why do I keep losing battles?

[Gakumerasara]

me: numerical superiority, all awesome generals (17+), full org, river crossing defensive bonus, better tech

vs

them: less numbers, mediocre generals, river crossing penalty, worse tech


and I lose every time. I can't even get a single one of their generals to route. What. the. hell.

 

[yezhanquan]

What is your numerical superiority? Also, do note that generals with good Martial can still have terrible traits in the context of battles.

 

[TheUnspeakable]

They have a morale boost from something.

 

[Meamzed]

Couple of things might be causing this...

1:are you fighting muslims? their demesne troops get a morale boost when their dynasty decadency is below 25%; which it always is atm, because they have infinite "straighten up" decisions.... what type of troops do you have, and what do they have? are you playing on very hard/hard difficulty? some troops also have heightened moral boosts; primarily horse archers.

 

[Blindsorcerer]

Couple of things might be causing this...

1:are you fighting muslims? their demesne troops get a morale boost when their dynasty decadency is below 25%; which it always is atm, because they have infinite "straighten up" decisions.... what type of troops do you have, and what do they have? are you playing on very hard/hard difficulty? some troops also have heightened moral boosts; primarily horse archers.

Or...patch to beta and the decadence is actually functioning :rofl:

 

[Alcadizzar19]

Very possible that they simply have better troops. A lower number of heavy infantry, heavy cavalry and horse archers will beat a significantly higher number of light infantry and light cavalry every time.

 

[Meamzed]

Or...patch to beta and the decadence is actually functioning :rofl:

I have patched to beta; and while i've only played about 50 years since patching; all the big nasty muslim blobophages all have sub 10 decadence.... really don't understand it...

 

[Communazi]

I really need to try playing as a Muslim sometime to fully understand why they're so powerful. It seems even a handful of Heavy Cav. will turn the tides of massive numerical superiority. I also suspect Flank-traits may have a bigger effect than overall Marshal stat... as I tend to just use my top 3 Marshal leaders.

 

[unmerged(816543)]

I'm afraid we can't answer you question if you don't provide informations on who you are playing as who you are fighting.

It could be that you are figthing Muslims with morale boost from broken decadence. Could also be that you are fighting defensive pagans. Could be that your high martial generals don't actually have any battle modifiers ? Details please.

 

[FacelessOne]

"elan!"?!

 

[Andaries]

me: numerical superiority, all awesome generals (17+), full org, river crossing defensive bonus, better tech

vs

them: less numbers, mediocre generals, river crossing penalty, worse tech


and I lose every time. I can't even get a single one of their generals to route. What. the. hell.

Their are traits like sloth or arbitrary can give you some crazy bad tactics to were if you have the highest martial in the game and a 4 to 1advantge you still probably would lose the battle if all the generals had the traits.
edit here is a few examples form I shamefully took from the CKII wiki:
Reckless Charge 6 Charge

Skirmish
Not Flanking
Days = 10
Leader = Wroth Wroth.png or Aggressive leader Aggressive leader.png

10

3 - NOT Martial 7, Heavy Cavalry 1%
3 - NOT Martial 7, Heavy Infantry 1%



Heavy Cavalry Offensive +120%
Horse Archers Offensive +120%
Heavy Infantry Offensive +60%
Heavy Infantry Defensive -30%
Heavy Cavalry Defensive -50%
Horse Archers Defensive -50%
Change phase to Melee


Timid Advance 18 Advance

Melee
Heavy Infantry 1%
Leader = Craven Craven.png or Organizer Organizer.png

3

1.5 - NOT Martial 7, Heavy Infantry 50%



Pikemen Offensive +120%
Heavy Cavalry Offensive -210%
Heavy Infantry Offensive -210%
Changes phase to Melee

Stand Fast +120%
Confused Orders 18 Volley

Skirmish
Archers 1%
Leader = Lisp Lisp.png or Stutter Stutter.png

3

1.5 - NOT Martial 7, Archers 50%



Archers Offensive -120%
Horse Archers Offensive -120%

 

