I was wondering if tactical battles would allow more than two players to be involved in a battle or not. I mean, what's the point of military alliances if you can't give a hand in combats ? For instance, how would it work if I had an army stationed in an ally city ? It would then be intersting to have complementary armies, like the tarth horsemen and pariden spearmen fighting together against yithril archers and magnar swordsmen ?

I like the way the Age of Wonders series handled that. Units in the tiles adjacents to the one under attack were involved. Battles were huge and lasted quite a bit, but as you could "all" be participating, it wasn't boring