Tip: Buy food at villages in order to save money. If you are actively fighting other factions it means that you should be making a decent amount of money by now and maybe have a couple of fiefs, so there is no excuse not to stock up on lots of food.

How much food do you have? Do not make the same mistake the AI does.

Try to aim at least 0.2 faster to give yourself breathing room for rough terrain.

How fast is the enemy party? Make sure that you have a higher base movement speed than they do.

So in order to use this to your advantage you must first identify a large enemy army and confirm a couple of things:

Usually it does not become a problem for them when in singular parties, but in large armies it does. This is the main thing that the AI does that I exploit. For some reason the AI, doesn’t stock up on food even when they have ample money and resources. If you have formed faction armies or joined them, you have probably noticed that in terms of food, there isn’t a whole lot to go around. In the end, you still have to fight battles but at a much lower danger to yourself and your party. In terms of quality, try to at least aim for tier two units with minimal recruits. Generally speaking you do want more infantry than ranged and more ranged than cavalry however. These tactics do not require an specific comp or units.

Useful Tips (How to Defeat Larger Armies) Army Composition Useful tips for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord show how to defeat larger armies.

Mount and blade how to be a mercenary