still be implemented as a mechanic for armies that appear late to a battle etc.
Currently, if you're playing on a Battle Size that is lower than the amount of soldiers present, the battle will utilize a reinforcement system. I say reinforcement - and that is what it's called - but what we're really talking about here is a spawn system.
The problem with it is that if you're playing on any setting lower than the amount of soldiers in a given battle is that it gives an unfair advantage to the losing side. For the sake of simplicity, let's imagine two armies fighting with a 100 battle size limit, and both armies are using exclusively infantry. One of them advances because it has the advantage in terms of troop quality, and the first 50v50 skirmish ensues. The advancing army comes out on top and loses about 20 men, whereas the defending army loses the better part of 40.
What this should mean is that the advancing army wins this skirmish. What currently happens in this game, though, is that the defending army gets reinforced with 40 men, while the advancing army gets 20 men; both are back at 50, and the melee can continue. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this at all - it allows the battle to play out as fairly as possible for people with limited processing power (or in battles with too many troops to count) without giving one side any advantage it didn't already have.
The problem arises when you start to notice how these reinforcements reach their armies: all armies have a set spawn point, and this is where all of the reinforcements spawn in. Instead of 50v50 turning into 10v30, what we have currently is an advancing, winning army often getting surrounded by the sudden appearance of fresh troops, while their own reinforcements are oftentimes hundreds of meters away. This makes fighting at an advantage ironically quite dangerous, since killing the enemy essentially gives them free replenishment, and if you're fighting anywhere near their spawn point, you will soon find your winning, numerically superior army surrounded by an enemy that was losing hard just a moment ago.
My suggestion is to simply do away with the respawn system. Reinforcements are essentially unfixable since it will always give an unfair advantage to the losing side, even if you make the spawn points dynamic or lock them to the edge of the map; so long as the defenders are close to the edge, we will be in the same situation with troops appearing out of nowhere and suddenly surrounding enemy formations. I think the best way to solve this is to break big battles up into skirmishes, where a proportionate amount of troops fight, and after the battle is over, another skirmish starts, losses and routs all accounted for. Warband had a system that was similar to this, but it also had the dreadful middle-of-the-map respawn system mixed in.
Note: I am not saying that all big battles should be skirmishes. If your PC can handle the biggest battle sizes, then the battles should be as big as possible. I'm merely arguging against the respawn system as a whole, since I feel that it really puts a dent into the quality of battles. Spawning (troops popping up on the battlefield at any point) as a whole is just bad in my opinion, but reinforcement at the edge of the map could still be implemented as a mechanic for armies that appear late to a battle etc.