I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this before, actually. I don't think anyone has, anyway. Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to allow the player to control their movement speed using the mouse wheel? See Hidden and Dangerous 2, heh, all of my suggestions seem to come from that game. 
It's a lot more intuitive than the current system, and although currently the mouse wheel is set by default to change the equipped shield/weapon, I always found that to be a bit of a precarious arrangement anyway, and changed the shield toggle to Q and the weapon toggle to E.
It'd just mean that you'd be able to control the speed of your horse a lot more easily, essentially you'd be able to move the mouse wheel forward and for each click of the wheel you'd move up a speed, from a walk to a canter to a gallop, and of course the opposite if you moved the mouse wheel back.
Obviously it'd work quite well for mounted combat, but also for foot combat, although I suppose it would be a bit pointless on foot as there's only really two momement animations for footsoldiers at the moment, walk and run. It does make it a lot easier to include a sprint option, however - you don't need an extra button or anything like that, just have three different speeds on the mouse wheel, run, walk and sprint, and allow the player to sprint for a certain period of time based upon their athletics skill if they move the mouse wheel forward while they're already running, followed by a cool-down period (again, based upon their athletics skill), similar to the limit on how often you can jump consecutively, that is already in the game (I wonder if that's just a set limit, or if it depends on the character at all?).
I suppose it would require a whole load of AI tweaking to allow it to make sense - at the moment, everyone just runs at top speed all the time. The AI does seem to have changed a lot in the latest version to facilitate this sort of system, though - just try the sparring practise against four of your troops - they don't all just run toward you like suicidal guided-man-missiles anymore. It would make even more sense, though, if your troops only ran by default if they were given a charge order or if they were following you and you started running. If troops then slowed to a walk when they actually entered combat range, it would make the combat look a lot less strange, and also allow the current pretty flat-footed one-handed idle stance to be used for running only, instead of all the time - it's almost as jarring as Oblivion's archery animations. Ever seen anyone, even in the most ridiculous Hollywood medieval-a-thon, stand straight-on toward their enemy whilst fighting with a sword?
It'd just make the combat a whole lot more atmospheric - people don't just run everywhere, it looks weird. If troops only ran by default when they were actually given a charge order, it'd make pressing the "Everyone - Charge" command a lot more dramatic.
It's a lot more intuitive than the current system, and although currently the mouse wheel is set by default to change the equipped shield/weapon, I always found that to be a bit of a precarious arrangement anyway, and changed the shield toggle to Q and the weapon toggle to E.
It'd just mean that you'd be able to control the speed of your horse a lot more easily, essentially you'd be able to move the mouse wheel forward and for each click of the wheel you'd move up a speed, from a walk to a canter to a gallop, and of course the opposite if you moved the mouse wheel back.
Obviously it'd work quite well for mounted combat, but also for foot combat, although I suppose it would be a bit pointless on foot as there's only really two momement animations for footsoldiers at the moment, walk and run. It does make it a lot easier to include a sprint option, however - you don't need an extra button or anything like that, just have three different speeds on the mouse wheel, run, walk and sprint, and allow the player to sprint for a certain period of time based upon their athletics skill if they move the mouse wheel forward while they're already running, followed by a cool-down period (again, based upon their athletics skill), similar to the limit on how often you can jump consecutively, that is already in the game (I wonder if that's just a set limit, or if it depends on the character at all?).
I suppose it would require a whole load of AI tweaking to allow it to make sense - at the moment, everyone just runs at top speed all the time. The AI does seem to have changed a lot in the latest version to facilitate this sort of system, though - just try the sparring practise against four of your troops - they don't all just run toward you like suicidal guided-man-missiles anymore. It would make even more sense, though, if your troops only ran by default if they were given a charge order or if they were following you and you started running. If troops then slowed to a walk when they actually entered combat range, it would make the combat look a lot less strange, and also allow the current pretty flat-footed one-handed idle stance to be used for running only, instead of all the time - it's almost as jarring as Oblivion's archery animations. Ever seen anyone, even in the most ridiculous Hollywood medieval-a-thon, stand straight-on toward their enemy whilst fighting with a sword?
It'd just make the combat a whole lot more atmospheric - people don't just run everywhere, it looks weird. If troops only ran by default when they were actually given a charge order, it'd make pressing the "Everyone - Charge" command a lot more dramatic.
