I ~HATE~ when this happens.

[NodachiSam]

The so called jedi general effect, demonstrated.

The backstory of this battle is that I see on opportunity to kill the mongol leader due to my now expansive navy and gather up some a few units who are apt for the job but not so many as to not dissuade him from fighting the battle.


Before the battle:
"Okay boys, kill their king. He needs to die. Don't let him run away. Kill him. That is why we sea attacked this forsaken, foul, barren, illiterate backwater province. If he is passing you trip his horse or something. Please, just please kill him"

I don't like hiking and if I had known the terrain was so hilly I would have brought another calvary unit.



Alright, the mongols have mostly fled or been killed except for their leaders unit who wasn't watching and let his main force go on ahead and get surrounded.. I have surrounded him and am about to charge him from behind and downhill with knights. The unit of spearmen that has been charged into its flank must be feeling awkward but all around this is in my favour.



So close!!



ACK He breaks through!!!!



Gone... moving pretty fast for being a heavy calvary unit. He did sit on a hill while I climbed it and fought his men so he had more energy than my men.

I suppose he broke through due to my spearmen being so thing but it still angers me. Even though I one the battle I might've wanted to lash my own men!! Especially those two numbskulls who cheerily trotted back to my other men while the mongol dog ran past them.

Well maybe not... I am serriously tempted to reload but I did gain a province and maybe the king now has a valour command, or moral decrease. I am really iffy about being able to hold the province (Khazar) unless I reinforce it and potentially weaken some of my more important boundaries. What do you guys think?

[Zarax]

Raze, pull back and retreat.

[King of Atlantis]

IT is only fair though cause you know you can do the same thing with your general.

[antisocialmunky]

I bet a mounted crossbow would have done you some good. Jedis don't use bullet time and can't dodge like Keano Reaves.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Advice: Use cannon. I decimated the Mongol Khan with the first cannonball I fired from that fortress, and his units took a huge pounding afterwards.

[Del Arroyo]

Hey MY general got KILLED by a fleeing enemy general. They were both Royal types. Go figure.

Or maybe it was the Naptha throwers... I'll never know. Talk about a gyp, though.

DA

[antisocialmunky]

Cannons suck. Arrows are the best solution to Jedis.

[voo]

mogol hvycav v4 ... nearly impossible to beat by this force - i suggest to bring some arbs over ... they usually melt dudes like this in secs.

[BAD]

Don't forget the lowly catapult. I specifically remember killing the French King with the first boulder thrown once. xD Not a bad pay off.

[Mongoose]

You should try RTW...the AI get's it general killed at the start of every battle.

[L'Impresario]

Actually kings and generals do have a "magnet" that attract artillery fire upon them, if you get them in a good spot that is. I remember I runned 5 custom battle with me taking a single gen unit and the AI a catapultv2, and most of the times the gen died within the 3-4 first shots:p

[antisocialmunky]

It doesn't help that the AI loves to focus on your general with all its artillery either.

[Martok]

Cannons suck. Arrows are the best solution to Jedis.

This has been my experience as well. A well-placed arrow or xbow-bolt often accomplishes what several hundred heavy cavalry/heavy infantry cannot.

[antisocialmunky]

Naptha and Javelins both work if you really want him dead or are getting rid of old units.

[NodachiSam]

Thanks for the tips everyone. :D

[WesW]

Actually kings and generals do have a "magnet" that attract artillery fire upon them, if you get them in a good spot that is. I remember I runned 5 custom battle with me taking a single gen unit and the AI a catapultv2, and most of the times the gen died within the 3-4 first shots:p

The AI gets a hardcoded accuracy bonus for their field volleys. Basically they are as accurate as siege volleys. Would be interesting to know if this is a bug.

[Martok]

The AI gets a hardcoded accuracy bonus for their field volleys. Basically they are as accurate as siege volleys. Would be interesting to know if this is a bug.

I suspect it's not so much a bug per se as it is a piece of code the programmers either didn't have time to review during the polishing stages, or they simply forgot about it. Or as a third possibility, perhaps it never really even occurred to them to change the code--I would guess they'd focused more on the artillery code as it applies to smashing down walls, and not so much on smashing enemy troops.

