My first experience with Order of Battle

[Aurex]

Absolutely needed? It's a neat feature, would be anyway, if formations and tactics (beyond sending horsemen behind enemy force that just about any battle game has) mattered. The fast pace of battles, small scale in armies and scenes hardly allows for meaningful or clever strategies. Formations don't even fight in formation half the time so what's the point, really. Units can't be hidden, if they weren't already charged in the first minutes by enemy cav, choosing terrain and position are severely limited, with all remaining viable options being essentially brainless.

Well, for me it really is. It makes the difference in gameplay from "God, please no" to "Ok, it's playable." Most of the reason is it alleviates the small map issues, and the fact the battles are just too fast paced by giving you all the time you want to position your troops. Even more important if you have a bridge you can defend and want to do some cheeky positioning. What you say is true about the scenes not allowing clever strategies, but some of the new maps are really good for that. Example, last night I was making a superfast new Sturgia playthrough. Had the double bridge map and I managed to place all my archers behind a river, on the side of the advancing enemy army while the infantry was holding the bridge. Was pretty epic, their cavalry was even smart enough to go around the bridge and try to catch the archers from the side.