Routing the enemy during city/castle assault, how to?

[Derix]

So as the subject says, I'm wondering how one routs the enemy during an assault on a castle or city. Anytime an enemy unit routs they will only retreat to the central square and wait there to be butchered leading to the +1 dread increase for killing 100% of the enemy which I don't want with my chivalry general. Of course I have no problem routing them if I siege and wait for them to come out after me.

Just got this game in the last week and started on it and would like to know if it can even be done and if so how.

[Silverheart]

The trick to routing a garrison (whitout them making a last stand) is to rout all of their units before any of them reach the square. Try to attack so that the enemy units are close to each other - when they start to rout, it will cause a chain reaction. A tip is to use cavalry when you charge through the gate, so that they can hunt down the fleeing, and then you will have the ones on the wall trapped.
You can also smash open a few holes in the wall (with artillery such as cannons or trebuchets), and use an undefended one to send in your cavalry and take the plaza/ alternatively placing them between the enemy and the plaza to prevent routing units from reaching it.
If the enemy already has placed a unit in the plaza earlier, the only option is to kill them and take the plaza.

If you want to avoid such complications, however, you should just starve them out, wait for THEM to sally forth, or leave the battle to your general.

ps. Welcome to the game ^::^

[shikaka]

In my games the AI usually has some kind of useless unit which is not at the plaza. Ballistas and the like, or simply an archer on a wall which I don't attack. If you don't let these into the plaza until you finish with them, you can get away without dread increase.

[Steven the conqueror]

awww common that last stands are really cool, some survivors decided to fight till death against hundreds of soldiers, is really dramatic xD

[Silverheart]

I agree. That last stand is a pretty dramatic and cool feature (although not Entirely realistic), and it would be a shame if it wasn´t there. Particularly since you can use it to your advantage in really one-sided battles. I like to, when the situation is right, make things even more dramatic if I can. One time, the enemy (polish, I think) had only 1 Spearman left standing in the plaza, and I just happened to have a unit of Spear militia with only 1 man left too. So I turned it into a Holmgang between those two. (mine won ^::^)

However, these last stands can cause annoyingly high casualties on your part when the enemy does it, that´s why you might want to learn strategies for circumnavigating such moments. I, for one, prefer to try and keep my casualties at a minimum.
That´s why I´ve been experimenting really much lately with large numbers of cannons and artillery
(so-called "Batteries" - armies relying on the artillerypieces to do most of the job in order to minimize your own casualties).