[crpcarrot]

It doesn't help that the AI loves to focus on your general with all its artillery either.

i'm not sure if this is true but seem to notice that AI artillery is way more accurate than my own even the atrillery from castles.

when the hoard attacked one of my cstles my rocks kept missing.

yesterday the garrision rebeled and had to retake the province. i think it was armenia IIRC its got the castle on a hill with no easy place to attack from all round anyway the castle artillery took out my catapult pretty quickly i think one of my catupults got hit by the first stone. anyway lost nearly 200 men to just kill 4 lousy rebels who retreated to the castle after the main battle.

anyone else notice this behaviour?

[Marquis de Said]

If you really want to capture the enemy general, take an extra unit of light cavalry that has a higher speed than heavy cavalry (mounted x-bows, steppe cavalry, saharan cav, mamluk horse archers, horse archers, tursopoles, turcoman horse etc.) and bring it near the fighting, but do not engage. Once the enemy general bolts, send the fresh light cav on his tail. Often they will catch him, as he s tired and they have a higher speed. I know this requires a lot of micro-management, but it's the best way to capture an enemy general.

[Csargo]

I've never seen the jedi effect its never happened to me before

[Martok]

I've never seen the jedi effect its never happened to me before

If that's the case, then you've not been playing Medieval long enough--or you've been very lucky. I guarantee, it'll happen to you sooner or later! The scene will play out something like this:

You'll have the battle almost completely won, with all enemy troops killed, captured, or routed--except for the enemy general and whatever is left of his unit. His few remaining defenders will fall relatively quickly, but the general himself will stubbornly refuse to die or run. You'll hurl wave after wave of troops at him, only to have your men run in terror--after losing at least half their numbers, of course. You'll probably order your missile troops to start shooting at him as well, even if it means your infantry attacking the general takes casualties from friendly fire. You may even have to send in your own general to finally deliver the coup de grace.

In the end, once the dust settles, you'll realize you've lost at least a couple hundred guys to take out just one man.

[Babij]

The AI gets a hardcoded accuracy bonus for their field volleys. Basically they are as accurate as siege volleys. Would be interesting to know if this is a bug.

Wait, does this mean that artillery is more accurate for a defender during sieges?

BTW, I've encountered the invincible general many times myself. I surround him with troops, and sure enough he just fights his way out. I'd have to say that missles are really the most effective way of taking him out. My cannons couldn't hit a castle, let alone a general. I'm off to see if there's a way to mod how much hp a general has. Obviously not a good idea to lower it too much, but if it's at 9, I'll lower it to a 6 maybe...

[Advo-san]

The jedi effect... I experience it every time I have to fight a byz cataphract general in early. Must agree arrows are the only solution..

[DensterNY]

Well I like to take a multi-stage attack when I'm after a king or prince since he is essentially a very good heavy cavalry unit that needs to die over and over again (The blessing and curse of hit points).

First, I mob him with infantry -- anything with spears or with bonuses against armor...
Second, I surround this engagement with archers and rain my arrows on the king or prince... (yes it kills my men but its a worthwhile sacrifice)
Third, I assume he will break through so I keep my cavalry on the outskirts of the battle and I smash into him with heavy cavalry - hopefully from an uphill charge.
Fourth, I run him down with lt. cavalry if he's gotten away from the heavies.

I usually get my target by the third stage and rarely does he survive into the fourth... especially as kings and princes are prideful and don't run as often as other units and will stand their exchanging with infantry as arrows are raining on him.

[antisocialmunky]

I don't find any reason to waste infantry with FF when you can sandwich him with a unit of Cav and a unit of Infantry and charge the cav in and out. It's kind of hard to explain, but the you use several untis of infantry to keep him busy and you ran cav into him until he finally dies.

[Martok]

The jedi effect... I experience it every time I have to fight a byz cataphract general in early. Must agree arrows are the only solution..

Ugh. Yes, fighting Byz katank generals are a nightmare. After going up against them, you start to realize why the Muslim factions (especially the Turks) love horse archers so much.....

[crpcarrot]

its more effective attacking generals with missles cos only a limited no of soldieres can make an attack at enemy soldiere in on attack cycle. (IIRC its only 2) but there is no limit in the number of arrows that can hit a single target. thats why missles are more effective with units with mulitple hitpoints.

my usual strategy is engage with spear take xbows to back and keep firing till he dies. of no missles available use a unit with high charge value and keep charging and withdrawing him into the back of the general. leaving the unit in melee will have no affect.

the jedi affect works both ways even for human players so i dont see it as a bug. ive read numerous players who have posted their accounts of genrals theyve had u can finifh armies single handed.

[EatYerGreens]

I recently posted in another thread with a comment about 'valour transference' (link to post), whereby the valour rating of whoever an individual fighter happens to kill, contributes to crediting his own valour score. Ironically, the better the valour of the units you send to get him, the better it'll make him as long as he keeps winning. Hence use missiles, wherever possible.

I can well believe the story about generals who beat whole armies single handed, as they'll have been accumulating the valour points from everyone they've ever slaughtered. I'm not a Star Wars fan, so I prefer the 'Highlander' analogy... Jedi is just less typing though, so I'll use that.

The routing of units which haven't even suffered casualties is something I first encountered in Shogun TW. I came to the conclusion that it's the sight of the number of valour flags carried by an enemy unit heading for them, which inspires them to rout, without ever engaging. It's as if the range has to be close enough for them to be able to see those tiny little banners for themselves. By contrast, the unit standards can be seen from a long way away. I charged my men in but, as they begin to close, they see what they're going up against, realise they haven't got a chance (at least not without support on the flanks, but STW units weren't as sensitive about that), turn tail and do a runner...

Hence the bloodless victories where the AI selects to stand and fight, you spend several minutes setting up, then a few more to march across two thirds of the map, only to see them decide to b**ger off witout a fight.

Now, with the jedi general as a man on his own, you will either not see the valour flags at all or, as I saw with a 3-man valour-6 unit the other day, they'll be floating along behind them as if carried by invisible persons. Also, once he's thick in a melee, you'll be hard pressed to spot them anyway. But this may help explain why a unit which ought to be able to totally mob him will run instead.

Another curiousity:- some game background notes I've read (I forget where)explain how spear units are supposed to be able to have their front three ranks engage simultaneously. However, in the jedi general situation, I've noticed how ordering the 100 men to attack results in 99 of them standing around like berks whilst the standard bearer (could be regarded as the unit's captain) goes 1-on-1 against this jedi.

Ensuring 'engage at will' mode is active for the unit doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Besides, you might want them in hold formation+hold position, so as to pin him in place to do the repeat cav charging and missile firing. In this mode, most of a unit will stand idle whilst only those men within a weapon's length of an enemy will be seen to do anything.

This is particularly pertinent for the valour-transference thing I was on about. If you study the battle logfiles, you'll notice that it's the front ranks of a non-missile unit (say numbers 1-20 of a 100-man unit spread 5-deep) who have the highest individual valour levels (this has to be after involvement in one or more battles where they actually scored kills, otherwise each man has only the valour they were trained at). The unit's leader is generally the best valour of the bunch, particularly so if he spawned with a star rating and, if he gets killed, probably the next best valour amongst the ranks takes over, not simply the man stood next to him in the front rank.

So the jedi general is basically bumping off the best individuals from every unit you melee into him and scoring 'points' for blatting v3, v4 level fighters, at a rate which would take hundreds of valour-0 ones to achieve the same valour credit.

Of course, if he escapes and the ensuing siege versus 1 man will take decades, costing you hundreds of beseiger casualties, I think the solution would be to not attempt to capture the province by 100% kills on the battlefield at all. Do what you can to make sure that a half to three-quarters of the castle capacity escapes, as this will help accelerate starvation/disease and reduce the siege to just a year or two, taking the jedi with them. It's pot luck whether he goes to into the castle at all or escapes to the neighbouring province though, I suppose.