Can't fight 3 vs 3 battle because all units automatically rout

Hi guys, the thing is as follows: I'm playing as Koinon Hellenon and I sent a full army to help Epeiros (my allies) to fight back some rebel stacks that were devastating their land. There are two Epeirote armies nearby that enter the battle as reinforcements. So it would be my army plus the 2 epeirote armies vs 3 rebel stacks. I enter the battle just fine but as soon as I press start all the units start routing, so everything ends in a few seconds with cero casualties for either side. I wonder what could be the reason for this and if there is a solution. Maybe there are two many units at the same time and the game can't handle that? Has anybody had the same issue? I'm playing 2.2f by the way. I also tried to play the battle both with the ai controlled armies and doing it myself with the same result.

Here are some screenshots:

For anyone interested on this issue I must say I think I found out what the problem was...It was my general, Akrostatos. I discovered to my surprise that this problem occurred on the battles where this guy was present commanding the army. I strongly think this issue is caused by extreme penalties on troop morale due to the broken anti-trait system. This guy has the "sacrilegious" and "one of the gods" traits and at the same time has the "pious" and "venerates the gods" traits (it doesnt make any sense). I think the negative traits somehow get "piled up" with no limit cause I tried to compensate the penalties by giving him ancillaries with troop morale boosts to no avail, it also didnt help that this dude already had good troop morale traits. I've had problems with the anti trait system in previous campaigns but they were related to the "brutal", "contemptuous brute", etc traits which caused problems on FMs loyalty and public order, but this is the first time this problem caused one of my characters (none other than my FH ) to be totally unplayable. I stopped playing cause it was really frustrating, so guess I'll better wait for the next update.

QUESTION: Is the EBII team aware of this anti trait issue? if so, is this problem going to be addressed in the following patches or updates?
Thanks in advance.

That is very amusing. I'll let the team know.

A log from that particular battle would be much more informative than anything else IMO. I simply fail to see how a total of -2 morale(-3 from sacrilegious; 1 from pious) could cause that much routing. I think it could be something else entirely.

I've had many bad anti-traits stacked onto many different characters in the past, and never experienced anything like this.

To be 100% clear, with any technical issue you ever experience you should ALWAYS post an error log. That tells us infinitely more about what's happening in-game than a written report.

Ok I played a different battle with the same character having the same results. I attached some pictures, the log, and (just in case) my campaign save file if you want to test it to see what may be wrong. I hope that helps.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Log:Quicksave.7z

Savefile:eb.system.log.txt.7z

That log is huge--did you fight that battle and immediately quit, or did you play a few turns of the game beforehand??

It will be much easier to narrow things down with a smaller log file, if you fight 1 battle with that same character and immediately quit the game afterwards. Try to make playtime as short as possible(try to avoid endturning if possible; things will be easiest to read without all those extra events), and that way we can more easily narrow down what's going on in your game.

I still can't see how this would be trait related, because -2 morale just shouldn't cause that to happen.

You also said this only happens with your FH?

We probably can't make use of your savefile btw.

Yes, the only thing I did before entering the battle was just joining the general with the army and sending it to attack the enemy. I tried to make it even faster by saving when the battle menu popped up, exiting the game and then opening it again and entering the battle instantly. I attached the new log but I'm afraid it has not reduced its size considerably. If you look at the time span you'll notice that only 3 minutes passed since I opened the game, entered the battle, and quitted the game inmediately after returning to the campaign map, so I dont know what else I can do to make it shorter . About your second question: as far as I know my FH is the only one with this problem, I tested some other guys to see if this affected them as well, but I was able to play the battles with them just fine. I will keep checking to verify if there is another FM subject to this issue.

New log: eb.system.log.txt.7z

Hi there, I have some updates. First, I tested in battle all the FMs on my campaign I can confirm that this routing issue does ONLY happen to Akrotatos (my FH). Secondly, I can also state that this very strange problem has to do with morale. My proof is based on the fact that when I commanded the army with a different general and I ordered some units to retreat the message on the unit state box said "marching, steady" and the units retreated from the field of battle normally. On the other hand, when using Akrotatos on the same army the message on the units said "routing, broken", and all units automatically routed (as expected).

Normal army:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Akrotatos' army

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For additional information I also attached screenshots of Akrotatos' list of traits and ancillaries:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We reviewed your error logs and nothing notable came up in the log. With a confidence attribute that high, there's no reason why your troops should be insta-routing with him. I don't think the situation is trait related like you first believed(very little evidence to suggest so).

