Never really liked how combat tactics work in CKii
There are wayyyy too many tactics and the system is rather complicated, yet the player has little control over how tactics work. (Other than choosing the general and composition of retinues, and the second case is pointless in case of levies)
And the tactics system frequently gives unrealistic results, it heavily penalises any kind of mixture of different types of troops (which is unavoidable with levies, and also means levy buildings have less value than on paper)
I recall a test in 2014 (post-Charlemange, pre-nerf of light infantry and archers), in which 867 Bulgaria had 8000+ troops (mainly heavy infantry, light cavalry and some heavy cavalry) and the invading Magyars had 7000+ (mainly light infantry and some archers, as nomads were not implemented back then), fighting a battle with commanders of not too different skill levels on plains.
The result? 9/10 times the numerically and qualitatively superior Bulgarians lose, as the harass tactic triggered by presence of LC is hard countered by the volley tactic triggered by presence of archers.
That was neither good for gameplay nor historically realistic.
Sure, LI and A are nerfed compared to back then, but it was the combat tactics system that caused the above issue, not the imbalance of stats between different types of units.
And picking a particular tactics often means only a particular type of units deals damage, while the rest just sit and watch...This indeed penalises any mixing of units, which does not seem to be realistic, nor is it balanced for gameplay (penalises the construction of military buildings that provide levies)
The affinity system is rather dramatic, a 100% bonus during skirmish and 300% bonus during melee over a system that cannot be non-gimmickly controlled is rather silly, I think the HOI/Imperator system of tactics countering is much more sensible.
Not to mention the affinity cycle in the skirmish phase seems to be backwards, there is no way for horse archers to be a counter for foot archers.
And the skirmish phase is probably too long and deals too much damage, that it is quite normal for an army to rout after a rather long skirmish phase without any melee engagement, since all melee units have rather low skirmish defence.
It is as if an all-artillery stack in EU4 wipes out the entire enemy front rank during the first three days of the fire phase, and then there is no shock phase anymore.
I think it is reasonable to assume that barring extraordinary battlefield conditions, battles during CKII's time period would see the majority of casualties during the melee phase. This can be remedied fairly easily, by buffing the skirmish defence of all units (why would heavy infantries die faster when being shot at by annoying arrows than being struck by swords?)
And modify the tactics system to one similar to HOI/Imperator
Then technology/terrain would finally become useful
Edit: the Magyar tests were done post Charlemange, pre-horse lords. The Magyars were mainly LI and A due to being tribal.
