Why (How) did I just lose?

[Budwise]

Sometimes when I storm a castle, during a lenghty fight when I am clearly winning, I get a popup saying something like Close Defeat or some other defeat message and then the battle is over. My question is why do I lose when I am clearly winning the battle before that message pops up?

[HoreTore]

My first thought, is that your siege weapons ran out of ammo while the second gate is still intact. If that happens, the game thinks you can't win, and thus get the "close defeat", even though you can still reach the inner gates as the walls are linked.

[Zpartan]

I've never played with a time limit, but are you playing with a time limit?

[Budwise]

No time limit. I guess I can see your point although I did have ammo left I told them to withdraw and the second gate wouldn't have been a problem since I am right on the enemy's butt running into the gate.

But, I guess I will just hold my fire from now on when it comes to city gates and castle gates.

[TinCow]

You don't have to have ammo left in siege engines, you just have to have some manner of getting over the inner walls that the computer sees. This can certainly be ammo, but it also works if there's a ladder or ram somewhere in the siege, even if they have been used before. If either of those are around, feel free to use up all your ammo.

[Quillan]

One major difference between this game and RTW: in a city fight, if you're pursuing a routing unit the gate will slam closed when your unit gets within a certain distance of it. This will shut the routing unit outside as well, but you cannot chase a routing unit through the gate to gain access. When assaulting with nothing but artillery, you have to make sure to break all gates before running out of ammo or having them withdraw from the map.

[Lord Fluffy]

I'm quite sure I've had several battles where my cavs just ran down the routing enemy right through their gates. One time I was sieging a city in Russia, I think it was Moscow. All cav army, no siege engine. I was just going to wait them out. Enemy sallied, I charged they rout and ran straight in with my cavs in tow.

[Loki]

One major difference between this game and RTW: in a city fight, if you're pursuing a routing unit the gate will slam closed when your unit gets within a certain distance of it. This will shut the routing unit outside as well, but you cannot chase a routing unit through the gate to gain access. When assaulting with nothing but artillery, you have to make sure to break all gates before running out of ammo or having them withdraw from the map.


Quillan,

With all respect (not trying to start a fight here) it *does* work that way. I've used fast horse units on several occasions to chase routers into an inner ring of a fortress. Once a few of my units are inside the gate, if they can stay alive for a bit until the rest of the gang can make it in they are in like Flynn!

It doesn't always work though.. Maybe thats the difference with RTW. If the separation is too great then the gates do slam shut, leaving some really bummed out routers :(

As to the original posters question, not sure.. I always fight with a time lmit now after an early bad experience with an un-resolvable battle, but I've never had this happen.