Routing while winning - wtf?

[clonas]

I am having recently some serious problems with routing/running/fleeing or w/e you call it while fighting the enemy.

I had one of the bigger fights today, against Crown of Castille, it was around 3000 vs 2800. My english tropps were mostly made out of dismounted feudal knights and dismounted english knights (or so ), also with about 8 archers troops (5 in main army, 3 at reinforcements) and only few armoured sergents (sp) and light men at arms, while the castille's forces were mainly made out of Spear militia, sword and buckler men and like 2 units of mailed knights at quite a few javelin men/aquehmuwehs (w/e the name of them is).

The battle started, I waited till the reinforcements get close enough to flank the enemy, and started my main atack (before that I killed 15-20% or their forces with retinue/yamoe archers and trebuchets). I launched the main atack from the front, and the reinforcements atacked the enemy from the left flank. Everything went smoothly, all my units were winning "Victory is certain, only a fool could lose this battle" and so on. And suddenly, I have no idea why but my units started to route massivly (even after I flanked from the right side enemy units with around 200 feudal knights). They were routing and getting back to fight like crazy, they ran 100m back, then I could control them again and so on.

Why the hell something like that happened? I had the upper-hand in the battle, I had no militia units or so, I outnumbered them and had better units. Also like 90% of my units fought few battles and had a experience. And my general was all the time behind my units, flanking with fuedals and fighitng at front if it was needed. Anyway I won the battle eventually, but still that made me quite frustrated, running while winning and slaughtering the enemy? what the hell? >.<

[Nick_Since_1985]

Maybe the enemy general had alot of dread, or maybe some hidden units emerged, was it an uphill battle?

[Quixote]

Were your troops out of food? If the supply effects are on and your troops are starving they get a large morale penalty. Plus once they start to tire this adds more morale penalties which in a battle like you described usually isn't a problem, unless or course they had the -5 morale from hunger...

EDIT: and you can add what Nick said. If the enemy general is dreadful the troops know being captured is a death sentence.

[clonas]

One of the generals was a newbie, and the another one had 4 or so chivalry, no dread. And no hidden units emerged, they atacked with their full forces, so did I, and I flanked them couple of times with cavalary. Plus the army was away from city for like 3 rounds only, it was a quick atack I didn't wait much
>.<

[Blizzard Six]

Was it on VH? I believe the player gets morale penalties.

Were your units tired? I believe this, combined with VH, causes them to route faster. Or at least my army does

[TheColdTruth]

I would double check to see if you were out of supplies....hate that stuff.

[Quixote]

I would double check to see if you were out of supplies....hate that stuff.

I hear ya, I turned the supplies off as it changes the game too much IMO. For instance you can't set an ambush for any length of time because your units starve in the woods!! Plus you cannot attack a faction that isn't right nrext door, but of course the AI can march on an empty stomach without any penalty. I always figured my army was pillaging the countryside which is why the terrain turns to rubble under an army that camps in one place too long on foreign soil.

[Byg]

One of the generals was a newbie, and the another one had 4 or so chivalry, no dread. And no hidden units emerged, they atacked with their full forces, so did I, and I flanked them couple of times with cavalary. Plus the army was away from city for like 3 rounds only, it was a quick atack I didn't wait much
>.<

Does not sound like a supply or field morale issue if you were only away for 3 turns. Why not simply check your generals traits to see?

I hear ya, I turned the supplies off as it changes the game too much IMO. For instance you can't set an ambush for any length of time because your units starve in the woods!! Plus you cannot attack a faction that isn't right nrext door, but of course the AI can march on an empty stomach without any penalty. I always figured my army was pillaging the countryside which is why the terrain turns to rubble under an army that camps in one place too long on foreign soil.

How many years do you think an army should be able to sit and wait in the woods without being noticed or needing to go and eat?

You can attack a faction on the other side of the world whilst using supplies, but you have to manage them and quickly take a city/castle to use as a base as would be the case in reality. I know of no army that has ever just existed in the field indefinitely. Even Hannibal had to march to different regions to spread his foraging and had to fight frequently to sustain morale (as you may have to with the supply/field morale system).

