So, the guys with the knives scare the guys with glorious armour and big weapons?

[Husar]

Hello, I just defended my city of Reims with a few upgraded units of halberd militia against an overwhelming force of dismounted feudal knights. My glorious army defended the town square and routed them all. Of course my militia got somewhat decimated but the only enemies left were some trbuchet and catapult crews standing around outside the city walls, having no ammunition left. Sounds like an easy win, doesn't it? Well, it does not, because most of my militia ran away before there even was an engagement. The same guys who gloriously fought against an overwhelming force of footnights would not dare to walk up to some engineers with knives...
Picture:

Well, those on the picture did engage the crew, for about a second...

Is it possible that the morale drop of artillery fire is somehow attached to the crew as well? I noticed this behaviour quite often, a catapult crew can often make my whole militia run, especially when they take or have already taken some losses. In this case, I saw no way out except ending the battle and losing the city to the catapult crew.

I hope this will be fixed.

[RZST]

that screenshot looks pretty =(, mines crappy

[Marius Dynamite]

I know, Artillery crews are overpowered.

On another note: I had a ballista and broke into my enemies city. I killed all his men except he had 14 ballista men left.. I had Feudal knights and Noble Highlanders. The Nobles had 30 men and solver chevron. I had about a minute on the town square but I wanted to kill the enemy ballista men. They had abandoned their pieces. Now my ballista was also in the city down one of the streets. I charged after the enemy ballistamen and they ran down the street, took my empty ballista and loaded it. My men were about to chop them when they fired the On-fire Firebolt and killed 10 of my men and routed them. It was like a movie.. Terrific AI manouvere and fun to watch.

[dopp]

Your militia were probably suffering morale penalties from prolonged fighting earlier and broke when ordered to charge again. Ever notice how troops that break and rally will sometimes flee again when they come within range of the enemy? I remember MTW when my entire glorious Byzantine host broke and fled soley because they were "disheartened by constant retreating from the enemy". So much for bold outflanking maneuvers...

I have lost entire late general's bodyguards to artillery crew before... no free frags in M2TW...

[Shahed]

If anyone needs to wear that much armor into combat they're pansies, so congrats on routing the pansy parade.

[Husar]

Your militia were probably suffering morale penalties from prolonged fighting earlier and broke when ordered to charge again.

That would make sense but their morale was back to normal and considerably dropped when they approached the catapult, they did not rout when they engaged some crossbowmen in the city streets. It's not a sibgle case even, I had some halberd militia rout when four units of them engaged a small army of milanese who defended a catapult, my men did not suffer any great casualties but started to run away even though they should have easily won. Those artillery crews seem to lower the morale of anything that comes close and only high morale units can keep fighting in their vicinity.

[Shahed]

What was the fatigue level of your militia ?

[dopp]

Those runes of immolation, that's what it is...