Please help me figure out how these 3 things happened.

A few occurances have puzzled me while playing rtw after not playing it in ages and I was wondering if anyone knew why they happened so here they go.

(Sorry if its long winded but I am trying to be as descriptive as I can be


1) As the romans (brutii) when I have more than one unit of cavalry selected they every so often just dont do what I tell them, sometimes when I tell them to charge a unit they will just stand still and occasionally they will all attack seperate random enemy units rather than the one I told them to.

The general I used while this happened most often was 7 stars and had the plague at the time (dont know if that will effect it but...)

And it happenes more when I fight the gauls or the pontians than any other time (but they also put the bigger armies on me so...)



2) I sent a seleucid general (49 early G.b. cavalry(1 Bronze chevron, bronze sword)) on his own to fight a band of rebels (2 peasant units (no experience) and a unit of archers (general unit) (1 bronze chevron)) In the battle I wheeled him around the peasants and took 9 casualties from arrows and then charged and routed the archers without taking any casualties. I then turned them around and charged the nearest peasant unit and my unit hit the peasants and caused around 30 casualties from the charge, but then my guys started dropping as quicker than thiers, when I had 24 bodyguards left I un engaged them and charged again into the same peasant unit (180 something strong now). My general took 6 more casualties (and caused 20) and then routed.


How can a unit of no experiance peasants rout a G.B. Usually a charge from heavy cavalry of any kind routs peasants. Was it because of the arrow caused casualties?



3) WHile defending tarsus as the seleucids I had 2 militia hoplite phalanxs penetrated and then routed by eastern spearmen charges (one of the E.S. units had 2 chevrons, the other none) Which is odd itself.

But then I had 3 units of elephants fighting up the main street of tarsus , they routed 2 militia cavalry units and then were on thier way to routing a unit of generals bodyguard (pontic) (all the while under arrow fire from one unit of archers) When suddenly they went from \ 20 I 22 I 17 / men left to \ 1 I 2 I 1 / almost instantly (within the sound of one elephant death) I didnt see what happened as I was getting some pirates and what was left of a 3rd phalanx that was charged by the pontic H.C. ready to defend the plaza

Anwyay do you have any ideas what happened here?

For the phalanxes im beat but I think maybe a volley of fire arrows routed them but I still dont know how they died so quickly?


Any Ideas

as quicker than thiers

This was originally going to be as quick as thiers but then I remembered theyd died quicker sorry about the mistake

For the phalanxes im beat but I think maybe a volley of fire arrows routed them but I still dont know how they died so quickly?

Should be;

For the phalanxes im beat. But for the elephants I think maybe a volley of fire arrows routed them but I still dont know how they died so quickly?

another mistake sorry.

I often need to edit posts after making them but cant here so expect my posts to be rife with errors, sorry.

As far as your first question is concerned, that is nothing to do with your poor general, it's a bug in the RTW engine that causes grouped units to ignore orders, or just make up their own orders instead. It's much worse in the early versions of RTW but it still happens occasionally in 1.5, especially with grouped cavalry. Most often when you tell them to do something cavalryish like skirt round the flanks and attack the enemy artillery/archers, and instead they choose to charge straight into the enemy's front rank of spears. Very irritating. The only remedy I've been able to see is just to watch them and individually order away any errant units.

For the second question, even though your generals' bodyguards are a decent unit there are several factors that could explain their defeat:
1) substantially outnumbered
2) Having just 1 point of experience and 1 weapon upgrade is only a slight advantage over zero-experience rebels, and anyway as you say the rebel archers had experience.
3) Exhaustion (assuming you are not playing in arcade mode). From your report of the battle it sounds like your general's cav spent the whole battle galloping around charging at things, while the enemy stood still and shot/received charges.
4) Your general might have had some traits reducing his soldiers' morale.

For the third question; first of all Militia Hoplites are not a great unit. They are on the same sort of level as Eastern Infantry in terms of cost, abilities, tech level. Give the Eastern Infantry a charge bonus and/or experience and it's quite conceivable they could rout Militia Hoplites, even in a frontal charge. And for the elephants, your fire arrow theory is a good one and probably right. If they had run amok they could have gone through your own units and potentially been killed by your own men's pikes. Alternatively the enemy may have had some skirmisher units (like peltasts etc) that have a big bonus against eles and can take the big guys down easily.

