Help! I'm outnumbered!

[Lord Rom]

I've heard (read) differing accounts on the morale modifier subtracted when you are outnumbered. Is it number of bannermen, number of actual soldiers? What is the definitive answer? I think it's number of soldiers but thats just my opinion.


P.S. One of my favorite tactics involves this so its important http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Skidrowpunk]

I'm not really sure of what you are speaking about but to prevent your soldiers to rout (loose their morale) you should keep the general alive and cover the flanks. If you hold the cursor over a unit you can see what it thinks, i.e Happy that flanks are covered (good) or Dismayed by the generals death (bad). Also formations could be very useful since you get +2 in morale bonus for close formation (Hotkey: C).

If you are outnumbered try to use high valour units too since elite units don't care whether the general dies or not or about routers.

Last, if you are completely outnumbered (i.e 10 vs. 1) you should abandon the province or retreat to a stronghold and send in reinforcements.

[Oaty]

The morale fator of being outnumbered only kicks in when the enemy is nearby so if the A.I. has 1000 troops near the edge of the map and you are fighting a unit of 100 men with your 100 there will be no morale penalty. It works a little different though if they are the last unit on the battlefield and will flee almost as soon as enemy troops get near

[pdoan8]

oaty is right.
It's men count and only the units that are on the field are being counted.

If the pre-battle sreen showing that you are outnumbered by a ratio of 10:1, that only means the enemy army is 10 times bigger than yours. It doesn't have any effect yet. If you have atleast 16 full strength units, then you will have an even fight (16 vs 16) in the first wave.

If you have every little reserve, then use your first 16 wisely. Reserve their strength. Don't let them get exhausted by chasing routing units.

When you have to withdraw some units to bring in the fresh ones, do it slow. I mean, withdraw 1 or 2 units at a time. Before withdrawing units, you can try to move the units that will be withdrwawn closer to the egde and way from other non-elite units (or the main army), so the withdrawn-reinforcement take place in a shorter time. You can avoid being greatly outnumbered for long and other units won't suffer from the friendly routing morale penalty. I don't think that withdrawing (Ctrl + W) would give morale penalty, but try to be safe.

I usually do it as the following:

^^^^^^^^

X

R W
------------------------

^^^ main army body.
X assembly point
W withdrawing point
--- map edge


If you have a small army of less than 16 units, then try to keep you defensive units closer together to keep the difference ratio small. I would still leave a couple of fast units to seek for an opportunity to flank or trike a weak point in the enemy line.

[Puzz3D]

I think the outnumbered penalty is calculated from the number of men in enemy units that are within about 75 meters of your unit. Those enemy men have a weighting factor based on quality, so fewer enemy men of higher quality could give the same penalty as more enemy men of lesser quality. According to the Strategy Guide, speed is taken into consideration when determining unit quality. When quality is equal the penalty is -4 morale for outnumbered 2 to 1. This goes up to -12 morale for outnumbered 10 to 1.