The Peoni Lemmings

A situation just recently took place which exceeded all other AI suicides ;) I'm sure it was hard-coded AI that caused the tactical error. I (Lusotannans) was attacking a Carthie town in SE spain. Its garrisson was almost non-existant, but a very large force of citizen militia was rushing toward the town. Due to my spies, I was able to enter the town pretty easily, and overcame the garrison. I ended up defending the town from the reinforcements. ;) But a strange thing happened... as the carthie citizen militia tried to enter their own gate and defeat my own troops, the militia all but insta-routed - around 2,000 so or, I think. Instead of heading for the hills, they tried to retreat _through_ my men who were blocking the gate. I lost, I think, 8 men to their several thousand. While I know the Ai is probably hard-coded to try to retreat to the town center even when suicidal to do so, what surprised my was how incredibly easily this large milita routed when they hit my less numerous iberian milites inside the gate. Did I just get lucky, or are they really that cowardly that they can freak out at the drop of a hat? I suppose I'll be fighting them more often soon, and will probably figure it out soon. No wonder they lost the war against Rome. :p

Yep, confirm. Had a similar situation playing for Baktria facing selucid levies, although my settings were VH/VH.

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No wonder they lost the war against Rome. :p

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Nope, dude. They lost the Wars because of stupidity, greediness and cowardness of the One hundreed (and four) Magistrate. Hannibal achieved his greatest victories (Cannae, Trebia, Tras. lake) being significantly outnumbered by the romans due to his talent, bravery of the iberians, might of the gauls and courage of the numidians and carthaginians. Don't You think that cowards would have never made it?
P.s. just my point of view, no confrontation dude:beam:

I love it when they retreat toward you. The AI will do this on bridge battles often, deciding that they want to retreat on your side of the bridge, so all that remain charge over to your side. If you have the bridge landing surrounded, they all die. I once finally killed an entire army of cataphracts, horse archers, and cataphract archers that had attacked, retreated, attacked, retreated, etc with few losses many time, in this fashion.

I think the :P thing implied that it was a joke.

I find the Poeni militia a very good troop type in the mod. Not amazing, but good for a unit described as a militia.

I hate it when your own troops do the same, routing toward the enemy.

Let's face it, the AI is as good as comedy sometimes.

I don't usually see too many insta-routing situations in EB - used to be common in vanilla though. It was like some kind of chain reaction of linked explosives, or dominoes or something. The first unit of several thousand touched my front line, panicked, and like a wave it spread through all of them, and the entire carthaginian armada went lemming. It was so catastrophic it would have almost been worth recording.

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Originally Posted by Empty

Yep, confirm. Had a similar situation playing for Baktria facing selucid levies, although my settings were VH/VH.

Nope, dude. They lost the Wars because of stupidity, greediness and cowardness of the One hundreed (and four) Magistrate. Hannibal achieved his greatest victories (Cannae, Trebia, Tras. lake) being significantly outnumbered by the romans due to his talent, bravery of the iberians, might of the gauls and courage of the numidians and carthaginians. Don't You think that cowards would have never made it?
P.s. just my point of view, no confrontation dude:beam:

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Nah, he has it right. They lost because they were a bunch of screaming jessies. :yes:

I had a similar experience. I was assaulting a town in Iberia, and got in and sent my general round to lock the gates to stop reinforcements getting in. I gaurded the gate I busted open with some merc hoplites and then massacred the defenders in the square. Only problem is my general went and got scared, routed, and tried to escape through the enemies stuck in the gateway. I had slaughtered the defenders and was waiting for the timer to run out to end the battle, but he died seconds before the time expired. I got a CTD when the battle ended, so the second time round I was a bit more careful, but I wasnt able to lock the gates in time, so the reinforcements managed to get in before me.

Ow. Just had my first encounter (as LUsotannans) with Sacred Band Infantry. They more than made up for the wimpy Peony militia. World of hurt, I tell ya. Even flanking them didn't do the job before my troop's morale broke... I don't have the max. Iberian barracks yet, so I'll have to check that out and see if it offers any solution to these new carthie terminators. ;)