Disappearing Army

**Africanus** · 03-03-2011, 10:45

Does anybody know the criteria for an army to just disappear when retreating from a battle? I've seen it before in earlier campaigns when I was fighting in the desert against the Saba, and I attributed it to being in the harsh climate. In this case, I was laying seige to Adrumeto with a bribed general, trying to wear down the two units of elites stationed there, and was planning to retreat when that full stack to the south came to its rescue. When they attacked me during the next AI turn, when I retreated, my entire army was wiped out and the attacking army didn't lose a single man.

Is this a bug or standard?

**Captain Jazzy** · 03-03-2011, 11:11

It's to do with escape routes, it can happen on islands or in the steppe. It may also be linked to movement points. Did the army have the fight to the death symbol next to them when the battle scroll came up?

**Africanus** · 03-03-2011, 11:16

Originally Posted by Captain Jazzy

It's to do with escape routes, it can happen on islands or in the steppe. It may also be linked to movement points. Did the army have the fight to the death symbol next to them when the battle scroll came up?

No.

**XSamatan** · 03-03-2011, 14:35

The army has no safe spot to retreat to (own province, fleet), this is a hardcoded 'feature' of RTW, so it vanishes.
You can prevent it by having a fleet nearby and sieging the city from the coast.

XSamatan

**Lazy O** · 03-03-2011, 18:28

A work around is to go in the battlemap and press W. They retreat even further.

**Africanus** · 03-04-2011, 02:54

Originally Posted by XSamatan

The army has no safe spot to retreat to (own province, fleet), this is a hardcoded 'feature' of RTW, so it vanishes.
You can prevent it by having a fleet nearby and sieging the city from the coast.

XSamatan

I see, thanks. I assumed my army would have retreated towards Kart Hardast. Guess not.

Originally Posted by Lazy O

A work around is to go in the battlemap and press W. They retreat even further.

So are you saying if I would have taken it to the mat and retreated from there my army wouldn't have vanished? I might have to go back to that point and try that. I was pretty happy with myself bribing a strong, young S/C/V general with a full stack after my consular army had raided Kart Hadast and Atiqa and headed back to Italy. I had planned on using him and the troops that stayed loyal to him as harrassers while I turned my main attention to Illyria, so I wasn't real happy when he simply vanished.

**Lazy O** · 03-04-2011, 12:34

Well thats what I do but dont blame me if it still dissapears.

**Taedius** · 03-04-2011, 14:25

The army will still need somewhere to retreat to, won't it?

**Atraphoenix** · 03-04-2011, 22:03

I had this once it cost me a consul and many good legionaires then I saw that I needed a navy to back them up in case of defeat.

**Africanus** · 03-04-2011, 23:42

Originally Posted by Lazy O

Well thats what I do but dont blame me if it still dissapears.

Originally Posted by Taedius

The army will still need somewhere to retreat to, won't it?

Well, that didn't work. During the battle I never had an option to retreat, and even though my general survived the battle, the army still completely disappeared when it went back to the campaign map.

What did work was I lifted the siege and moved away from the settlement before hitting end turn. Their full stack did not attack me during the AI turn, so then I was able to get to a bridge on my next turn and take advantage of the bridge exploit if needed.

That said, I think I'm just going to live with that army getting annihilated - lesson learned.