In short, we don't know why this is happening. All I could possibly guess at is some sort of save game corruption or other. Judging from his traits and command stars, it's likely you've had successful battles with him in the past--so I have no idea why this would happen, but I am almost >95% sure it is not trait related.

tl;dr we don't have any idea why this phenomenon is occurring.

Ok Gengis, indeed is very odd, almost a mistery on its own. Thank you and the EB team for taking the time to check this issue. I have a question though, I know you are almost convinced that this problem is not related to traits but as I said before, I have had kind of annoying experiences with the current anti-trait system in previous campaigns so my question is: are you guys planning on keeping the current anti-trait system (v. 2.2f) for the next update/release? Is the next update/release coming reasonably soon (days, weeks)?

Again, thanks for your time and hard work.

Can you fight a normal 1v1 battle with him? For example, just his general unit.

Hi z3n, first of all thanks for your amazing job on the AI, it is undoubtedly the best I've played in a TW mod . Regarding the issue at hand..well, I tried to do a battle 1 vs 1 with a unit more or less similar in strength. I'm afraid the results were the same. Here I leave you some screenshots:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Strange, have you have tried removing some of his worse traits via the console command?

Ermm nope, I didnt know you could do that. Maybe that would solve the problem. Can you explain me with detail how to do this trait removing thing? I'm specially interested in the "sacrilegious" trait. Thanks in advance.

1) Select the character you want to change by left clicking on them, preferably outside of a town in their own army
2) Open console window by pressing the tilde key ~
3) Type into it:
remove_trait this Sacrilegious

If it does not work you can open up the export_vnvs within ebii/data/text then press control + f to search for the right trait ID of Sacrilegious. After that open up the export_descr_character_traits and press control+f again to find the trait ID.

The reason you have to select the character you want is that the word 'this' identifies the character to the game, without you having to type out a complicated name.

Hi z3n thanks for the explanation. The problem I found is that I could only remove traits consisting of one word like "Sacrilegious" but I couldnt remove traits of more than one word like "One of the Gods", "Hates The Gods", etc. I looked for their ID in the files you mentioned and tried to write them exactly as I saw them (using the low dash to separate the words and without it) and I got the error message "could not find this trait in the database".

Anyways, after removing the sacrilegious trait the results were no good: the routing problem persisted and the guy inmediately gained the "hates the gods" trait the next turn. However, I would like to be able to remove the other bad traits to be completely sure this method doesnt work.

Don't type it with underscores, you have to type it as it appears next to the word Trait in the export_descr_traits file, for example.

So the trait here to remove is
remove_trait this Sacrilegious

Because the name next to trait is Sacrilegious

Code: [View]

;------------------------------------------
Trait Sacrilegious
	Characters family
	NoGoingBackLevel 4
	;AntiTraits Pious, ReligiousMania, PublicFaith, Superstitious


	Level Irreverent
		Description Irreverent_desc
		EffectsDescription Irreverent_effects_desc
		Threshold  2


		Effect Unrest  1
		Effect TroopMorale -1


	Level Contemptuous_of_the_Gods
		Description Contemptuous_of_the_Gods_desc
		EffectsDescription Contemptuous_of_the_Gods_effects_desc
		Threshold  8


		Effect Unrest  2
		Effect TroopMorale -2


	Level Sacrilegious
		Description Sacrilegious_desc
		EffectsDescription Sacrilegious_effects_desc
		Threshold  16


		Effect Unrest  3
		Effect TroopMorale -3

In any case, try for "Hates The Gods", that might be the one you're looking for.

remove_trait this IntolerantOfOtherGods

Did it work for you?

Originally Posted by z3n

Did it work for you?

Hi z3n I'm kind of ashamed to be answering your question 1 and a half year later, but while tinkering with the forum's settings and information I stumbled upon this thread and I felt the urge to finally give you an answer. Here it goes: I recall that I was able to remove all the bad traits related to troop morale (thanks to your advise) but unfortunately, like many things in life, it didn't work. I got quite frustrated cause I was really invested in that campaign and I hated the idea that this bug might happen to another important character in the future, so I quit the campaign. No happy ending for poor me. Anyways, thank you for your help and the amazing work you and the EB II team are doing. I cannot wait for 2.35!

PS: Any hint as to when the next patch would be released?