Valour Question

[Midnj]

2) Caught the French king with only his escort, and a unit of archers.
However, even though I had numerous more men (300) Everyone
started to rout after just taking a few losses. Had quality troops with
valour points (1-3) General valour 3. Why did this happen? French
king did have high valour number (5-6), or was it his dread number,
which was also high? Maybe its a bug? As I see it, I don't care how
experienced you are, with those kind of odds you are going down.

Here's a list of morale hits. A cav charge by heavy cavalry into low quality infantry (that lacks valor) can rout them instantly (things like peasants, urban militia, etc). That immediately adds a huge morale penalty to all of your units which are in proximity. Throw in your units taking archer fire and the fact that any unit engaged with that French king is likely to be losing badly and you have a chain rout in the works.

The biggest hit will likely come from routing friends, though. When you're in a situation like that, take your toughest unit and have him engage the king initially, then start piling troops on its flank/rear. It would also help to immediately rout his archers.

The list:

Disordered or Loose Formation
units in loose formation or in disorderd ranks suffer -2 moral

Outnumberd By Enemy Forces
2 to 1 Suffer -4 moral
10 to 1 Suffer as large as -12
Also factored is quality and speed of enemy too.

Threats To Flanks
-2 moral penalty if one flank is threatened
-6 moral penalty if 2 flanks or 1 flank and rear is threatened
-4 moral penalty if charged into flank
-6 moral penalty if infantry is charged into flank by calvery
-8 moral penalty if hidden unit is charged into flank

Generals Death
-8 moral penalty
then only -2 moral penaly after a few secounds
(dosen't apply to highly disciplined units)

Routing Friends
up to -12 moral penalty if 2 units are routed
(only applys to units of equal or higher level of others)

Casualties
10% casualty rate suffer -2 moral
50% casualty rate suffer -8 moral
80% and higher casualty rate suffer -12 moral

Taking Enemy Fire
being shot at by missle suffer -2 moral
plus additonal -4 moral if shot at by weapons
that create fear

Skirmishing
missle units being pursued long distances as fast as they are suffer -6 moral
Moral drops by another -6 moral
if skirmishers run out of ammo

Fatigue
Very tired units suffer -3 moral
Exahsted units suffer -6 moral
Completely Exahsted units suffer -8 moral

Losing
up to -8 moral loss depending on how badly your lossing
For infantry losing to calvery another -6 moral is possible

[Lonewarrior]

It may have been all that was mention before and if your soldiers where tired too, that counts towards routing