Why Are My English Crusaders Cowards?

[Sleepy]

OK to set the scene this is my third campaign and my first as a Catholic nation, (the other two I was an Elmo). I?ve a crusade of 2000 men advancing on 600 Elmos trapped in Tunisia. My general is a zero star there?s is a 5 star plus they are all veterans with valour of 4, 5 or 6 (Ghulan bodyguards). This compares with my units valour of 0. The bad guys are primarily cavalry, both horse and camel with 1 unit of archers and 1 unit of peasants. I form a line of archers with chiv sergeants/spearmen backing them up with cavalry on each flank. The battle starts with my Mtd Crossbows + Jinettes supported by a unit of archers protected by 100 spearmen, on the left flank, shooting up two units of Berbers plus the unit of desert archers. On my right flank the enemy deploys his horse cavalry to out flank me so I redeploys from my centre to the flank. My archers shoot merry hell out of them. Finally they charge but at this stage I?ve managed to reduce 3 enemy units to less than 10% and apart from the peasants and a unit of Saharan cav no enemy unit has more than 50% left. The 2 exceptions have taken only a third casualties. When the enemy cavalry finally hit my infantry ? the archers generally got out the way quick enough out of 800ish men who marched onto the field of battle under my flag less than 10 have died c.f. 300ish enemy. I?m thinking this battle is now won 100 ? 200 infantry can cope with 10-20 light cavalry.

Well I was wrong suddenly white flags start flashing in every infantry unit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif I try to manoeuvre my general closer to see if that helps but suddenly one unit routs which quickly cascades through the hole line. My whole army is being routed by 80 Saharan cav plus 15 Ghulan bodyguards (2 units). Ok I?m now screaming at my troops for being miserable cowards for running after taking 20 casualties http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif The chiv sergeants who I started with 250 of had taken less than 10 casualties before they went yellow and were winning the fight.

All though the rout the odd unit rallied during the retreat however they immediately ran if engaged by the enemy even when I managed to get a few units organised. So the whole lot ran away (my general was captured during whilst running). As units ran off the battle field I started to bring on reinforcements from the 33 units I had left. Apart from a problem with them stacking up behind the lead units who had engaged the enemy, but not being controllable by me I finally overcame the remaining dregs of the Elmos.

I lost 900 men against the enemies 550. Of that 900 a large number were captured prisoners presumably killed by the enemy cos they were not offered for ransom. As per usual on this campaign no units gained valour. So disgusted by this I saved the game and then reloaded the battle to see what outcome would be if I auto resolved it. 400 enemy dead for only 79 dead.

I?m using v2.0 of MTW early/normal and no mods

So my question is WTF is going on? This is not the first battle I?ve had with flakey morale but this one takes the biscuit, running away when just about to win

[The_Emperor]

Welcome to the Org Sleepy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
Beat ya to the greeting Gregoshi...

Anyway from what i can tell once your guys rout its very hard to get them back to good fighting level again.

Maybe your crusaders were simply outclassed by superior troops? (or your geenral died of disease the previous year)

The problem is that routing units have a domino effect, 1 unit routing makes your men nervous, 2 units even more so. So having one unit rout is often enough to set your whole army collapsing

Replay the battle and make sure you have no peasants in the front line

[MonkeyMan]

Hi Sleepy welcome to the org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I would think that your problem is general realated to be honest. Check him and make sure he has no bad morale reducing vices. Being a 0 star up against a 5 star will mean his men have base morlae at best and if one unit routes the the rest will tend to follow. If I'm crusading I tend to insure I place a reasonable general in it and a core of decent units just encase these are not picked up on the way. I don't remember the last time I fought a battle with anything less than a 3 star general.

[Sleepy]

Thanks for the welcome guys, looking around here I think you might be right about the general issue, my troops started off with a morale of 0 so seeing an archer unit rout due to cav attack plus being attacked by cav themselves was too much. It just cascaded from there. Bloody annoying watching 800 men run from 150 especially as I was about to win.

Does seem a bit harsh though.

I'm a bit stuck for generals at the momement.

[Losfalos]

Having a poor general matched against a 5 star is a serious concern - at 5 stars the game warns explicitlty that the general inspires fear on the battlefield. So having a wimpy general in charge of your own forces is definitely risky- any sign that the battle is looking poor and your troops will run - esp peasants (did u use peasant ??)

if u think yours is looking bad i have a resurrected faction in switzerland (the swiss duh) and they have like 2000+ troops with armoured swiss pikemen and seige weapons and halberdiers etc

im fronting up with a 1 star against his 3 in the mountains of switz..

if that doesnt work - im lining up 20 assassins

[The_Emperor]

Generals with a good reputation are bad to fight against. Their troops recieve a bonus based on his reputation and rating.

I didn't know that there was a penalty for a weaker general facing off against a strong one. But it sounds about right.

Of course killing the enemy general is the best way to offset this http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[HopAlongBunny]

High star general explains part of it.

