I had a couple of humilating near-defeats recently - still fresh in my mind. It was nice not to have lost all together, but it was pretty embarassing that I let it get so close.

I was playing as Novograd. I had a stack-and-a-half sitting in Khazar for many years, facing a smaller stack of Turks in Georgia. No problems - I didn't pay them much mind as I outnumbered them pretty well, and my stack was lead by a four-star general. What I didn't notice was that the Turkish stack grew to include five Ghulam body guards - and the rest was filled out with some nasty infantry. I had some vikings, spears, couple of steppe heavies and a lot of horse archers - my general was a Druz cav (dismounted). They attacked when I wasn't looking - I figured I would do OK as I outnumbered them by quite a bit. I had a good position on a hill, but they flanked with all their cav to one side and I couldn't hold them - even threw my steppe heavies into it, but they evaporated. My line of infantry was heavily engaged when the Gulams wheeled into them from behind. I desperation threw my general into the back of the Ghulams, but then they were engaged by some infantry and got stuck - pretty soon they were cut to peices and running off the field. I did eventually win, but only because I had a lot of reinforcements - mostly horse archers. I brought on masses of horse archers to distract and harrass the tired Turks - I eventually shot the rest of their Ghulams to pieces and they left, but not after nearly destroying my army. My general got the "good runner" vice.

But I thought the vice was a little unfair, and I decided to RP a little. My general became obsessed with winning back his reputation and he went on the attack. I got him a new stack of troops and together with his remaining men he fought several battles, actually gaining a star and the "expert attacker" virtue. I started thinking that moral penalty was something I could ignore. Then the large hand of reality slapped me again. He was beseiging a fortification and about to assault when the Turks sallied with an almost all cav army, this time supplemented with camels. I get brazen and after narrowly defeating the first wave so I advanced out of my position towards the fleeing Turks. That's when their next wave arrived - before my reinforcements could arrive I was beset by camel warriors and heavy infantry. Everyone started fleeing - I couldn't hold any of my cav on the field. The camels and the turkish foot started mercilessly slaying my infantry. Then my general just up and runs. And runs. And runs. The only thing that saved me was that my reinforcements included a lot of archers, and they made short work of the camels. After that I was able to hold on long enough to win a very disatisfying victory. This time my general got the "coward" vice - minus 9 moral or some such. Five stars or not, I sent him slinking home - I'm thinking of using a spy on him now.