A bizarre battle

[QuintusSertorius]

It's like the AI had a brain fart or something, they deployed into marching column and just stayed there for most of the battle. In the caption, my slingers were merrily whittling down the general's bodyguard - he was killed later in the battle.



That's also my last Camillian army right there, recently replaced the old ones with Polybian armies. The Camillian ones have been chewed up pretty badly in the war with Epeiros, I've basically used up one whole army in replacements. If any survive before their Polybian replacement arrives, they'll be retired to "garrison" Sicily.

[johnhughthom]

Yeah you get those battles every once in a while, just convince yourself it was your tactical genius that confused the AI so much it was stuck in a daze.
Personally in your Camillan-Polybian situation I would "retire" the old soldiers into one of your smaller cities to give a population, and therefore taxation, boost. That is one of the advantages of having legion recruited for 16 years, recruit them in your big cities then disband them in smaller ones to simulate giving them land. I assume the soldiers probably wanted land in Italy but sometimes gameplay comes before historical accuracy.

[QuintusSertorius]

Possibly due to the speed I've expanded (ie slowly) I don't really want additional population in any settlement so fast. Or at least I'll need to go and have a look at which could take extra people without going messy. It's a good thought, though. Dalmanion might be a good choice, or some of the big cities in Italy just on the cusp of 24k.

I was planning to just march them to a fort I've got in the middle of Sicily, once Singidunum is settled (that's where they are right now, having just taken it). They're a backwater army for a backwater province, and they could besiege and plunder Syrakousai for me in a bit as well.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Were the guys that got stuck a reinforcement army and not the ones that initiated the battle?

[QuintusSertorius]

Yes, they're the reinforcements, and the single unit you can see being fought were the original army.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Reinforcements not doing anything seems to be a common bug. They line up like they would at the very start of the battle (regardless of where you have since moved) and then just sit there as though they are waiting for some sort of trigger to start doing something.

[QuintusSertorius]

They did wait for a while, then once I'd finally moved into position to engage them, they suddenly started moving. They didn't stay like that, but I did wipe out most of the general's bodyguard, and their light cavalry with my slingers before they got on with it.

[Korlon]

Yeah, this happened just about every time there are reinforcements in a battle. Thing is, I never seen this happen except in EB. I especially don't like it if I was on defense with a much smaller army on better terrain and then I have to suddenly move my army to worse terrain to get the battle over with.