I want control of my army until after the battle is over?
Yeah really. If you using any tactics at all you probably don't have anyone on charge until AFTER the enemy starts to rout, so you can get stuck being the only 1 trying to finish off the enemy.
"Oh why does it matter? You won the battle ?" Well I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you 5 reasons.
1 If you're fighting a battle where an enemy garrison has sallies out, every routed enemy actually goes back into the garrison and you'll have to fight them in a siege battle anyways.... very annoying. If on the other hand you eliminate them all, you get a spiffy 0 on defense, you still have ot finish the camp but you don't have to fight any siege battle to take the town. "But why would the enemy every sally out that's dum? ?" Because I used a small force to trick them into to doing so, because it's faster and easier for me this way.
2 "Help with brigand quest" requires you to actually defeat all of each party to get credit for defeating a group, if even 1 get away you have to chase them on the map and finish them off to get credit for the quest. "But why would you do that quest?, quest are for beginning of the game ?" When you have towns you'll need to clear this quest to rid the -security it gives while active, you'll have it come up fairly often.
3 Skill for Clan members and exp for troops! We spend the time entering the battle we want all the exp form the enemy, not just the 1st 1/5 before they rout (in the case of looters)!
4 Loot, I want every bit of dirty underwear those bums can drop! I got big plans and not time for this ****, give me my cash and my troops leveled up!
5 NPC lords will try to run away and they can be fast too! Sometimes I'm out of arrows and I need my back up to shoot down a fleeing Khuzait lord!