Did you hit f1 to check the morale status of your troops at the beginning of the battle? Spears tend to be 0 morale, jinettes can be worse and archers are often negative morale. Of course this all applies to new units w/o building upgrades like churches.

Without a decent general the unit types you listed have the staying power of peasants.

ps. Welcome to the Org. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
pps there was an excellent summary of morale modifiers by SeljukSinan; unfortunately I can't find it...hope it didn't get deleted
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Cheetah]

Apart from the general, there could be another problem. Heavily armoured troops (such as chiv.sergeants) dont do well in the desert (I guess it was a desert battle, was it?). They get exhausted even from standing for a long time (and they did so, since the archery duel, did they?). Now, this coupled with your bad general could explain it all.

[Sleepy]

Quote[/b] (HopAlongBunny @ May 18 2003,16:43)]pps there was an excellent summary of morale modifiers by SeljukSinan; unfortunately I can't find it...hope it didn't get deleted
There's a list in one of the intro stickies for this forum.

I did check morale with F1 and the values are what you said. Just very irritating that they ran whilst winning.

[Sleepy]

Quote[/b] (Cheetah @ May 18 2003,17:30)]Apart from the general, there could be another problem. Heavily armoured troops (such as chiv.sergeants) dont do well in the desert (I guess it was a desert battle, was it?). They get exhausted even from standing for a long time (and they did so, since the archery duel, did they?). Now, this coupled with your bad general could explain it all.
It was in the desert, there was a long arrow duel. I'll remember that next time, my usual tactic wont work in the desert.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Hey Sleepy

Sounds like your general to me also. Also sounds like it could be Elmo's general. Don't overlook the possiblity that you are facing a 5 star with a high dread rating. Somehow that dread effect gets around rather quickly. I played a campaign as the Spanish and ended up with a 6 star 9 dread general. Eventually I owned half the map and the Egyptians owned the other half. I sent him and 700 men to attack a province with around 3000 Egyptians... they retreated without fighting. I advance again this time against roughly 5000. They appeared willing to fight until I began advancing and then they routed. Dread can be very useful

Another thing to remember is that you can add troops as well as generals to a crusade. Just pick them up and drop them into the crusade stack as it passes through a province. The catch is that they are stuck in the crusade until it captures its goal. Sometimes it is wise to spare a general to command a crusade when you know you will be facing a good commander on the field.

Better luck next time
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[squippy]

Yeah I've had similar experiences; those Saharan Cavalry and Ghulams inflict a mighty charge, I've also seen them punch right through an armoured centre and cause the route cascade effect. I have since started planning the late battle early, deciding my rally spot and my fall back position in advance.

Also the generals. One of mine, after being routed from the field twice (although I still won both battles) devekloped the traits Good Runner and Doubtful Courage, which together read as if imposing about 9 or 10 points of morale penalty; so I stripped the unit down and disbanded 'em (templars) becuase he was my best general in the theatre and would automatically assume command. That sucked, but it had to be done to preserve the confidence of the troops.

[Sockeye]

Of course /slaps head

I was wondering about a similar problem I had against the vikings in the VI expansion - a large army routing from a few of theirs - and it just seemed to get worse over time. If I was facing a high star general (and the vikings generaly are) with my low star, mine would route - and then gain a good runner/chinless wonder V&V, so I would have to try and find another general with a measly 1 star to go up against them.

Cheers,
Sockeye

[The_Emperor]

Let your heirs assume command, or failing that get your king to lead your armies to victory... (make sure your king doesn't rout, nothing is more embarrasing than the sight of a monarch fleeing for his life)

[Popeye]

Morale is a very big deal. I'm not going to deal with battlefield aspects of that, others can handle that better than I. Just going to point out a few things you can do about it, off the battlefield, in no particular order.

Pay attention to special units a province can make. There aren't usually many that apply to you, but if a province offers a unit with better than average morale, that's what you make there, and you generally want to make them for the reserves even if you don't need more troops right now.

Pay attention to the buildings that will increase the morale of troops produced there. That means BUILD THEM.

Consider Assassins to remove that general. For this option to work, you probably need to have started a few decades back either accumulating dozens to put to this unlikely-success mission, or training several up to high enough level to have a fair shot at it. Same with Inquisitors.

Consider massive spy attacks; you also need to have built up a large pool of spies, as you'll lose one or two per year, and no single spy does a lot. Doesn't help with rebels, but if you have an enemy faction that looks interested in attacking you, give them some rebels of their own to play with. Risk is that you further improve this general, but you may just wear down his army over time.

Final suggestion, if you can't beat 'em, bribe 'em.

[Sleepy]

1, The army I was using was an ex-crusader army so all the troops were as basic as they get (or at least thats what it looked like) with no building moral bonus from the home province.

2, Dont forget Inquisitors for getting rid of catholic generals. I've managed to remove every decent French and Italien general plus a few heirs so far http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif The Spainsh are being more stuborn. Now if the remaining French heirs would only succumb to my cleansing fire. Though considering ones now a devout atheist I do wonder about his sanity.