Crappy mechanics of battle support.

[Raga]

Maybe it is only me but I noticed that if you have an army of high tier units it is better to battle alone than with a support of a Vassals.

Example:
I had an  army of 90 Huscarls and 40 Veteran Archers and started a fight with a Swadian lord who had about 70 Knights+Men at Arms (plus the rest of a herd).
I had Firentis nerby with an army of 80 crappy units who wanted to support me.
We barely won with big looses on our side (Alt+F4)
Knowing the location of the Swadian Lord, I intercepted him without Firentis.... I lost 2 Huscarls + 8 Wounded.

Why does 2 times bigger army is worse?

 

[candyman]

Firentis' last name is Nerby?
I never knew....

Before I say anything else though, are you martial?
ie, do you have control of Firentis' troops?

 

[A Highly Visible Ninja]

Heh, lord Firentis and his lousy army spread out your own ranks. Since the game spawns only so many of your troops alongside your ally's troops.  I am guessing you only had a handful of Huscarls charging in.  Firentis' army got utterly cut down around your own huscarls, leaving them spread out and in reduced number.  I'm also assuming a lot of those losses were his, and not yours.

Just a guess, but next time you end up getting unwanted help from a lord, try to see if you can order your troops to stand ground, then follow in after your stupid ally's suicidal charge. They just might soften up the enemy, and the next wave of reinforcements might include more of your elite troops vs his crappy ones. I put my troops in custom command slots so I can order them around while still allowing the AI to control their army, because as a Marshal or a King, you seem to command every troop on the field, regardless if they are your troops or not.

 

[Raga]

Yes, I am both King and Marshall, so I could control Firentis' Troops.

The problem is that the Crappy Firentis' warriors (even if holding the line) were killed during initial charge of Swadian Knights.
My outnumbered Huscarls were surrounded and petty beaten until reinforcements.

No, Firentis' last name is not Nerby
His army was nerby - my fault

 

[candyman]

I'd give you a long reply, but I can't be bothered and have a test worth 65% of my final mark in 7 hours
short story is
it all comes down to battle size
if you have battle size 150 (75 perside assuming battle advantage = 0), and you have 100 elite troops, then reinforcements aren't going to do anything except dilute the overall quality of your troops

Battle size 500, on the other hand, you really do start to see the difference weight in numbers grants you
No matter how elite Sharp shooters are, they can't do much outnumbered 5-1 =P

 

[Commodore_Axephante]

Well, doesn't the sheer number of troops behind you add to your battle advantage?

If I have 80 troops against 200, only a few of my men spawn at once. Now 600 peasants join me - I might not have the strongest army on the field in any one battle but at least less of the enemy will appear, no?

Not playing the commander type, I find that I do 70% of the killing anyway... seems like lessening the enemy's showing and giving myself more body shields is a good idea, no matter how little damage those shields actually deal to the enemy.

 

[candyman]

Well yes, BA is effected by primarily numbers, but when you're talking smaller scale battles (90 vs 120 or even 90 vs 180) the BA isn't THAT noticeable, especially on the larger battle sizes, and considering ALL your troops will most likely be top tier

I'd rather be bringing 40 Huscarls/20 Sharpies to the field over 25 Huscarls/6 Sharpies/60 Peasants any day, since, iirc, morale is calculated at least partially on whats happening to surrounding units (their own courage score, how many allies have died, etc), so if enough peasants, with their crappy courage score and armor decide to break and run, they might take my huscarls with them, who might otherwise have fought and won

Obviously, this isn't an issue in a castle siege, in which case I stuff my castles with a 1:1:20 ratio of T6 inf(huscarls)/T5 Archers(sharpies)/T2Archers(Rhodock Xbows)

But when we start talking about great hordes (2-3k armies) then yes, you'll need support of your vassals to take them on in open combat =P
In these cases, I recommend rebinding your top tier units to 4, 5, 6 so they can be commanded separately from your vassals forces, which default to 1, 2, and 3 for inf archers and cav