Losing an entire army by withdrawing

Yesterday I made the worst tactical blunder so far in the game, I decided to assault a Julii town (I'm playing as the Brutii) The town had large walls and I decided to assault it immediately as my spy had opened the gates. I had no onagers and decided to to rush the gates. This was a tactical blunder from hell as I forgot about boiling oil. First my urban cohorts go shot to snailsnot by the machine gun towers and then the Julii managed to stop them at the gates where they got....boiled alive. In my foolishness I had rushed half my army (most of my infantry) at the gates counting on Smackum Maximus....or momentum would get me through the enemy lines

Unfortunetly my men just got stuck in the gates and even when I had crushed the opposition guarding the gates my men had a hard time getting out of the there being stuck. While I listended to the screams of my dying men the Julii reinforcements finally turned up and I decided to leg it. I withdrew about 700 men from the siege and counted myself lucky....but what happens, in the after battle screen it said that I had killed about 600 julii soldiers and lost about the same number to them but when I looked at the stats it said that I had lost all my men except 23 and the general...even the soldiers who never took part in the fight. When I returned to the campaign map my army just fell down and died

What the f#!" happended to my 700 men and the general???? What was the point of of withdrawing if I was going to lose my entire army and general???

They deserted.

I knew that armies that had no movement points left after a battle largely disappeared when routed. I didn't know it could happen after a siege.

I had this happen to me the second day I owned the game - very annoying.


Tip for future:

Never withdraw from a siege, for some reason you can't hold a siege for numerous turns and if you withdraw.... well you know.

This happens during sieges even if relativly little combat happens, or none. Say you're being sieged and you want to try and slip some reinforcements in from the other side of the city (which I guess in a way is unfair, cuz the AI is too stupid too block them even if they hugely outnumber them). So you do a sortie, and maybe your towers kill some enemy or you send a few skirmishers out. You get a successful sortie/close victory by killing maybe 50-100 soldiers and poof, huge enemy stacks will disappear. Sometimes all of them, sometimes maybe just the ones who came in as reinforcements (not the one who initiated the siege). CA really needs to look at this.

still looking for more evidence, but it seems withdrawing armies get decimated in two different scenarios:
1) when they move up to an enemy army/city, while they may still have movement points, they get the red-ring around the stack. They still have MPs left, but once they enter the zone-of-control of an enemy army/city they can't move any further that turn unless they attack and win. If they attack and lose they take heavy losses or even get wiped out.
2) they withraw from battle, but due to the geography, they have little to no room to withdraw - heavy losses or complete destruction often result.

side note: worked in my favor last night. playing as carthage (hard/hard) and the julii, with whom i'd basically had just naval skirmishes with for 20 years, sneak in an invasion fleet and drop 2 stacks right next to carthage. My main defensive fleet had been pulled away chasing down some numidian and senate ships to the east. I rush over my main army from sicily to relieve the siege but odds still very much against me: 2500 julii vs 1500 carth (plus some 500 worthless town garrison type fodder - peasant and town militia). Split my main army so my elephants and some cav would appear on their flanks. Battle starts and I realize "Oops!", the two julii stacks led by seperate generals, meaning they should both appear at the same time. Then, another "Oops!", i forgot my town garrison is led by a general, and now his mostly worthless scrap will also appear on the field under his control, most probably muddying the waters further. I finally commence battle and to my relief both my town garrison force and the roman's 2nd force are "delayed" and nowhere on the field. But, my flanking elephants and 2-3XP cav are also "delayed". So, what I thought was going to be a monster battle of 4 seperate armies turned into a more standard 16 vs 16 unit battle. Used my cav superiority to pull the roman's apart and chopped up piecemeal. After battle, both roman stacks disappear since they were trapped along the coast, and had nowhere left to withdraw to. Carthage is saved!

I've also had a battle where i defeated the 1st army, got the 'would you like to continue message' and decided sure, why not? wipe out every last man. Then the enemy's large number of reinforcements arrive, and they're fighting a defensive battle, so now I've got to finish them off before the clock is over (i think). I was able to finish them, but i wonder what would have happened if i couldn't. Would i still have won since i got that message? or is it nullified because enemy reinforcements appeared after that.

Horse Archers setup a seige - waiting for main army.

Enemy sallies forth.

They lose some men, I lose none.

I run out of arrows = withdraw.


no survivors

I have a sneaking suspicion that withdrawing from a battle is treated exactly the same as having been routed off the field...