Could be cool to have control of a small group of about 5 or six men in large battles so you could flank and such. Remember this is an IDEA, and is cool in my OPINION. this is an OPINION, nothing more then an OPINION. also i could not find the gameplay tag so story and setting will have to do, and dont nit pick about it because little things like that are nothing to get upset over.
First off: Nice idea and I mentioned that kind of idea towards one of the Jan’s in Warhorse’s team when they started their kickstarter campaign, but I was more interested in a specific robbery quest where timing and coordination is important.
The problem with this is controlling the AI yourself if it’s not planned to be a feature in the beginning. And this is where the joy usually ends if it’s getting frustrating and AI is not acting like you want it to do. I was looking forward to that kind of feature but it didn’t happen to be announced yet so I’m actually not disappointed if it wasn’t part of the game.
ya its a huge possobility that the ai would act like they do in warband haha. they dont listen and half the time they randomly charge. i mean sort of a guard thing. they would do everything you do. and this would be alot better with like 2 MAYBE 3 people.
i like your IDEA
but don’t you think 5 or 6 is a little low for a large scale battle ?
i say like 20 to 30 men might make a difference in battle.
Like guards, or hand picked friends and legendary warriors who accompany you in battle? I like your IDEA but there will only be 2 maybe 1 battle in this game. So… cool IDEA.
Also there is the idea of maybe being able to be in command of a militia from your home town?
So why shouldn’t they enrich the experience? I dont expect anything more then what was promised on the original kickstarter page, just putting out ideas. This game is going to be amazing with or without our ideas so it doesn’t hurt to just put them out there.
I dunno about large units, but a small retinue would be fun.
Did anyone play the minigame on Soul Calibur 3? Had a little map for the field, and two battle “modes”, if you will. A top-down, large-ish map view where characters would battle each other in static “ATK vs. DEF” style, and also a 1 vs. 1 fighting game style (kinda like the 1-on-1 fighting we’ve seen in the vids eh? 
) where you could control your character and fight against an AI like true Soul Calibur (or Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, et. al.) style.
Something like that might be fun, and doable. Perhaps the “playing field” could be a map on a table, with the player directing units in a “Risk”-esque fashion, and also able to focus on any unit, and ride to assist personally.
^^ Super broad and general idea, with many caveats, I’m sure. But it could be fun, I think. 
generally speaking controlling NPCs chars is an interesting concept that had been tried in various games with varying success.
Story-wise it wouldn’t even be bound to large battles (however many you see of them) but could also be used in local quest setting where getting some guys to get something done might sound like a good idea.
As Yuusou mentioned, an AI system, even one that looks good, might still produce frustrating results once you want specific output to specific input at a specific time.
The other technical problem usually is how much control do you like and how much can you generate by using the controls available. Here a similar issue comes up as in the “reason with your foe” thread, I doubt you have the time or the possibility to issue any complex commands during a fight - in particular in the kind of hands on fighting style we see here. What you probably could do and what has been done before is setting up beforehand some stances/formations and general rules of engagement and hope the AI does halfway what you want in between, if this satisfies your definition of unit/group control depends on your expectations.
Also something to consider for an immersive playing experience, how and if you can make your control options fit with the game and not sound like commands to an AI.
I’m still waiting for an game to use voice commands effectively as an alternate/additional input source.
Thinking back, I believe there was a submarine game, sub command or something, which let you do that to some extent - when you shouted “dive” into your mic it actually (most of the time) did so.