Bug or am I just incompetent?

[unmerged(91395)]

I was trying to kill a rebel army 5 times and lost every time. Given these stats I find it somewhat strange that the battles lasted only 3 seconds each time (furthermore, i have difficulty level set to 'Very Easy'):

Rebel - They Win
No leader; 3,410 Troops; 613 are killed

Macedonia - I lose
Leader has Martial 8 skill; 19,000 Soldiers; 6 killed. Morale level looks to be about 95% (eventhough the maintenance slider i think was set to low at the time)

any possible explanation? thanks

 

[Crimson]

Attacking over a river is one possible explanation (There is one in Macedonia)

 

[unmerged(91395)]

Attacking over a river is one possible explanation (There is one in Macedonia)

that might make sense, i attacked them over that big water inlet on the west side of greece. while that could definately be the reason, i feel that that is a huge penalty given my superior numbers and leaders.

 

[unmerged(60977)]

Perhaps your army maintenance is set too low? Try putting it higher, at mid point or something.

 

[ollobrains]

naval technology

 

[SirGrotius]

It sounds like your army morale is too low. When you hover over that green/red bar next to your army you'll see a number, if it's like .10/3.00 you're not in good shape.

 

[unmerged(57110)]

i've noticed if 1 unit of your army gets wiped then your whole army retreats and it doesn't depend on morale cause its usually more than half when the army runs away.
other reason when my armies seem to retreat is when the fight is longer than around 1 month and again, morale doesn't seem to be the issue here.

 

[Zaku]

Your units will retreat when the main battle line's morale breaks. Morale of archers and cav archers don't count.

 

[unmerged(57110)]

Your units will retreat when the main battle line's morale breaks. Morale of archers and cav archers don't count.

so elephants are considered as archers as well?

 

[Zaku]

If its fightning from the front row, then it's morale does count. I didn't see elepahnts in action yet, so I don't know if they are frontline, or support units.

 

[flimo]

also a thing i have noticed a few times now is ,if i enter with my army on the same day, as say a barbarian im chasing for cash, the barbarian will get his arse kicked and for some reason that also makes me lose the battle even though i take no casualties whatsoever
i have also seen it a few times when i had small allied forces entering a province on the same day i was

 

[unmerged(56754)]

Happens to me very often. Annoyingly, my armies still have moral when they lose





Why does this happen? Surely its a bug? And also about retreating with moral left, I read somewhere that its about the ratio of archers to infantry, is that true?

 

[Inkompetent]

Could be that their general is much more skilled than yours, so that it takes much longer for their army to rout than it takes for yours once your front line center breaks. (i.e. 0.00 morale)

 

[unmerged(94714)]

i still cant find where to fix morale, i have already adjusted my reaserch levels

 

[Secret Master]

Happens to me very often. Annoyingly, my armies still have moral when they lose

Why does this happen?

Armies will retreat when all the units in the front rank lose morale and break. That means units in the second rank still have morale when the army retreats.

This is to simulate battle loss due to the center breaking, I believe.

EDIT: Someone beat me to it. He's right.

 

[unmerged(60977)]

Armies will retreat when all the units in the front rank lose morale and break. That means units in the second rank still have morale when the army retreats.

This is to simulate battle loss due to the center breaking, I believe.

EDIT: Someone beat me to it. He's right.

Wait, doesn't this means that it's better to just have front line units in the army. After all, it doesn't really matter that your archers and cavalry slaughter the enemy if you still end up losing and getting chased all over the map.

 

[unmerged(85507)]

Wait, doesn't this means that it's better to just have front line units in the army. After all, it doesn't really matter that your archers and cavalry slaughter the enemy if you still end up losing and getting chased all over the map.

I fear I have come to the same conclusion. I used legions of 6 cohorts heavy infantry and 4 cohorts archers because in theory this would be a lethal army.
It really was lethal in battles against very small enemy armies but I often lost due to morale reasons against enemy forces of a similar size (although most of them were just "militia") .

Now I am wondering if I should use only heavy infantry so that I cannot lose before all units were used in "closed combat". This could also make the enemy bring his archers to the front so that they cannot fire on my units .

@ Gigalocus: Seems to have been a Pyrrhic victory for Carthage

 

[unmerged(57561)]

In the long run manpower is vastly more important than battles

 

[ollobrains]

i would lean towards it needing slightly tweaking. But seems not to be a real bug as such

 

[unmerged(76922)]

I fear I have come to the same conclusion. I used legions of 6 cohorts heavy infantry and 4 cohorts archers because in theory this would be a lethal army.
It really was lethal in battles against very small enemy armies but I often lost due to morale reasons against enemy forces of a similar size (although most of them were just "militia") .

Now I am wondering if I should use only heavy infantry so that I cannot lose before all units were used in "closed combat". This could also make the enemy bring his archers to the front so that they cannot fire on my units .

@ Gigalocus: Seems to have been a Pyrrhic victory for Carthage

Not a bad idea, per-say, but keep in mind that your archers also inflict moral damage, meaning the enemy front line takes double damage (and so does yours). It should (in theory) work out to be roughly even, taking the 'force the archers into the front line' part out of the equasion. I've had great luck with a 5 HI/4 calv/7 archer force recently.