What the?????

Me, as Romani, fighting the Ptolemaioi superpower over Kyrenaika. I have 5 nearly full stack armies. They have 2 full stack armies (of which 1 is in besieged Kyrenaika) plus about 1/2 stack with another 1/2 stack reinforcements coming in 1-2 turns.
I decide to end turn. Of course, all 2.5 stacks attack my besieging army. I chose the placement in a forest, hoping that trees will disrupt phalanx formation (which of course didn't happen). Battle begins. I have my besieging army and another army as reinforcements. To my dismay against my 1200 man army which is my only army present at the field, they throw their besieged army 1700 man plus 1400 reinforcements army plus around 600 man their half stack. If I would be able to bring all my 5 armies onto the battlefield, I'd wipe the floor with them, but I'm allowed only one army at a time and a small trickle of reinforcements when my units rout. Unsurprisingly, I eventually lose, after destroying 1/2 of their total armies.

I decide to give it another try and reload. I immediately assault the city (spies have 100% of opening gates), but instead of going for the city, which I have no chance of taking with 1700 klerouchoi, klerouchoi agema, galatian heavy swordsmen and other niceties packed inside, I go for their reinforcements. I move my army to meet their 1400 man stack. After a long battle and losing 30% of my army I annihilate them. Then I send some troops to attack that 600 man army that is wandering around. this time it's far shorter as those 600 man were led by a captain and not 2x generals like the first army.

All in all, I nearly completely destroy their 2 reinforcement armies while losing 40% of my own army. Of course, there's no reason to attack the city with what I have now. So, I let the time to expire and get a clear defeat result. To my surprise I heal no one while the destroyed 1400 man reinforcements army somehow had 400 man left, while they certainly shouldn't have more than 100 after a thorough beating I gave them. I close the results and get a "heroic death" message. I think "What the hell?" My FM was alive and well at the end of a battle. But to my shock and dismay, the whole stack of like 800 soldiers simply disappears, and I have 4 armies, instead of 5. I simply closed EB after such a blatant act of cheating by the AI and will probably have to revert to console to resolve this battle :(

If you are defeated or attempt to retreat while being surrounded on the strat map, as it seems in this case you are, your army will be destroyed. Sometimes you don't even get the nice skull symbol informing you of this.

It's an RTW thing, not an EB thing.

Actually I was hoping to achieve a tactical victory here by first destroying the reinforcements and then replenishing my besieging troops and starving out that 1700 man army. Although that battle was a defeat, strategically it was a victory as I disposed of their reinforcement troops. But the game decided just to take one of my armies off the map. Second thing was my inability to bring all my reinforcements at once in my first try - a thing that the AI somehow manages to do.

Both things don't look like EB bugs, but it's very frustrating nevertheless.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Ulpius

bring all my reinforcements at once in my first try

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Open RTW folder(or EB if you renamed the folder)\EB\Preferences\preferences.txt

scroll down to "UNLIMITED_MEN_ON_BATTLEFIELD:FALSE"

Change the false to true.

Edit: actually might be the preferences in the rtw\prefrences\prefences.txt now that I look at it.

When quitting the battle, you need to be sure that ALL the enemy are fleeing. You will get a warning saying "If you quit now you will lose the battle". Heed it and wait until the enemy are out or you get the message that the battle is over and you can hunt down the enemy.

The AI didn't cheat, you just didn't complete the battle objective so forfeited the battle when quitting.

You know, something like this happened to me when I was playing last night. My Romani general retreated from a stronger Carthaginian force. I tried to retreat once more, because normally that would mean (if the general would run out of movement) a fight ensued. This time, my entire army disappeared. What the...???

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Originally Posted by bovi

When quitting the battle, you need to be sure that ALL the enemy are fleeing. You will get a warning saying "If you quit now you will lose the battle". Heed it and wait until the enemy are out or you get the message that the battle is over and you can hunt down the enemy.

The AI didn't cheat, you just didn't complete the battle objective so forfeited the battle when quitting.

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Well, I knew that I was going to lose the battle. The whole point of attacking was to achieve some tactical results by killing off the reinforcements and dealing with that massive army in the besieged town afterwards.

Those results were achieved. All their reinforcements were dead. then I was going to starve the army that was inside the walls. Instead, I've lost a full stack for very limited results. Where's the logic in this?

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If I would be able to bring all my 5 armies onto the battlefield, I'd wipe the floor with them, but I'm allowed only one army at a time and a small trickle of reinforcements when my units rout.

