Heroic Death my @#~*!

[Tora]

AI stupidity seems to extend to the players forces too, as I suppose they are also AI to a large extent.

As the British, I'd overrun a French force near the Mississippi and decided to click continue to prevent any survivors popping up elsewhere. I sent my General's bodyguard to join the pursuit and sat back with a cup of tea.
Almost immediately up flashed the red skull, the bodyguard was down from 24 to 6 men and routing. Closer examination revealed Dale Jarrett and his 'finest' impaled on a chevaux de frise which the enemy had carelessly left lying around, the good General being incapable of finding a way round it.

'Dale Jarrett - Brains of a rocking horse but he died bravely'

[al Roumi]

ah. Unlucky.

Trusting auto-resolve and continue battle in that way can lead to some really annoying re-plays.

[anweRU]

You have to be careful with those things. In one battle, I sent a Swedish cavalry unit (60 men mind you) chasing after a routing enemy. The buggers lead the cavalry into one of those traps. The cavalry started to die immediately. I didn't notice initially, as I was busy with the rest of the battle. By the time I got to them, the cavalry was about down to a third, and about to rout. All my attempts to make them stop, and move slowly were wasted. They routed, and further proceeded to kill themselves.

By the end, the entire unit was wiped out...

[Slaists]

AI stupidity seems to extend to the players forces too, as I suppose they are also AI to a large extent.

As the British, I'd overrun a French force near the Mississippi and decided to click continue to prevent any survivors popping up elsewhere. I sent my General's bodyguard to join the pursuit and sat back with a cup of tea.
Almost immediately up flashed the red skull, the bodyguard was down from 24 to 6 men and routing. Closer examination revealed Dale Jarrett and his 'finest' impaled on a chevaux de frise which the enemy had carelessly left lying around, the good General being incapable of finding a way round it.

'Dale Jarrett - Brains of a rocking horse but he died bravely'

Don't get me started about the battlefield AI... The other day I got dragged into a battle by my AI ally. My ally had a superior force (relative to the opponent) so I decided to sit back and watch, what it will do.

1. AI's general lost half of it's unit by taking his time walking(!) through his artillery units while they were firing at the enemy (the enemy was out of range, BTW).

2. While all of my AI ally's units were melee-style bunched up on the enemy's center, AI's artillery continued firing longshots right into the middle of the bunch - effectively, the backs of their own troops. It did not take too long for my ally's artillery to rout their own army (which had quality and number superiority over the enemy at the start of the battle); the general bit the dust in the process too...

The battle AI is as stupid as it can possibly be...

Luckily, I did not send my troops anywhere near that carnage before the ally's arty routed.

[Marquis of Roland]

Chasing routers still incur casualties since, once caught up, routers will turn around and defend themselves. That being said, even without sticks in the ground, chasing routers with your general is very risky.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Cavalry in ETW has this habit of getting impaled even when walking through stakes. Artillery horse units as well. Those stakes must be brilliantly camouflaged.

About casualties while chasing routers - this was one annoying "feature" in Shogun, if I remember well. I don't really dislike it - as a matter of fact, routing units shouldn't be brainless, some should be able to fight back, it's logical.

What I think it's unrealistic is besieging armies (on campaign map) not suffering any casualties during a 2 or 3 years siege, while the garrison slowly dies in filth, disease and boredom, most of all.

[Flavius Gonzo]

Arg. Haven't lost a general this way, but I did loose an entire, full strength, 3 chevronned unit of missle cav last night the same way anweRU did. Just like he described, I'd caught it happening pretty quickly, but even after ordering the unit to halt, they tried to group together between two lines of pointy sticks, which impalled more of them, and then routed, which impalled the remaining ones.

It is times like these that make you realize you are definitely playing a game and not commanding real units of men. Because some times you wish you could be explicit in your orders, e.g:

"Chase that unit of infantry off the battlefield. But make sure you go around those huge point sticks."

or

"Yes, you may fire canister shot at will. But it goes without saying that you should not fire cannister shot directly down the axis of our own lines if a unit of enemy cav attacks at one of our flanks."

[Marquis of Roland]

"Yes, you may fire canister shot at will. But it goes without saying that you should not fire cannister shot directly down the axis of our own lines if a unit of enemy cav attacks at one of our flanks."

I figured that one out. It happens when you have selected a unit and for whatever reason are unable to target it anymore (i.e. destroyed, out of range, stealthed, etc.). If fire-at-will is on, the artillery will switch to another target (which may or may not be good, depending on how close said unit is to your men); however if it has no unit to select, it will methodically make a 90 degree turn to the side and unload whatever ammunition you were firing down your line.

To avoid this, limber up or click on a spot on the ground far away from your own men for the artillery to have something to aim at.

[Veho Nex]

Yeah reminds me of a fight I just had. Charged with my general but told him to slam on the breaks when I noticed he was running into a wall of death... He stopped, long enough for one of my cannons to come down and take him out, soon after the entire unit stricken with grief over the lost general decided they needed to end it all. They calmly walked to the stakes, and plunged head first into them... Why my cannon was firing at my general I dont think I will ever know..

[Ishmael]

Don't forget guys, AI stupidity (and big pointy sticks) can also work in your favour-in the midst of the vicious melee in Goa, the elephant-mounted Maratha general marched his troops in single file into the only cheveaux-de-frise in the city, where they walked forwards against it for a few seconds and then keeled over. The death of the general and the routing of his bodyguard unit won me the battle in the end.

[dulsin]

I had a puckle gun sitting in my line once and I left it on autofire.

When I came back to the unit I found a large pile of dead sitting just to it's left. It was engaging a unit to the far left and clipping the line infantry next to it. The amazing thing was that as each of the line infantry died to friendly fire the unit would dress the lines placing another victim in front of the puckle guns targets.

I was so amazed that I just sat there and watched 2/3 of the unit take it's turn in the meat grinder.