I never tried it with a controller it seems like that would make it harder to manage your army. As for the bigger fights I usually try to get my army positioned first with my archers on a hill or across a river or something from them and then put my infantry in front of the archers to block them. Then I lead my Calvary to go provoke the enemy to come at them. Usually that works pretty well or at least lets me put a big dent in their calvary which gives you a decent advantage when they don't have one because you can get behind them and wreck their archers.

This strategy works most of the time with minimal casualties