Thanks for answering


As far as your first question is concerned, that is nothing to do with your poor general, it's a bug in the RTW engine that causes grouped units to ignore orders, or just make up their own orders instead. It's much worse in the early versions of RTW but it still happens occasionally in 1.5, especially with grouped cavalry. Most often when you tell them to do something cavalryish like skirt round the flanks and attack the enemy artillery/archers, and instead they choose to charge straight into the enemy's front rank of spears. Very irritating. The only remedy I've been able to see is just to watch them and individually order away any errant units.

Ive generally been lucky and when they have charged on thier own they have routed the unit more often than not even when they shoudldnt have really. But its still extra casualties over what I could have got.

I shall try what you said as my current solution, swearing like mad at the monitor, has generally failed to get a response :sweatdrop:

For the second question, even though your generals' bodyguards are a decent unit there are several factors that could explain their defeat:
1) substantially outnumbered
2) Having just 1 point of experience and 1 weapon upgrade is only a slight advantage over zero-experience rebels, and anyway as you say the rebel archers had experience.
3) Exhaustion (assuming you are not playing in arcade mode). From your report of the battle it sounds like your general's cav spent the whole battle galloping around charging at things, while the enemy stood still and shot/received charges.
4) Your general might have had some traits reducing his soldiers' morale.

I can almost always rout peasants with generals bodyguard though (it would have just been always, not almost always if the afore mentioned hadnt happened). So I dont see why not this time. I have routed full strength peasants with a 48 strong equites charge (though they may have been negatively effected morale wise.

You must be right about the morale effecting trait though so thats probably the reason. Unless seleucids are fat b******s who tire thier horses out in a flash :)


For the third question; first of all Militia Hoplites are not a great unit. They are on the same sort of level as Eastern Infantry in terms of cost, abilities, tech level. Give the Eastern Infantry a charge bonus and/or experience and it's quite conceivable they could rout Militia Hoplites, even in a frontal charge.

I always thought if the units were of the same tech level then the phalanx unit will win in a front on front no matter what (I dont use phalanxes very often as I habitually just build totally phalanx armies and then sit them in the corner of the map and then they are unbeatable and the game isnt fun.)

How does the charge bonus work by the way? As I havent got a clue?


And for the elephants, your fire arrow theory is a good one and probably right. If they had run amok they could have gone through your own units and potentially been killed by your own men's pikes. Alternatively the enemy may have had some skirmisher units (like peltasts etc) that have a big bonus against eles and can take the big guys down easily.

Nah I had no pikes left the E.S. and H.C. had decimated them the unit in the plaza was only around 30 strong

And apart from the H.C. and archers there was no other unit atackign my elephants. So even if the fire arrows had routed them I still dont see how they could have died so quick. Althought they were all massed up and maybe they went wild instead and the 3 units killed themselves.


Thanks for telling me about the peltasts elephant bonus though, that would explain another terribly lost battle.



By the way do pikes really have a vs elephant bonus? as I have seen somethings saying yes and some saying no.

Sorry if the above is hard to read, I wasnt aware that the boards [Quote and size] functions didnt work. Especially as the buttons are still there...

They do work... Your message should go between the ["QUOTE] and the other [/QUOTE"]

And charge bonus is where when your soldiers are charging, they do more damage than an enemy that is standing still (makes perfect sense if you think about it). And militia hoplites are REALLY BAD phalanxes (even worse out of phalanx mode though). They are the phalanx version of town watch.

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Your questions

1) Well answered before. Dont group them to move them. Perhaps nerear the end when you are to line them up for a nice pretty screenshot :yes:

2) Unless you have been modding or changing versions and those peasants were really more powerful than they have a right to be then I suggest it was the archers who did a lot of damage. You lost 9 from them. But it also means many of your other generals bodyguard where down to half life (they have two hit points each). If those archers killed 9 then they also weakened many others. On vh battle difficulty soldiers have +7 combat. Peasants are now quite strong if they dont rout.

Take your time. Keep your units fresh and tire the enemy.

Archers are often an early target for my general. I would take the archers then retire. Get fresh then go after peasants and other weak troops.

3) Elephants have lots of hit points. You cant see them going but your elephants were being weakened. Only when their last hit point is lost do they die. Militia cavalry armed with javlins will have taken many of those points. Assuming eles had equal exposure to fighting they reached that life taking last hit point at the same time? A pontus general unit is to be respected. They have a very powerful missile attack. If they let loose a volley at close range....:no: Ive had peltasts drop 7 Carthage elephants in one throw so a more powerful general chucking his javlin will be quite capable of doing this.