Started a new GC yesterday, I've no idea what is going on with battles now

[easytarget]

I've not played the GC in months and months, got to be 7 or 8 patches since then. Figured I'd go take a look again.

I'm immediately confused and don't know what to make of what I've encountered in my first two battles, I ignored it the first time, but twice means this can't be a mistake and something I guess has been changed and honestly I don't know what to make of it.

I've got an army of 14 units, it was probably more like 10 the first time this happened. I engaged the enemy, went into battle, and what to I see? Half my army shows up on the battle line and the rest come in as reinforcements behind me and slightly to the right as you face the enemy.

I find this completely bizarre for a couple reasons. 1. It appears to make the auto-calculation such that there's simply no way to use it now, I have to fight the battle since the AI now thinks I have half the forces I actually do. and 2. This makes setting up for the battle completely F'd up, as half my forces, not of my choosing which ones since I had no say in the matter, now start behind me and I'm forced to march them up to the line or march the front line back, not to mention shuffle who goes where.

Seeing this twice in a row I conclude this isn't an anomaly and apparently some game mechanic has been introduced in the patches since I last played which I have no clear understanding of and need to sort out.

Please tell me what's going on here and how I make it so my entire army shows up all at once when engaging the enemy. The first engagement I initiated and the second one the AI initiated, stance was normal in both.

What's going on here guys?

[easytarget]

Hmm, now I'm even more confused, just fought another battle and everything went like it normally does. Guess I'll just keep playing and see what I see.

[Sp4]

Never seen it. Sounds like a bug. A weird one at that. Are you not fighting near one of your settlements or have a tendency to march your army around in 2 small stacks? Both would cause the sort of thing you are describing.

[easytarget]

Yeah, unless I can replicate it I'm going to assume user error. I only pay attention to these things a bit after the fact and then I'm left scratching my head.

I'll circle back if I run into it again.

This much I have noticed so far, the AI can prove really annoying now with ranged units. They fire and run away. And I don't have cav yet so interestingly enough no matter who I chase them with no one can catch them. So they run up, fire, and run way. Rinse repeat. And seemingly have more ammo than me too boot. Total War Run Away.

I'm just happy I haven't run into agent spam, yet.

[Sp4]

It depends on the type of missile units they use. Slingers have a lot of ammo and annoyingly long range, archers are sort a middle ground thing and javelins have short range and no ammo but are a lot more dangerous than anything else. The good thing is that if you time it right, you can rout jav units with a unit of melee infantry by ordering them to charge and having the pilum volley wipe out half the unit. Only works twice though. Be happy you did not run into ranged cavalry yet. I have not yet, nor do I have an idea about how to beat them yet. I'm usually very heavily infantry focused, I don't like horses and fancy stuff so much. I guess I will try artillery.

[Myth]

Got any mods loaded up? BTW the skirmishers are now actually a threat in the AI's hands. Especially if you ignore them out of habit (since they used to be pretty harmless before). If you play on higher speeds your guys will reach the death threshold and start melting in nanoseconds afterwards.

Play the Massagetae, you will never fear skirmishers again. But 20 units of greek hoplites in a major settlement however...

[al Roumi]

Gallic slingers are a bit of a headache - they're pretty good in melee so they aren't the push over I was expecting!

[Slaists]

Yup, never seen this myself...

Are you sure, your original stack was actually, umh, one stack, not two?

As to AI missiles now (version 13.1), pay attention to the post battle stats. Unless you let the AI create a cross-fire situation, the AI missile units get close to zero kills nowadays.

Siege battles are an exception (if you let your units stand in the range of fire). Then again, attacking walled settlements has become extremely easy nowadays since the only type of units the AI has on the walls is missiles. All melee units stand way back in the center of the town. So, it's quite easy to rout the wall units and then annihilate the melee in the center since the latter no longer has any missile support.

[easytarget]

Ok, I'll watch the stats on them. What i found annoying about it was that my guys even when I hit the stupid magic buttons on them could not run them down. As a result the battle would not end, so whatever number of casualties they were causing when they turned back and fired at me were freebies I could do nothing about AND the battle would not end.

As a result I immediately set about looking up the quickest way to get a unit of cav, problem solved.