So I recently fought a rather harrowing battle defending a town against a marauding band of orcs. I was outclassed, but I figured that with the extra numbers of the militia I might have a fighting chance. Instead of being useful and holding with my shield wall, however, the untrained peasants ran out and were promptly butchered. Of course that meant that I not only had to fight the whole orc band myself, but that the orcs were now brimming with confidence, while my men were wetting their pants.
That made me think that perhaps the friendly AI should be put under the players control in certain situations. This could tie into the reputation system that has been mentioned. If you’re famous enough, certain factions will obey your orders in battle. Just how famous you need to be should depend on who you’re trying to order around. An untrained militiaman would probably listen to what the fully armoured badass has to say about battle, regardless of whether he’s heard of the guy before. The landsknecht (I hope I spelled that correctly) would probably need more than a shiny metal suit before they started following your lead. Caravan guards would probably fall somewhere in between the two.
As it stands now, I would probably have been better off fighting those orcs away from the town, so that the militia wouldn’t have gotten in my way.
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