Combat

[Tsar Alexis]

So pretty much whoever has the most troops wins....?

[himax]

Army composition matters (don't know which type of unit is the best though; flanking and moral damage are affected), the leaders who command the troops have different traits helping them for combat and some upgrades in your demesne can also help your troops gaining moral.

[Tsar Alexis]

Aw ok, funny thing just happened - I was playing as Polotsk or whatever and kept getting steamrolled till fnally I was down to one province, Lithuania declared war occupied it and then forced peace on me somehow...next thing I know I am the king of a blobbed Rus and got an achievement, wtf?

[Corrupted Sanity (Vex)]

Originally posted by TsarAlexis:

Aw ok, funny thing just happened - I was playing as Polotsk or whatever and kept getting steamrolled till fnally I was down to one province, Lithuania declared war occupied it and then forced peace on me somehow...next thing I know I am the king of a blobbed Rus and got an achievement, wtf?

That's... Interesting.
Did you become a different character who happened to rule Rus? (what I'm thinking, is when your ruler got deposed, the game switched you to another ruler of your dynasty. I'm not sure if that can happen though TBH)


On the original topic:
As far as combat goes, army size is a big factor, but a smaller army can win and other factors are very important when sizes are closer. Also, even if you're steamrolling the enemy, taking less losses is a good thing.
As an example, the Greek (and some other, but that's the most common one) cultural retinue is extremely powerful - Horse archers. I've had armies make up of them take out ones twice their size (possibly more, been a while since I played that game). That's the extreme end of things though. On the other hand, a bunch of light infantry without anything to back them up often gets crushed - Really just cannon fodder :P

[Taiwan Number One]

Bingo.

[Senior Locos]

Where you're fighting matters a lot too. There are terrain and water crossing penalties (generally for the attacker) and bonuses (for defenders). If the enemy has to cross a river to attack you in the mountains they'll be faced with massive penalties. The AI doesn't seem to take this into consideration so it's possible to lure them into a trap with a smaller/bait army and still be victorious.

[Green Death]

Hitler: 'So pretty much whoever has the most troops wins? That's bull**** (or suitable Germanic equivalent)'
Stalin: 'QQ'

[terje439]

To see that numbers are not all that matters, check out J2JonJeremy's LP on youtube (his most recent). His Amalfi armies defeated a muslim horde about two times his size due to commander skills, defensive bonus etc.

[Jirki88]

Originally posted by Acid_Penguin:

Hitler: 'So pretty much whoever has the most troops wins? That's bull**** (or suitable Germanic equivalent)'
Stalin: 'QQ'

lel

[Tsar Alexis]

Ok thanks for the tips, so what determines a general's skill? Just his martial number? Or do other "Traits" contribute to combat as well?

[Navarre]

Martial ability is the primary stat. However some traits play as well (brave, cruel, craven, etc), and there are combat modifiers for leaders with experience (flat terrain expert, flanking expert, etc). Check the character sheet of your leaders or your army composition to see them.

[Tsar Alexis]

Aw cool leaders get experience after battles?

[Navarre]

Some battles. If you're leading you'll sometimes see a pop-up after a battle offering you to choose between different bonus.

It's usually worthwile searching for leaders with good modifiers in the "find character" page, and try to invite them to your court or grant them a landed title in your realm so you can use them. High martial ability and modifiers like "center leader" or "siege leader" are especially worthwile to win battles and shorten sieges. Defense experts are good too, just make sure whoever you put in charge of a defense is not craven, or he'll have a malus.

[alangriffith]

When you have a single army selected, its popup window shows you who is in command of each wing (and you can change it, as long as you have crown authority higher than the minmum). Next to their martial score there is a small image of a sword. Hover over that and you get a list of other bonuses from that character and when they apply.

Not only does this summarise stuff you can see on the individeual character page (traits like 'defender', 'organiser' and so on), but it also summarises battle effects from more general traits (for example it shows a penalty to 'morale' if the general is craven, a bonus to defence if they are 'patient' etc.) it also gives the multiplier to benefits (and reduction in penalties?) from the character's martial score.

It's a really useful display. Unfortunately I can;t find any way to open it if the army is involved in a siege (except for giving the army a movement order away from the siege while paused, then opening up that screen and cancelling the movement order).

[Wilfo]

Often the case, but not always.

Case in point.

Admittedly got quite lucky here, but I used a tactic that can often help quite a lot. If you overload one flank relative to the rest (i.e. my army was 30k, but had 7k/7k/16k on each flank), and have the composition so that the two smaller flanks are as defensive as possible (read: lots of heavy infantry, pikemen and archers), you can pull off some pretty good victories. My 16k flank steamrolled theirs, and then proceeded to route the rest of their army as they had the insane flanking bonus.

(also, in this case, about 20k of their army turned up halfway through the battle, so initially I did have a massive number advantage on the right flank, which was enough to win).

[ThreeDog Knight]

Originally posted by Acid_Penguin:

Hitler: 'So pretty much whoever has the most troops wins? That's bull**** (or suitable Germanic equivalent)'
Stalin: 'QQ'

It is most definately not bull****.
Ulysses S. Grant