Fatigue

[Imperial Buffoon]

Hya,
Was playing a large battle vs the Horde in Syria (some 4000 vs 2500 of mine) and realised that when my halb's came into the fight, they were almost already exhausted, although they'd just come in and hadn't fought or ran yet...

So I remember that someone had explained how there is a base fatigue for all units, which is the most energy they can get if you rest them at a given point in time, and then units who have ran more or are more armored (in the desert) will have a lower base fatigue.
I always assumed that depended on how long the troops have been on the battlefield, so I set my reinforcements to have fresh light cavalry towards the end of the battle...am I completely wrong?

[motorhead]

Roughly every 10-15 mins of battle clock time reduces fatigue by 1, so even in 300 minute battles, after the first 30 mins your men will all be down to 2-bars. It also varies by climate - temperate/lush climates seem to bottom out at 2-bars, even after an hour of clock time has passed. While in the desert heavily armored units (over 4 armor total, including upgrades) will wither rapidly and can hit exhausted in that 10-15 min range. But lightly armored units (the lighter the better) can weather the sun much better, and they seem to bottom out at 2-bars in the desert. Also, winter weather fatigues all units faster, but armored troops especially, though it doesn't seem quite as bad as desert.

edit: back to your original question, yes, reserve troops suffer from the same fatigue rate. It's as if they were on the same battlefield but just over the hill waiting for your call

[English assassin]

This is especially annoying in large desert battles, where after you have chased the rabble from the field once or twice you think you will just retire your exhausted cavalry and get some nice fresh ones to chase away the next wave of enemy, only to find the guys coming on are just as exhausted as the ones who have been galloping and fighting. Its the main drawback for desert battles for me, I always autocalc the big ones because its so boring otherwise.

I don't know what they are doing back there in the reinforcement zone, playing football in full armour or something.

[Imperial Buffoon]

OK, that really changes things. I found that because of the AI's tendency to field uncompensated armies, 10 min volley with pav arbs and then a massive heavy cav charge would work. If reinforcements are tired, then the only pb with that is that if it fails to completely rout the enemy...I'll just have to sit back and hold while the MHC roast http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Of course this is not a guide, the best option is to use lighter troops with shields vs the horde...just that I don't like reloading to change my fielded army and it's wayyyy too heavily armoured

[Oaty]

There is a trick that I have found that works quite well. Have a unit with no armour stay away from all the fighting. He stays fresh the whole time and IMO this sets the fatigue factor that most units with low armour rating wil come on with the fresh status.

Another thing is urban militia, common to all factions I believe, can do quite well here especially if the enemy is heavily armoured.

In a long desert battle Nubian spearmen,arab infantry camels and saharan cavlry can be quite a deadly combination.