Defeated by a phantom army.

[Didz]

I had a weird event happen to me this morning.

I was mopping up a few stray Russian revolutionaries in my Ottoman Campaign and caught a small army of them just north of Moscow, wiping them out. The army icon went through its death animation and was removed from the map as usual.

However, when I then clicked end turn a unit of Deli Cavalry which I earlier targetted on the now dead army but had forgotten to move charged up to the now vacant location on the map and tried to start a battle with the non-existent army. e.g. 45 v 0 on the battle summary table.

I just assumed it was a minor gliche and clicked auto-resolve expecting the program to realise the situation and just cancel the battle. Instead to my amazement if came back 'Close Defeat' and killed off 23 out of the 45 Deli Cavalry.

Fortunately, I was able to reload just before the end turn and next time it came up I elected to fight the battle. What then happened was that the battlefield appeared and allowed me to deploy my cavalry. Then when I clicked 'End Deployment' there was a short pause followed instantly by 'Heroic Victory'.

So, it is possible to defeat a non-existent army.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Hummmm... I would have expected for such a victory over a non existent army to happen during a French campaign bizarre, bizarre...

That's another bug for sure

[Lord Ovaat]

I experienced the same thing in my current Russian campaign. I attacked a small stack with a general, and fought the battle, leaving nothing but the general left. I forgot I'd targeted him with a full stack, and at end-turn my stack attacked: 2200 vs 0. Snicker. I autoed, and lost almost the entire stack in a crushing defeat. Yup, that's a bug. Reload.

[Feanaro]

It's a rare general who manages to lose with no enemies on the field.

[Rothe]

Maybe it was a harsh winter with really convincing looking snowmen?

[Boohugh]

I've had that bug on a GB campaign against the Spanish in NA. A full army stack lost to 0 Bowmen (I know those bowmen are overpowered but really!). Reload and fought instead of autoresolved and I won, definitely a bug there somewhere that could use fixing.

[Quillan]

Were you playing the old Avalon Hill game Rise and Fall of the Third Reich instead of ETW? That game had rules for armored units exploiting a breakthrough to encircle pockets of troops and cut them off from supply, and I used to know someone who would attack an empty hex to create a "breakthrough" so he could cut you off.

[Prussian to the Iron]

ive seen like a million of these stories. basically you just have to learn to keep track of all your armies so you dont lose them.

[Prussian to the Iron]

lol, i just thought of something.

maybe you're really playinga LotR game and yo just think youre playing E:TW. in actuality you were defeated by the army of the dead from the 3rd movie :P