[Gakumerasara]

Maybe it was troop composition; I'm not sure. I was playing as Alban and repeatedly getting my ass handed to me by Lothian. Every 10 years, they'd declare another war; I'd raise levies and whatnot, hire some mercenaries, and then get instantly wrecked. It's incredibly aggravating since it's Ironman so I can't do anything over. I'd have ~1k more troops, 6k vs 5k, and still get beat. hill bonus + river bonus, doesn't matter, wrecked. I was using mercenary generals for the most part, so I'm guessing they didn't have any of the terrible stat modifiers, but I could be wrong.

 

[terasjykke]

It's perhaps the mercs. They start with zero morale when hired. If they are attacked before they got their morale up they are going to lose for smaller armies what ever other modiefiers are.

 

[Zsrai]

Maybe it was troop composition; I'm not sure. I was playing as Alban and repeatedly getting my ass handed to me by Lothian. Every 10 years, they'd declare another war; I'd raise levies and whatnot, hire some mercenaries, and then get instantly wrecked. It's incredibly aggravating since it's Ironman so I can't do anything over. I'd have ~1k more troops, 6k vs 5k, and still get beat. hill bonus + river bonus, doesn't matter, wrecked. I was using mercenary generals for the most part, so I'm guessing they didn't have any of the terrible stat modifiers, but I could be wrong.

What year was this in? From which start? In the CM & ToG starts, Scotland is tribal so their armies are garbage. Lothian, the county, is too but if Northumbria controls it the King is Feudal and his Heavy Infantry will wipe the floor with your Light Infantry.

 

[Fenian Menace]

It could have to do with your combat tactics, which are effected by your flank leaders as well as your troop composition. There's a very good write up about them on the wiki which I've found extremely helpful:
http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Combat_tactics

 

[NewbieOne]

Bonuses and maluses are a pain to control. Being a robot, the AI is better than humans at psych warfare. Computers know no anger or impatience, they can only simulate it to some extent with mathematical operations. As a result, the AI can be quite good at doing its job sieging your stuff and trolling you into ill-advised attacks.

 

[Gakumerasara]

Morale was 100%; it wasn't due to the low morale of newly hired mercs. The year is ~1020, and no one in the region is tribal any more. I started in the Viking era. These were all defensive battles as well. It could be due to the mercenary generals, but would the game give mercenary generals terrible traits repeatedly?

 

[Jorlem]

If I may make a suggestion, would you be willing to post a few screenshots of the character screens of the flank leaders? Make sure you have the cursor hovering over the little shield icon under the traits, so we can see their combat modifiers. A screenshot of one of the battles would be helpful as well, as we could then see the enemy troop composition. Also, There currently is a bug where sometimes the flank leaders can be replaced/overridden with poorer ones if they aren't in the same stack, so that could be involved as well.

 

[Gakumerasara]

If I may make a suggestion, would you be willing to post a few screenshots of the character screens of the flank leaders? Make sure you have the cursor hovering over the little shield icon under the traits, so we can see their combat modifiers. A screenshot of one of the battles would be helpful as well, as we could then see the enemy troop composition. Also, There currently is a bug where sometimes the flank leaders can be replaced/overridden with poorer ones if they aren't in the same stack, so that could be involved as well.

It may be a while before the situation presents itself again. I lost the realm for several years, and since getting it back, things have been relatively peaceful, mostly due to the dismemberment of my previously powerful next-door enemies. There's only been one evenly-matched large battle since then with similar shenanigans, but as I wasn't expecting a problem, I didn't get any screenshots and quickly lost the battle. It seems that the awesome generals which were leading troops on the world map (all 15+) were replaced in-battle with terrible stat generals (~4??) for some reason.

 

[herrmarisa]

I could believe it in EU4 as it's extremely random and stupid when it comes to battles, but in CK2 it's pretty plain, even though the random factor is still somewhat present.