I don't look at it from a realism perspective. I look at it from a gameplay perspective: everyone should have access to all the information of their own army, and the general should have access to that information for all armies. Battles would still need to show actual CS and I do believe you should be aware of the CS in your current region as well. However, showing a certain randomness in scout reports (you can still tell the strength of an army by looking at it's numbers, just compare it to your own, that's how everyone, everywhere does it), which is actually already something that's going on to a lesser extent today, does add gameplay. Not only does it give more worth to training and to RC quality but also actual tactical advantages to those who have put time, effort and gold into it (as is with everything in this game).
Just imagine: a realm invades you. They send 1,000 men. You have 1,400 men of medium quality troops who have 16,000 CS. You estimate their CS based on what you know of their RCs, the time they've had (you've given them) and/or previous encounters and then you decide whether to engage them or not.
You'd think that you should be able to beat them at those odds, but maybe those are 1,000 killer troops, diligently trained and recruited from RCs that have taken tens of thousands of gold to perfect. Or maybe it's simply all your enemy could muster.
The point is, you're not just mindlessly comparing CS to see whether you can or can't win a battle, adding or subtracting for fortifications. You're thinking about it and learning from your enemy. For the first time ever, to fight a war you would have to find out AND take into account the quality of your enemy's forces when devising a strategy. Strategy would be more than just getting the biggest number in the right place at the right time.
It would tie military operations in nicely with everything on which you also spend thousands upon thousands of gold just for the purpose of those same operations.
This was the point.
Anaris, you're effectively railing against the blob vs. blob nature of BM combat, and yet you don't recognize that the fact that nearly exact CS numbers being available to both sides just encourages this type of behavior, not to mention enables risk aversion. As a General I assess the CS of the enemy force, take into account the (comparatively minor) considerations of unit type distribution and total number of men, and then I know if I can win or not. This guides almost all my decisions.
Removing CS numbers would not in any way reduce the value of scouts. After all, you still need to know where the enemy is and what he's doing, as much or more than needing to know his combat capabilities down to a T. My suggestion wouldn't change that. What it would do is make battles more unpredictable, but that's a good thing. As it is right now, people just avoid fighting at a CS disadvantage unless they feel they have no choice. It is something that enables risk aversion.
