Something weird happened on the road to Bononia ;)

[Dutchhoplite]

In my Epirote campaign i'm slowly moving the Epirote main army towards Bononia. Attacked by a large Roman army and unable to retreat i deployed my phalanx and waited for the tough battle to commence.

I moved my 4 missile units forward and they started "firing" at the enemy. I was quite suprised when the entire Roman army legged it after taking taking a few casualties

Normal behaviour??

[Hax]

They did this to me once. I killed their general with a slingshot and they retreated.

[Happy balroae]

its happened to me before when the ptolemies attacked and then they retreated their whole army whithout taking any casualties. it happens every now an then but i dont no why

[Dooz]

Awesome.

Wish something like that would happen to me. Wonderful touch of random realism.

[Senshi]

Perhaps you should advies your troops to wash on a regularly basis so the smell doesn't scare the enemies off?

[polluxlm]

Happens to me all the time. I should scale down my stacks.

[Sdragon]

It's very common. It's annoying going to be battle map, sorting out your formation. Just to have the enemy flee before first contact. If you a HA army it's just giving you a chance to destroy half an army.

[Ibrahim]

They did this to me once. I killed their general with a slingshot and they retreated.

remineded them too much of cannae (one of the generals was killed by slingshot).

that happens all the time with me. my stacks are usually massive anyways..

[Apgad]

I had something similar when beseiging a city. A small relief force attacked my 3/4 stack while the 1/2 stack garrison came out as reinforcements. I got rid of the relief force pretty quickly, and then set up a defensive position with a few ambushes. But the reinforcements marched straight to the nearest hill and stayed there.

It's almost like the garrison General was thinking that the Captain leading the relief was a moron for attacking with so few soldiers, and wasn't going to lead his men to suicide. But he also could stay inside the city in case his soldiers thought he was a chicken!

[bovi]

I think this is because the measurements of armies' strength is somewhat different on the campaign map and the battle map. For instance, missile units with much ammunition seems to be given considerably more weight in strength calculation on the battle map. This strength is kept until the ammo runs out, at which point they are suitably reduced in perceived strength to the weaklings they are with no real weapons left. I think the AI will decide that it is too weak to win and will rather retreat without losses than be slaughtered (if only it had as good judgement more often!).

This is based solely on casual observation, not knowledge of the AI routines or exhaustive study. The only thing I *know* is that the measurements are different in the battle and the campaign maps at times, you can see this easily if you remember the presumed battle odds and compare.

[Maion Maroneios]

It happens to all sometime. I guess it's just that the AI realises it's stupidity and decides to flee

[Kromulan]

This happened a few times in Vanilla, but it seems a bit more prevalent in EB. My assumption is the calculation (in battle) was adjusted for version 1.5. I don't think I played a lot of 1.5 Vanilla. . .

When is happens to me I just sing the "Ballad of Sir Robbin". Or I just silently curse the AI for wasting my time. . .

[Barae]

I had a similar occasion:

In my Getai campaign I had set up a horse archer army to take the cities without walls around me (mostly in the north) after they did this I went to take a city with a wall, I thought: big deal, I just had to split my army and only send half at the city so that they would come out from thier walls and attack me. The icon appears in the eleutheroi turn, i go to fight on the map; all in a hurry I split my army into small groups to control them better and then I notice it: the enemy isnt actually trying to move out, they must have had a image of me a bit like this one (them being the smilie)

[hoom]

This is something that has been around since Shogun:TW.
AI doesn't seem to take valour/honour into account on the campaign map, but gets scared when they realise they are up against a hardened veteran army rather than raw recruits.

In the extreme case I once had a ~2500 strong, but nearly all Ashigaru (peasants) AI army retreat from my 16 Kensai (jedi) army.

An interesting thing with the retreat is that they'll normally make a mass move forward, feigning an attack before turning tail, so I often find myself making adjustments to my lines to deal with the apparent form of the attack, then realise too late that actually only one or two units carried forward any distance & are acting as rear-guard.
By that time its normally too late to inflict any real damage on the retreating army & the rear-guard is often something like Pedites Extraordinarii that you don't really want to let light cav. engage.

[Conqueror]

I've seen that too. The AI is remarkably smart in it's retreat, making it very difficult to exploit for any serious damage. Unless you're playing one of the nomadic factions with a horse archer army - then you get to laugh and shoot at their backs.