Unit sizes effect battle outcomes?

[CaptainMoneyhat]

I was playing around with unit sizes and 'custom battle' and I noticed that the default (or what I think was default 'normal') set the size of cavalry to 30 and spears 75 / infantry 60, etc... but then switching to the next one up (large/huge?), you get 60 cavs, to 125 ish men, etc.

It seems to me that this changes the dynamics of battle, on smaller unit scales units will route more often if they get stuck, I have a habit of cavalry charging from behind/size and sometimes when the units get down to 4/5 the unit will start to route. It seems to me with larger army sizes you are better able to keep your army from fleeing/routing.

I'd like to know what other people have experienced/seen from their experience any other differences between small/normal/large/huge.

[HopliteLysander]

I'm only referring to RTW as I have not messed around with the unit size yet in MII but I think the same principle works as far as unit size, I definitely noticed battles seemed to last longer as units took longer to rout.

I also found missile troops to cause far more casualties, if you figure any given missile unit now is shooting twice as many projectiles as before, and has twice as many targets as before a lot more arrows/javelins are going to hit something since the battle field is twice as crowded.

[Korlon]

Frankly, I only play on huge as it would be the closest to the real amount of men on a battlefield. Unit size does affect artillery strength though. You still get the same amount of pieces on small as you would on huge, but on huge you're likely to have more men packed together so you'd be able to hit them much more easily as well. On sieges, though, this just doesn't matter.