Doubtful courage"

My generals seem to be getting the "doubtful courage" trait if one of the units in their army is defeated in battle and runs away. At first I noticed it happening when I pressed the "withdraw" button on a unit of leves I had as reinforcements, but I didn't want them in the battle so I withdrew them and afterwards my consul got doubtful courage.

So I stopped using the withdraw button. Now, however, I'm noticing my generals get the trait if one of their units routs in battle. For example just this morning in a Makedonia game, I combined everything I had in to one big army under Antigonos and sent him against Pyrrhus and his army. In the whole battle, my only unit that routed was a unit of Xystophoroi. I sent them against Pyrrhus' archers soon after melee started, but I was so busy admiring the models on my phalanx units as they fought that I forgot about the Xystophoroi and they got trampled by elephants and routed off the field.

After this battle, Antigonos has "doubtful courage". Antigonos himself spent most of the battle charging in to the flanks and rear of Pyrrhos' light infantry, hacking and slashing, and he barely lost a member of his bodyguard. I think he even killed Pyrrhus personally! So he is most definitely not a coward.

There was a discussion on this trait a few months back in this thread. The short version is that the trait engine cannot discern between "withdrawal" and "rout", and the team wanted to penalize commanders who withdrew units from battle.

That said, I agree this instance isn't fair. Does it really trigger when a single unit leaves the field? Is there any way to alter that?

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Originally Posted by Ludens

There was a discussion on this trait a few months back in this thread. The short version is that the trait engine cannot discern between "withdrawal" and "rout", and the team wanted to penalize commanders who withdrew units from battle.

That said, I agree this instance isn't fair. Does it really trigger when a single unit leaves the field? Is there any way to alter that?

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I'm not 100% certain that it triggers 100% of the time when a unit breaks and runs away but it's starting to look like that. Apart from the instance above where I forgot about my unit of Xystophoroi and they got routed by elephants, I just had another incident where the same thing happened.

I decided to send Antigonos' son and heir in to battle and I also decided I wanted to get rid of those 3 generals who are not family members that Makedonia have at the start of the game (I don't need them, they're just costing money at this point and I already have enough family members to govern cities and lead my armies). A group of 4 or 5 units of rebel hoplites had spawned in my territory, so I assembled a small army for Antigonos' son and attatched the three generals to it.

As soon as the battle started I sent these 3 generals (whose bodyguard are regular Xystophoroi) in a head-on suicide attack against the rebel hoplites. It took a while but they all died, and their depleted bodyguard ran from the field. The whole time this happened I kept Antigonos' son and his proper army out of the fighting, they were just sat back.

After this I moved forward with the proper army and wiped out the rebels. Antigonos' son was involved in the fighting, he slayed many of the rebels and captured hundreds as they ran away. He never routed or even wavered through the whole thing, I don't even think he lost any bodyguards.

After the battle he gets "doubtful courage". It's so immersion breaking to have generals who are brave and who have never lost a battle to get "doubtful courage" because one of their units was defeated in battle and ran away :(

We're looking into this again. I feel your pain regarding the non-sensical ways in which you can get this trait.