BAH!! to RTW

I've got a single legion posted in a fort guarding my Illyrian provinces. I've been allied to the epirotes for years, and out of nowhere comes an army twice the size of mine. I figure, eh, the legion can't possibly defend, I only have one to use in any quick manner, so I send them to war on the first siege turn. I instantly kill their giant arrow guys, 3 cubit projectors or whatever, but, towards the end of the battle, I realize I can't keep attacking, too weak, they just retreat into the fort, and all the AI does is dance around. No time limit. Finally, after seeing no alternative, I hit exit battle. I must have killed well over half their army during that battle. You could hardly see the grass for huge swathes of the field, and yet exit battle, they've got their projectors back, as well as many of their phalanxes I defeated!! I think I'll send a single unit and auto_win attacking them. That's just ridiculous. Why couldn't I just surrender, and if they needed to full out execute every brave camillian soldier and the Illyrian spearman unit who put up a excellent fight (I'll have to remember those dudes, even under missle fire and horrible odds surrounding them at one part, they stayed the course) then do so, but realize their victory was near pyrrhic!

Uh... yeah. I'm sure there's a point in there somewhere, but it's 4 am and I've nobody to vent to. :furious3:

You should have Withdrawn - that saves you the extra casualties. They would still get the victory (Which is how they got the chance to heal back the catapults), but it would save you losing any more men. It would be a close loss where you in fact kill more men than them, but conceded the field.

I didn't know you could withdraw from a fort.

Oh, I thought he was attacking.

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Originally Posted by Gazius

I've got a single legion posted in a fort guarding my Illyrian provinces. I've been allied to the epirotes for years, and out of nowhere comes an army twice the size of mine. I figure, eh, the legion can't possibly defend, I only have one to use in any quick manner, so I send them to war on the first siege turn. I instantly kill their giant arrow guys, 3 cubit projectors or whatever, but, towards the end of the battle, I realize I can't keep attacking, too weak, they just retreat into the fort, and all the AI does is dance around. No time limit. Finally, after seeing no alternative, I hit exit battle. I must have killed well over half their army during that battle. You could hardly see the grass for huge swathes of the field, and yet exit battle, they've got their projectors back, as well as many of their phalanxes I defeated!! I think I'll send a single unit and auto_win attacking them. That's just ridiculous. Why couldn't I just surrender, and if they needed to full out execute every brave camillian soldier and the Illyrian spearman unit who put up a excellent fight (I'll have to remember those dudes, even under missle fire and horrible odds surrounding them at one part, they stayed the course) then do so, but realize their victory was near pyrrhic!

Uh... yeah. I'm sure there's a point in there somewhere, but it's 4 am and I've nobody to vent to. :furious3:

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That's life, buddy... you acted as a hot-headed commander ~:)

1. you should have used guard towers and/or spies to have early warning on the border;

2. you should have abandoned the fort before the enemy army arrived and then joined up with a reinforcing legion;

3. even then, you could still wait for the assault. The catapults might have brought down the walls and gates, but your legionaries and illyrian spearmen (in guard formation) could still stop the assault and maybe even rout a few enemy units. An assault always produces more casualties to the besieger than a sally from the besieged.

When the AI assaults, it usually doesn't stand still outside the gates, so they come in waves. Blocking some bottleneck inside the fort/settlement with strong defensive units might be enough to win the battle. As soon as they start routing, it's tough for the AI to effectively regroup and attack in an organised way.

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Originally Posted by JMRC

That's life, buddy... you acted as a hot-headed commander ~:)

1. you should have used guard towers and/or spies to have early warning on the border;

2. you should have abandoned the fort before the enemy army arrived and then joined up with a reinforcing legion;

3. even then, you could still wait for the assault. The catapults might have brought down the walls and gates, but your legionaries and illyrian spearmen (in guard formation) could still stop the assault and maybe even rout a few enemy units. An assault always produces more casualties to the besieger than a sally from the besieged.

When the AI assaults, it usually doesn't stand still outside the gates, so they come in waves. Blocking some bottleneck inside the fort/settlement with strong defensive units might be enough to win the battle. As soon as they start routing, it's tough for the AI to effectively regroup and attack in an organised way.

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I don't believe it was a hot-headed decision, just a wrong assumption that the AI will ever give me peace. Doesn't matter now, I promptly drained the coffers and sent Rome into spiraling debt and wiped the Epeirotes off the face of the earth. They will trouble neither Romanoi or their fellow Greeks again.

