Map edges and large battles

[Imperial Buffoon]

My story: this is my first campaign (English, early, easy). There's pretty much only the Spanish and the English (yours truly) left, they get a large rebellion in Algeria and pull out. Apparently they're afraid of the 7star rebel general and don't attack for a couple of years, so I try. His troops are mostly missile units so once I've killed the general and routed his few footmen, I corner the AI at the edge of the map his reinforcements come from (or so I though).
Now two questions:
- Is there any way of actually knowing where the reinforcements will come from? They were all coming from the side of a mountain and into my hands, when bang my gallowlasses and mounted sargeants (coming as reinforcements) come face to face with 3 units of archers (which they slaughter of course)
- How do I get the battle over with? The AI basically brought units one by one but they stay at the edge of the map so although I can fire at them I can't charge. In the end, arrow fire and beginning the charge (which could not actually get to where they were) makes the units rout one by one...two stacks worth of them Not my idea of fun...

[King John II]

I think the position is that basically each side is treated as coming from opposite sides of the map. So your reinforcements will come from the south edge and the A1s from the north edge.

I have no experience like yours as far as ending the battle goes. What has always happened with me is that if I am giving the A1 army a drubbing my men will advance from south to north, I will encounter some A1 reinforcement units but, before more than just a relatively few of those have routed, a message appears to say the enemy is retreating and once the units on the map at that time have been captured, killed or managed to run away off the map the victory screen comes up.

I have lost one or two battles when I have pursued a beaten A1 army but sufficient reinforcements have come on to turn the tide. But that is not what happened in your case.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe there was an undefeated A1 unit lurking somewhere or other - hidden in woods or far from your troops. Which would have the effect of keeping the clock ticking - and the reinforcements arriving.

So, if you get that again, you might try sending a cavalry unit off to search the woods and the remote parts of the map.

[desdichado]

Its possible that a single enemy was lurking in the trees somewhere but I think it is more of a bug. Occasionally, where there are a lot of AI reinforcements and for reasons I'm not sure the battle will continue but no AI units will come on to the map.

Only fix I know is to set speed to max and walk away - battle should finish by itself.

I think possibly some of the routing AI units are stuck in the out zone but you cannot see them. I do know that withdrawing units can get stuck in trees on the map edge so maybe related to that.

Not too common in my experience so don't worry too much.

As to why your reinforcements ran into AI reinforcements I'm not sure but as you can change the point at which your reinforements come in (by moving flag) I assume AI can as well. Still, it seems odd.

Oh forgot. Welcome to the org Buffoon.:wave: http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Brutal DLX]

Reinforcemnts usually arrive from the map edges behind their army's starting deployment zone and then walk toward the rally flag. If the AI has a rally flag or not, I can't say, but their reinforcements also arrive from the same general direction.
Indeed, sometimes they stop in the red zone at the map edge and you can't reach them, this also happened in Shogun, but I haven't experienced it in VI with the patch yet. Which version of MTW do you have installed?
If you are playing the battles without timer, then you could only try to back off and hope they start advancing again, if that doesn't happen, the battle will never end because you can't reach them and therefore can't rout them.
In general, make sure you leave some room on the map edges for the enemy to set up, that way you won't run into this problem, also the AI will probably decide sooner or later that is has lost the battle and stop sending in new waves..

[Imperial Buffoon]

Yeah, I should have said that before, I'm playing MTW/VI patched.
I think what happened was that there was a mountain at the border of the map and maybe since reinforcements were supposed to be coming through the mountain, they appeared at either side and it took me a while to realize it.
Actually I did have a timer (but I was attacking so waiting was not an option http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif ) which is why I guess I got a bit too eager to push them all out of my way as time was running against me.
I guess it has to do with having a map border on which you can't give orders (which probably makes sense for a bunch of other reasons). Then since all of the AI units are piled up, they're hard to rout because they are protected in the flanks and the rear
I guess the best thing is to leave them a bit of room and hope that when they rout all together, they take any reinforcements with them...unless you are the one who is standing in the corner - but that would be a really lame tactic, now wouldn't it? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif