Huge unfair feature in the game?

[Sirrvs]

I may be wrong about that but I've always been puzzled by the way the turn based part of the game works. Say you attack a province. After you've placed your attacking army on the province and end your turn, the enemy has the ability to move troops in and out of the province (like if it was weakly defended, it can move troops from another province over to match your forces). What I don't get is the human player doesn't seem to have this option. Once an enemy moves their piece onto my province, the only way for me to bring reinforcements is if my troops retreat to the castle. Perhaps this is the only way possible with a turn-based game but it seems the human is at a huge disadvantage here.

[desdichado]

possibly it is a disadvantage for the human but considering the AI is less than stellar I don't think it is much of a problem. Also it seems to me be inconsistent, sometimes the AI seems to be able to move pieces in response and other times it doesn't.

[Tomcat]

In addition to your example Sirrvs, I have also had the situation where after moving my attacking forces into an enemy Province during my turn to attack it, the AI has moved some of my attacking forces back into their original Province to fight a defence in that original Province where the AI moved forces in to attack during its turn . This has happened both in STW-WE and MTW-VI and is certainly not what I wanted.

Tomcat

[English assassin]

@ Sirrvs, yes the AI gets to move after you and I am quite sure it looks at what you have done before it does so. If you can invade a potentially reinforcing province with 100 peasants at the same time it seems to me more of the forces stay put to fight that invasion.

@Tomcat I think what happens is igf your province is invaded that battle is fought first. Certainly I have had that happen to me, but I don't know if it always happens of if its random. If it does the troops you moved out to invade somewhere else are moved back to fight the invasion. It can certainly lead to some tricky attacks...

[Tomcat]

English Assassin - yes, it certainly does not seem to happen every time, just very occasionally and usually when you are doing several troop moves in one turn into different "adjacent" Provinces. I guess it is the AI's way of getting its own back at you lol !

At least you can always withdraw from an attacking battle if you are significantly outnumbered without losing anything, while on defence, if you decide to withdraw and have no castle, you stand a very good chance of losing the buildings you had in the Province, unless you can counter-attack the next turn, so it definitely "costs you". Can lead to some "interesting" situations as you say.

Tomcat

[Sinner]

Tomcat: Withdrawing from a battle might save your units, but your general can easily start to acquire a reputation as a coward, acquiring vices that can devastate the morale of your troops.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

In addition to your example Sirrvs, I have also had the situation where after moving my attacking forces into an enemy Province during my turn to attack it, the AI has moved some of my attacking forces back into their original Province to fight a defence in that original Province where the AI moved forces in to attack during its turn
Tomcat

I've used this in reverse to my advantage. If I know where the AI's relief force is coming from, I can throw a single sacrificial unit over the border in the opposite direction to force them to stay to fight a battle in their territory. Very useful to ensure a siege reaches its planned conclusion.

[Lonewarrior]

I agree its a little annoying and fustrating at some times, but it rarely happens on my copy of mtw, so I just ignore it when it happens.

[English assassin]

I might be wrong but calling off the attack before entering the battle gets you the "hesitant" vice whereas starting the battle but marching your whole army straight off the battlefield does not. I am not quite sure though because once I am on the battlefield I usually think I might as well have a go. I am sure that if you withdraw your general, rather than have him rout, he doesn't get "good runner" (but if he goes too many battles without combat he eventually starts down the "not so bold" line).

[lancer63]

I've used this in reverse to my advantage. If I know where the AI's relief force is coming from, I can throw a single sacrificial unit over the border in the opposite direction to force them to stay to fight a battle in their territory. Very useful to ensure a siege reaches its planned conclusion.

Been there, done that, have a T-shirt And not much help has it brought to my domination games. The VI AI either confronts the sacrificial unit but still sends a sizable reinforcement to the other prov. or it ignores my puny attack and retreats to the castle some units but still sends reinforcements.
Better to have a 'secondary' expeditional force invade reinforcing provinces and treat it as a valid target. The AI goes nuts dealing with multiple invasions + you get to have snow battles pretty fast. Love those blinding blizzards and wolves howling.

[Tomcat]

Talking of sieges, I am very surprised in MTW that if an enemy sallies forth from a castle to attempt to relieve the siege and although you win that defend battle, you cannot kill/capture all the enemy forces, you then lose more troops during the SAME turn for besieging the castle which has not yet fallen.

Now I understand both you and the enemy lose some troops for besieging the castle and not attacking it during a turn, but when you are "forced" to defend because the enemy sallies forth to try and relieve the siege, either with or without his external reinforcements coming into the province, it is a bit galling for you to lose more troops because you did not/could not attack the castle that turn since he came out to meet you!

Tomcat