There seems to be two extremes available now. Vanilla lets us take a tiny amount of men to get crushed, or mods that allow us to take a silly amount of troops in to battle.
How about you change the system to allow us to take whom and how many we want, but the more we take, the less of the hoarded loot we're likely to get. It becomes a little gambling game if you allow players to bravely choose to take very little in hopes they'll grab some serious loot. The overly cautious players bring large numbers, but lose most of the loot to "escaping" enemies, however they'll definitely sort the local bandit problem.
How about you change the system to allow us to take whom and how many we want, but the more we take, the less of the hoarded loot we're likely to get. It becomes a little gambling game if you allow players to bravely choose to take very little in hopes they'll grab some serious loot. The overly cautious players bring large numbers, but lose most of the loot to "escaping" enemies, however they'll definitely sort the local bandit problem.