1) I did, they've marched by before. We've been allies for years with no problems, they seemed to have no interest in restarting the war and since they hadn't attacked me when I was weaker, I assumed this time would be no different. The AI took the army the same route they always did.

2)Had I been expecting war, and if the reinforcing legion couldn't come in time, I would have just pulled back into the city and defended from there.

3)Unlike in a city, if you wait three turns, your entire army just dies, general or no (and my general was back on the peninsula for a bit to get some re-inforcements from recently available units). There is no assualt to defend from.

If the AI had assualted, I probably would have won, I'd say I'm a competent defender.

That's the reason why I ALWAYS play with time limits on!!!! I have often had to defend settlements with 3-4 crappy garrison units against 10+ units. Often I win but I am not gonna accept defeat just because the A.I stands in front of my walls and does nothing, forcing me to exit the battle and lose the settlement.

And yeah if you sally out of a fort the A.I goes on a defensive. Still if you would have been able to let the time run out it should have been a draw and then neither gets any casualties back

Wait, you guys are complaining that the AI for once is using the rules of the game to its favor instead of throwing itself recklessly at a bottleneck set up by the player?

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Originally Posted by BozosLiveHere

Wait, you guys are complaining that the AI for once is using the rules of the game to its favor instead of throwing itself recklessly at a bottleneck set up by the player?

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No, and I admire the AI for what it did, even if it did stand at the tower stupidly for a bit. I'm just annoyed that RTW doesn't give me an option to surrender and recognize that I lost without me dying entirely. I gave them a near pyrrhic victory, but since the AI would not finish the battle, nor could I, and with no game mechanic to surrender, I had to choose exit battle, which gave them back entire units I killed.

Yep it can be pretty annoying that the A.I often recovers 1/2 of their casualties after battle if "you lose". Makes it a lot harder to wither them down with skirmishing horse archers or some such.

Battle time limit is the only answer. It's not that bad either. I used to always have it off, as I felt it didn't make sense but I've started using it recently and it works well. 45 minutes should be plenty for any battle, and if not, a Draw is a nice result for a full day's battle.

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Originally Posted by Wonderland

Battle time limit is the only answer. It's not that bad either. I used to always have it off, as I felt it didn't make sense but I've started using it recently and it works well. 45 minutes should be plenty for any battle, and if not, a Draw is a nice result for a full day's battle.

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Perhaps I'll give it a try, but, in the case of that battle, it was well over an hour, though the first hour was mostly me trying to get the AI to do a stupid assualt.

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Originally Posted by Wonderland

Battle time limit is the only answer. It's not that bad either. I used to always have it off, as I felt it didn't make sense but I've started using it recently and it works well. 45 minutes should be plenty for any battle, and if not, a Draw is a nice result for a full day's battle.

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*pops out of lurking*

I used to play with time limits on in vanilla, until I failed to take Athens because of the damn timer, when it was in a situation where the enemy had no possible way of winning, and my troops were marching into the town center :furious3: :wall:

But, the annoying "enemy just sits" happens often enough that I might start using it again.

*pops back into lurking*

Whoa... there's a rare sighting. 2 posts in 2.5 years? I wonder what the first one was......

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Originally Posted by Gazius

No game mechanic to surrender

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Umm, I think that a surrender at that point would mean all your guys would be killed. Since you've killed a majority of their force, I mean. Also there's no chivalry in ancient times.

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Originally Posted by bovi

Umm, I think that a surrender at that point would mean all your guys would be killed. Since you've killed a majority of their force, I mean. Also there's no chivalry in ancient times.

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Then let them die. I didn't really expect them to survive, and my exit battle killed them all anyways, I just want my kills on their force registered. Or in the case where neither can attack, a return to siege/strategic mode. A relatively simple piece of game code I would assume. Eh, whatever.

Oh, in that case Exit Battle is your friend, and does just that. The kills are registered, however some casualties are healed for the victor, sometimes a lot of them.

I think siege battles end once the attacker has no siege equipment and all defenders are within the walls. But of course it's a bug that the AI won't finish the job by picking up the siege equipment in the first place.

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Originally Posted by bovi

Oh, in that case Exit Battle is your friend, and does just that. The kills are registered, however some casualties are healed for the victor, sometimes a lot of them.

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But... entire units sprung back up. First kill I made was of 3-cubit arrows. I had both calvary units on them, and I made sure all 60 died. How did it spring back to life as if uninjured? Perhaps I'll experiment on this more.