military question, troops

Does substituting elites for soldiers, crossbow for longbow, etc, save recruits?

I'm basically playing adventures that only require the basic longbow, soldier, but have 500+ elites and xbow just sitting there doing nothing.

Any advantage in substituting them?

Thanks to all in advance.

elites r good for blocking and have more health then soldiers. xbows r needed for ft and some others. in short not really

Typically, it'll only save recruits if the battle lasts more than one round.

In one-round battles, the enemy troops get one attack ... and it doesn't matter much what you use to kill them. Unless you can use more cavalry, which kill in first-strike and prevent attacks, and then use the stronger troops to end the battle in the first round or in first-strike of the 2nd round.

In longer battles, if you use stronger troops and kill more, there's less enemies around to cause you losses.

Typically a max of 1R is saved in a 1 round fight without last-strike troops when using elites. On leaders, multiround fights, and against units with last strike it makes a huge difference. Blocking though is the main use for the elite later on. Nords for instance is such low losses because Crossbows kill the enemy units before they can strike.

Typically

glitches can happen though