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What is the problem? Turn on Unlimited man on battlefield and give AI control over all your reinforcement armies and you will win. It will be laggy but hey it will be "fair" then.

Sorry for not reading your post well enough, I thought you had won but quit too early.

The easiest way to get rid of their reinforcements is to actually attack the reinforcements and keep the siege. Set the siege with one army and attack the reinforcements with the other. You'll have an open field battle where the garrison is not present.

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Originally Posted by bovi

The easiest way to get rid of their reinforcements is to actually attack the reinforcements and keep the siege. Set the siege with one army and attack the reinforcements with the other. You'll have an open field battle where the garrison is not present.

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i was about to recommend the same thing. surely if you have five stacks waiting around, you can use one to do the sieging, and bring a couple of the others to bear on the pesky reinforcements.

I had to give control to 2 of my other armies present on the field to the AI and it helped. The army under my control was fighting with one stack, while the AI went for another one. I was able to rout my enemy by separating their phalanxes from support troops, then engaging the support troops with 2 princeps, using my 2x classical hoplits and some princeps to stop their phalanx advancement from the front and moving everything else I had to outflank their phalangites.

In the end, after their pahalanx units were routed, I've split my forces to help those 2x princeps untits that were bravely holding against Parthian Spearmen Red Sea infantry and "Bnei Shevet Aravim", while other part of my army went to help the AI where some units were pinned down by the phalanxes of the second Ptolie army. Eventually I've won, it did cost me more soldiers than it would be if I could control all my armies myself, but at least I had a victory. And my 3-rd army didn't even have to enter field.

P.S. I've noticed that "Red Sea Light Infantry" says "Heavy Infantry" in their description on the battlefield. Why is that?

Second, turns out that Iberian Light Infantry are excellent phalangite killers. They've killed Klerouchoi even better than my princeps. They totally mess phalanx battle formation when attacking phalanx from the flank, something that my princeps units were unable to do. They've only forced phalangites to switch to swords on the flanks, but their overall formation remained intact.

when fighting night battles you can avoid reinforcements, both those of the AI as well as yours... but well you would need BI or Alex to do that -though I'm not sure if night battles are retroactive , if not you would need to start a new camapign to make it work... :sweatdrop:, PS alex its not save game compatible (so far)-

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Originally Posted by Marcus Ulpius

P.S. I've noticed that "Red Sea Light Infantry" says "Heavy Infantry" in their description on the battlefield. Why is that?

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The classification of units only serves the purpose for the ai which unit to build. Setting a classification that doesn't fit the real function of a unit is a way to determine the ai's recruiting behaviour.

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Originally Posted by ||Lz3||

when fighting night battles you can avoid reinforcements, both those of the AI as well as yours... but well you would need BI or Alex to do that -though I'm not sure if night battles are retroactive , if not you would need to start a new camapign to make it work... :sweatdrop:, PS alex its not save game compatible (so far)-

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Well, i have made the daring move to try by myself if the alex-pack that you have in your sig can be used to continue a savegame and by now i have not encountered (unsolvable) problems. But i think night battles are not retroactive although the respective traits seem to be.

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Originally Posted by Lysimachos

Well, i have made the daring move to try by myself if the alex-pack that you have in your sig can be used to continue a savegame and by now i have not encountered (unsolvable) problems. But i think night battles are not retroactive although the respective traits seem to be.

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!!

watch out your traits carefully, all those packs change the EDCT , wich usually messes the traits up

:worried:

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Originally Posted by ||Lz3||

!!

watch out your traits carefully, all those packs change the EDCT , wich usually messes the traits up

:worried:

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Well, i know that, but i tried and it worked. I don't know if some unimportant governor may have gotten messed up traits, but all significant familiy members are perfectly fine.

When I had a similar problem with the AI, I was sieging Roma as the AS, the AI had two full armies against my two armies. I decided to storm the city and the result was that both mine and the AI's reinforcements did not make it to the battle. I got the message "Reinforcements Delayed?" and I fought the battle just the way I like it: a single army of my own against a single army of my enemy. This was most likely because I always play with the graphics settings on the maximum and my computer is not fast enough to render four armies on a single battlefield, if I am not mistaken. The RTW engine recognizes your computer's capabilities and tries to not overload your it. By the way: I did have the option "Unlimited Men on the Battlefield" turned on.