King in battle, but wasn't the general!

[Alexios]

Another reason your peasants may have died is crossfire from your central fort, as they would have walked into the line of fire. If you'd left them by the gate, all would have been well...

I thought about this also, but I don't recall seeing arrows on the unit icon indicating they were under missile file. (Does this even show up when its friendly fire as opposed to enemy fire?) And I had lost them while they were still positioned at the gate, which was a fair distance away from where the AI was attacking.

I'm thinking about reloading the saved file for that year and see what happens. Not sure if I can get the AI logic to follow the same pathway as before, however. I shall see.