"Can you win with bigger armies hitting you"

[The Legendary Holosmith]

So I got contacted a huge amount recently cause I was at an event and I beat a 65k strong force with just 1 of 6500 I was actually playing on someone else's account who was logged in at the event and they said to do my best to explain it.

I'm doing rag to riches achievement atm and took this screenshot so I started as Ulster where I come from and made a ruler designed character with point of 394 so it was still eligible for achievements and meet Robert Duke Of Ulster and an absolute terror of the British isles lol

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3363902316

I've been attacked by vikings i've won fights such as

Me (800) troops vs Jarl something (2400) tropps (outcome = won)
Me (2400) troops vs principality of gwenyyd (4800) troops (outcome = win)

I've even won wars and fights where they've called allies and I've been outnumbered hugely. As you can see in the screenshot dude just has absolutely no chance unfortunately for the AI in my current run I now have a famous sword pretty early that gives +8 prowess and I'm now breeding herculean into my family lol

Also I wish I had of recorded this run guys you wouldn't believe what i have survived I've lost over 14 wives and 8 children to disease i was left in 1095 with just 1 daughter at 16 before i died lol the unluckiest run in the world but so satisfying that so far I've survived and famously survived lol I even joined a crusade and became rich man I love CK3 idk why I took a break on my main from playing but anyway I was asked to provide proof you can dominate larger armies,

You can save my profile link i'll take more public photos of even more unbelievable ones when it happens but as for posting in here this will be my only one cause I don't wanna bother people with it just check my public screenshots sometimes I only play this game unmodded or with DLC no edits in ironman I can't cheat in games I was even iffy using the char designer but i actually love it in CK3 compared to 2 it's a lot cleaner

have a wonderful day

[Myth Alric]

Men at arms are way better than levies in most cases. Having a ton of them, will greatly throw off the power balance. That is one reason why the the wandering adventurers can be really strong, since they have all men at arm armies. Once you like max out your camp, you can beat up almost anyone. Though, having a really strong leader also helps too.

[identity]

You will need to look at their armies, see what it mainly consists of, and then use units to counter them. Like Myth said, levies are generally useless outside of the early game and make armies look stronger than they actually are. Men at arms are the units to worry about, and they all have counters. Then you need to look at terrain advantage, good knights and generals, appropriate traits and such. Further men at arms bonuses can be achieved in other ways, like lifestyle perks and traditions. With enough work and stacked bonuses, you can make some very strong armies that can punch well above their weight.

[suilles]

you only have one men at arms? the other army got more knights and more men at arms by the look of it.
you can win a battle that is 100 000 strong vs 10 000 strong with no problem. if the 100k army is like 95% levies then its really bad and they just die really fast.

its like having a huge army of level 1 fight fight vs a small army of level 100.
its not just about the number but also what men at arms counters what men at arms and also the knights matter alot aswell along with how good your leader is.

[Danny]

Levies are next to worthless.
A properly build up MaA army will stackwipe ANY amount of levies.

This was only HALF of my MaA and nowhere near fully maximised in combat potencial
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3224799375

[dwarfpcfan]

It's even worst now with Roads to Power, the devs in their wisdom (lack of) now made terrain and other advantages even more powerful which slants even more in favor of having powerful men at arms and commanders over large armies. Positioning yourself correctly with the right men at arms now allows you to easily destroy armies 15X times your size because the advantages are so ludicrously slanted to kill large numbers of troops.

Incidentally this makes cultures with powerful men at arms such as vikings even more powerful then they were before. Stacking at tribal level huscarls and varangian veterans with war camps and rank 2 war camps allows you to conquer huge realms with much smaller force, causing scenarios that are just clown shoes ridiculous when you think about it for half a second. Like vikings getting off a single boat and conquering the byzantine empire in the 900s