Routing

[Zone]

Has anyone else found that when you attack a small army (say of Ronin) with a small attack force so that the attack goes forward and they don't just retreat to the next province and so on builiding up a large army, that they rout as soon as you take to the field? This has happened a few times and is annoying because I don't want them to have an huge army at the end. Admittedly it does reduce their honour and mine goes up for no casulties but I'd rather lose a few fighters and kill all of them off than for them to rout.

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Fight first, ask questions later.

[Gothmog]

Yeah, it happens.

The main reason probably is that your troop's quality far surpass that of ronin's, and/or you have a high rank taisho.

You probably just have to live with it. After all, even AIs have the right to be smart http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

A remedy but not solution to this is to always ready your fast troops for possible pursuit. For instance, at the end stage of the game, I usually end up with really good generals and really good troops, and it's not rare that the AIs turn tail even though they outnumber me. What I do is that I keep an close eye on the AI, and when I smell a flee, I send out my YCs out to kill as many as I can before AI troops run out of the battle field.

In the early stage when cavalries are rare, keep your ashigarus ready.

[Zone]

That's all very well but when it's happened to me it's been when I've finally spotted them hidding in their corner of the province and they're next to the edge as it is so that it takes all of 20 seconds for the battle to be over. Ah well, I'll just have recognise my supreme superiority I suppose http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Fight first, ask questions later.

[jomni]

Yup. Those rebels employ guerilla tactics... just like real (outnumbered) rebels do.