Have you Seen My General?

[Stuie]

The "withdraw" command basically routs your troops, and the computer calculates losses for them just like any other routing unit fleeing from a battle.

Has anyone tried ordering their attackers over the red line to withdraw rather than routing them off the field with the so-called "withdraw" command? Can they even cross the red line? Maybe not. If possible, I wonder if this would make a difference... There has to be some way to disengage without losing half your army.

[Colovion]

I posted a thread almost exactly the same as this one a week or so back. I was fighting the Dacians as Julii. Long story short I got slaughtered by their full Falxmen army and ran away with 1/3 of them - losing every single one of them plus my 7 Star 6 Management General. It's a bug that you lose all troops which don't take the city but instead are defeated at the gates. This is true even if you take no casualties and are just there to harrass the enemy with some Horse Archers and press the Withdraw button. Booo-Urns.

[hoof]

Make sure that he's really dead (check your faction family tree). Often the computer will "retreat" your troops clear back to a neighboring city. Thus, he may be hanging out in one of your cities and you don't even know. Sometimes this automatic movement is done very fast (the game thinks you want "fast movements" or something).

If the unit was at near full strength, it is very unlikely he was killed by the game unless he had nowhere to retreat to.

Amphibious assaults have this problem too. Sometimes the army will retreat back to a ship, and disappear from the strat map. Clicking on the ships in the area might show that they now have your army.

Pull up the faction family tree. Click on living guys until you see him (assuming you don't spot him right away). If his scroll comes up, click the magnifying glass icon in the corner of the scroll. The game will center on his current location.

The advantage of generals vs regular armies is that you can use the faction family tree to track them down. With lone units (like Horse Archers mentioned above), they could move a whole province and into a city, and you'll think they're dead (then scratch your head as to how that city suddenly has some extra units). I'm not saying there isn't a bug, but lets rule out the known behavior first.