Earlier yesterday I was laying siege to Burdigala as the Arverni (normal difficulty. The enemy sallied with a full 20 stack and nearly that in reinforcements to my 20 stack. It's turn 15 and by now I've learned that the AI isn't too bright at all and I've got my best chieftain in command, so I figure I can handle it. This is my first battle where I'm a little worried about the outcome: the balance bar puts my success at like 15%.

I deploy my forces in a standard missile line, infantry line, cavalry on the wings type formation and begin the battle. The enemy army is scattered about haphazardly and is more than 50% missile troops. There is no line for me to clash with. It looked more like 40 swarms of bees coming at my men in the distance. Why did I even bother organizing my men at all? Oh well. I hit pause and start sending every single one of my units against theirs. It felt like I was fighting 20 tiny battles, there was so much space between units.

Using my superiority in cavalry and frantic clicking abilities, I managed to rout their forces. After running my general ragged encouraging the men and hitting enemy infantry blobs from behind, I use him and my cavalry to chase down the fleeing enemy. Then a unit of Celtic Youths (javelin troops) suddenly rallies and kills my general. I am then promptly informed that I have lost the battle.

I believe this to be an unintended negative consequence of the whole you-need-a-general-to-have-an-army thing. Why couldn't my general have died, my troops continue to chase down the enemy, then after winning the battle, I pick a new general from the randomly generated pool of generals? It makes no sense for an army to give up after it has basically won the battle just because its leader died. Brian Boru died at Clontarf, yet was victorious. It's difficult to fathom why this scenario wasn't addressed as it isn't uncommon to lose a general in combat.