The AI can indeed go without worrying about supplies, which might almost make up for the human player having the advantage of retraining troops, which the ai does not have along with many other things.

Certainly supplies/morale effects require some learning, but they do not disallow anything, just require more advance planning. Also I would not recommend this feature to anyone that does not regularly use vh/vh and find it too easy, though I know many that do.

[Mhydrian]

Well Byg the problem with supply lines is that they don't work when the turns represent so much time. So sure you can say he was ambushing for 3 years, but in actuality that should be able to happen in a much smaller time frame.

Just like it does not take so long to travel as it does in this game in a lot of cases.

[Byg]

Well Byg the problem with supply lines is that they don't work when the turns represent so much time. So sure you can say he was ambushing for 3 years, but in actuality that should be able to happen in a much smaller time frame.

Just like it does not take so long to travel as it does in this game in a lot of cases.

Supplies, like all M2TW time based factors, is designed around gameplay elements that we are stuck with. Most of these time based factors run at different rates of time. To say supply lines don't work is saying the whole game does not work. Supplies are generally tied to movement time rates, which seems most appropriate.
Supplies prevent ambushing generals from spending their entire lives in wait with an army in the woods. Would it be more or less realistic if this was not the case?

[clonas]

I am playing on H/VH. Now I wish I could change it to H/H, cause those penalties SUCK ASS HARD TIME >.<

And my units were not exhausted, they had half hearth. So did the enemy units anyway. gotta hate that, any mods for that?

[stefano89]

that's why I always play on hard/medium...

[clonas]

I got 200th round, it's a bit too late to change it plx plx >.<

[Hellbent]

I got 200th round, it's a bit too late to change it plx plx >.<

Maybe this would help?
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=68328

[stefano89]

I don't know if there are tools or cheats which enables you to change difficulty mid-game, at least for Rome Total War there was one way I think...

[lesterthenerd]

VH/VH is still too easy for some like me.

[Mhydrian]

VH/VH is still too easy for some like me.

Well is does not matter how easy it is, but I get very put off when any semblance of realism is demolished by AI cheats.

I feel less like I am playing a real battle and more like I am playing cheating AI. Sure I can overcome it, but it really ruins the immersion. Just like those freaking AI controlled RAMs. They never die, I almost just open the gates now for the enemy, it really don't matter.

Might as well remove the gates.

So yeah VH/VH is harder but still easy enough to win. But it's just like insane money cheats..er scripts for the AI. All it does is give little 2 or 3 state countries enough cash to lolly gag 4 or 5 stacks of elite forces. Sure I can beat them, but once I realize that every AI controlled faction even the smallest can field more troops than my empire, it loses the immersion.

And slugging it out for with wave after wave of crazy expensive troops makes me get very very tired fast. Without the money cheats, when an opposing faction brings all is might upon me, and I crush them, he is put in a very very bad spot. Just like anyone who loses a powerful army, it's a devastating loss. But with the cheats it's like fighting the borg from star trek or the clones from the Star Wars empire, it is so less immersive for me.

So that is my 2 cents. I like better AI, but I hate AI cheats.

[clonas]

@mhydrian

I know your pain, I am fighting Crown of Castille, they always had only 3 cities at my game, I took their 1 city and the only Citadel they had, toulusse. Still they have 4 FULL stacks of soldiers, and are making new one again and again like nothing would happen... That's quite annoying, especially that I am killing their armies one after another but after 2-3 rounds they have full stack army again >.<

@hell
I can't run thys shyt somehow >.< it just doesn't work, I tried 10 times already >.<

[Notimeforaname]

There could be lots of reasons for what happened. Here are three possiblities.

Javelins
-getting hit by lots of javelins has a bad effect on morale. you said they had lots of javelins...

Trebuchets
-also if you were using trebuchets, did you launch dead cows and then fight within the effected area? this could sack your morale and combined with the hits from javelins...

General
-where was your general. was he near the hard fighting? also does he possess traits that lower morale like 'faltering courage' or ancillaries like 'shield bearer'

Happy Hunting

[IceBeast]

I agree with both of you. The game uses turns to simulate time, but its a very poor representation. Until a real time campaign is devised (which may solve all the time based problems, while introducing a whole new set), I think Byg's supply solution works well.