Have you Seen My General?

In MTW and STW a "withdrawal" is a defeat, and as such it negatively impacted your General's Command, Influence and Moral (possibly more), but the General and the Army lived to fight another day.

I fully expected the same to be carried over into RTW.

I attempted a siege with a (if I recall) a 5 Star Command General, also with a couple of Influence wreaths and 4 Administrative Scrolls. Obviously, a very valuable potential Govenor. Very Valuable!!

I attempted to break a Siege with this General and roughly a half stack of troops, a third of which were Town Watch. This was at an early stage of a Campaign.

Now, knowing how delicate Generals are(, and will die, if an enemey troop even looks funnay at them ;) . I had absolutely NO intention of actually allowing my General to *risk* himself in combat.

Breaking the seige was going to be a bit of a chance with all the Town Watch units, but I was pressed to get this Siege over with. I intended to use up the Town Watch units, sending them first and then my Hasti behind. I planned to make a quick assessment of the TW and then make a decision as to whether it would be prudent to continue and press the attack.

This was a mistake in a couple of ways. First, when attempting such an attack, its better to send the Hasti first, and then the Town Watch. I knew after a short engagement that the TW would get chewed up and then start to Flee, but I thought that with the Hasti at their back pressing the attack the TW would have little choice but to continue fighting. Wrong! (This worked in MTW.)

Instead, the TW turned to Flee and jammed themselves right into the Hasti, putting their backs to the enemey, and encumbering the attack of the Hasti. The Hasti weren't able maintain formation, fighting individually rather than as a Unit, and, so, took serious loses.

It was a small but intense battle for the Gates of the City, ebbing back forth a few times. Ultimately, my General's troops were able to rally and take the Gate, reducing the Enemey troops defending the Gate to mere remnants of their former Units.

At one tipping point, I thought to have my General charge into the Battle, knowing he and his Bodyguard would shift the battle, I resisted the temptation as the General was more valuable, than the outcome of this SINGLE Siege attack. They would be victorious, but the General himself would probably be dead.

Yet, once there was a gap in the Gate, I charged my General through the Gap and into the City, at which point the the remnants of the Gate defenders turned and fled running through the City.

Here's where things get really interesting. After taking the Gate, and having my General enter *safely* into the City, I began to quickly organize the remains of my Hasti troops, and to gather the remants of my previously Fleeing and now Rallying Town Watch units, who seemed to be recovering from their fear. In all total, they may have had the numbers equivalent to two and half full units, but weren't full units, but bits and pieces of former units.

While I and My general were waiting for these troops to get it together, I decided to do a fly over of the City Center, where I expected to find a few scragglers waiting to be slaughtered. Rather, what I found was a full unit of Light Infrantry and a full unit of Light CAVALRY! Fully Rested and Waiting, having never taken part in the Gate battle.

~:eek:

I quickly determined it was time to BUG OUT! before they decided to Charge my General. I quietly eased my General through the Gate and outside the City Walls, and summarily issued the *Withdrawal* order to all my remaining troops----RUNNNNN!!!!

My General and his Body Guard, turned and never looked back, making it off the field of battle with nary a scratch.

Poof! End Battle. I lose. Snap Back to Reality (Eminem)...ahh...I mean back to the Campaign Map: General, General, where are you General?? Has anyone seen my General?

Have any of YOU seen my General? Please tell him to come back to his troops!

WTF??!!

Maybe *Scotty* beamed him up?

:furious3:


All my effort to perserve my General, bringing him close to shore up my waivering troops, while managing to keep safe, all for naught!!

---

Is this a bug or what? Does this happen only with Sieges, or will this also happen far from any City?

I have never had a General dissapear on the campaign after routing on in a field battle. It might be a fluke. Then again I always reload battles I start and lose. My main generals almost always have flawless records.

Also, a bit of advice for your siege tactics: never try to take the gate. Take the surrounding walls. When taking walls the gaps are much larger so enemy units have to spread wider than they would if they were defending a gate. Also always build 2 rams and attack from opposite sides (I usually attack each section of wall next to the gate). This splits the enemy and leaves your troops (who I hope are numerically or statistically superior) with less men to deal with at once. Sometimes the enemy completely ignores on gap and is left vulnerable to flanking attacks.

The "withdraw" command basically routs your troops, and the computer calculates losses for them just like any other routing unit fleeing from a battle.

Has anyone tried ordering their attackers over the red line to withdraw rather than routing them off the field with the so-called "withdraw" command? Can they even cross the red line? Maybe not. If possible, I wonder if this would make a difference... There has to be some way to disengage without losing half your army.

I posted a thread almost exactly the same as this one a week or so back. I was fighting the Dacians as Julii. Long story short I got slaughtered by their full Falxmen army and ran away with 1/3 of them - losing every single one of them plus my 7 Star 6 Management General. It's a bug that you lose all troops which don't take the city but instead are defeated at the gates. This is true even if you take no casualties and are just there to harrass the enemy with some Horse Archers and press the Withdraw button. Booo-Urns.

Make sure that he's really dead (check your faction family tree). Often the computer will "retreat" your troops clear back to a neighboring city. Thus, he may be hanging out in one of your cities and you don't even know. Sometimes this automatic movement is done very fast (the game thinks you want "fast movements" or something).

If the unit was at near full strength, it is very unlikely he was killed by the game unless he had nowhere to retreat to.

Amphibious assaults have this problem too. Sometimes the army will retreat back to a ship, and disappear from the strat map. Clicking on the ships in the area might show that they now have your army.

Pull up the faction family tree. Click on living guys until you see him (assuming you don't spot him right away). If his scroll comes up, click the magnifying glass icon in the corner of the scroll. The game will center on his current location.

The advantage of generals vs regular armies is that you can use the faction family tree to track them down. With lone units (like Horse Archers mentioned above), they could move a whole province and into a city, and you'll think they're dead (then scratch your head as to how that city suddenly has some extra units). I'm not saying there isn't a bug, but lets rule out the known behavior first.