Siege Defense Bug & Trait Bug

[mucky305]

I looked through the first 25 pages of the forum to find something similar to this issue and couldn't so I'm posting a new topic. I noticed that when defending against sieges in some cities, when the battle starts, the gates are already broken open and it doesn't seem to be something I can fix by either building new walls in that city or by restarting the game. How can I solve this? I also noticed that some FM's are getting anti-traits in wild swings. For example, I had one FM go from Insanely Brave to Ruled by Fear. He was one of my best generals and had never lost a battle nor run away from one in his 30+ years on the battlefield. What gives? Thanks in advance for the help.

[Mediolanicus]

I can't help you with the traits, but the broken gates means your spies have opened the gates for you. (or enemy spies have opened them if you are defending)

[mucky305]

Can the gates be repaired after the battle?

[bovi]

Generals need to actively participate in combat to avoid getting a name for themselves as being primarily concerned about their safety. Here participate means that the general personally kills at least one enemy (shouldn't be hard at all if he's in combat). Routing gives a lot of coward points too, but that isn't relevant here. Lazy and/or selfish and/or disloyal people have a larger chance of being cowards.

Similarly, personally killing lots of enemies and/or staying the battle while the bodyguard is being torn to shreds gives bravery points. Energetic people are more likely to be noticed as brave, and temples concerning battle also promotes bravery.

Edit: Gates are automatically repaired, whether you choose to or not. I'm surprised that you haven't seen this in RTW vanilla.

[Cimon]

Can the gates be repaired after the battle?

The gates don't need to be repaired as they aren't damaged. Rather, they are just open because there is an enemy spy in your settlement, and he is opening the gates for the enemy (as in treachery by someone in the city). If you want to avoid the problem, you should station some of your own spies in your own cities. It's not a guarantee, but having your own spies in your settlement will help remove the enemy spies. Once those spies are outside, they can't open the gates.

[mucky305]

Thanks all for the help. I do regularly station spies in my cities just for that reason. I thought the gate thing was a bug because the gates look "busted" open on the battlefield map and were that way after the battle in the settlement view (when you zoom in from the campaign map). I can't remember if I waited a turn or two to check it again, but it definitely sounds like I should. The trait thing just threw me for a loop as it seemed a guy could go from being Rambo to Phil Donahue in a matter of turns and I didn't see anything that would explain it. However, I don't always use my generals in battles and that probably set it off so thanks for the clarification.