Death under the desert sun

I'm playing as the Arche Seleukia. I sent a 1/2 stack expeditionary force down to try to exterminate the Saba before they could become obstreperous. The stack didn't include a FM and I quickly discovered that I couldn't get public order high enought to hold any of the Saba cities. Howver, in a series of battles, sieges, and musical rebelling cities, with great joy, I managed to kill all the Saba FMs, destroying the faction. I had three armies left at this point of 4 units, 1 unit, and 1 unit respectively. I started moving them back north to regroup and reinforce because I couldn't hold any of the former Saba towns with them anyway. On the eleuthoroi turn, the eleuthoroi attacked each army in turn and I just retreated to avoid combat. With each retreat, there was a despairing wail. On my turn, I realized all three armies had evaporated. I can't recall this ever having happened to me before. Is this a function of retreating in the desert? Or is it maybe because none of them had any movement points left? All three armies had used all of their movement points, but I was given the option to retreat by the computer. Any advice would be appreciated.

woirble

Sounds like you were deep into rebel territory with no adjacent friendly province. In this case the game considers that you have nowhere to retreat to and your armies disband. This no-retreat situation is indicated by a small red skull icon in the pre-battle screen. Did you have that?

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Originally Posted by I of the Storm

This no-retreat situation is indicated by a small red skull icon in the pre-battle screen.

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AFAIK the computer doesn't even give you the option to retreat when there is the small skull... not sure though

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Originally Posted by SunShadow

AFAIK the computer doesn't even give you the option to retreat when there is the small skull... not sure though

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Correct: the Fight to Death icon ensures also that the in-battle option to retreat is greyed out, and Ctrl+W doesn't work either.

This man gets bonus points for using the word "obstreperous".

How come the AI can retreat half the map to a friendly province?

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Originally Posted by Tom0

How come the AI can retreat half the map to a friendly province?

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Because they're the AI.

Seems unfair..oh wait the AI needs help

Yes, my armies were very far from any friendly territory when they retreated. They were down at the south end of the Arabian pennisula and the nearest thing I owned at the time was Petra. So that must have been the cause.

I don't recall whether there was a red skull on the battle options screen. I doubt it since I was allowed to retreat.

Thanks for the advice.

woirble