Battles where you can't reach the enemy?!?!

[Rhyfelwyr]

I just fought a battle in Wales, I should have won it comfortably. I started near a cliff face, and deployed my troops just in front of it. When I started the battle, the enemy started on the far side of the map at the top end of another cliff, leaving my troops no way to reach them. I was forced to Withdraw. Is this a bug that needs fixing?

[katank]

Yes it is. Save before you enter battle. Reload and attack from a different direction or autocalc.

[Snoil The Mighty]

Yep, it's a bug. Seems to affect the Scot highlands and the Alps most. Haven't got it elsewhere. Yet. Despite all the grousing elsewhere, this is the one bug that stands out IMHO. I really enjoy the game -admittedly it appears their vision exceeded their reach, but I'll give 'em patch time to address the various issues- but the first time I ran into this I was pretty chafed.

[Forward Observer]

I have also had this happen a few times, but not that much. Once my army was on the "impossible to reach" high ground, but since I play with the timer off I was also forced to withdraw. Once or twice, by trial and error, I found a path to get to the enemy, but in at least one case my army would have been slaughtered in the process, so I withdrew anyway.

I have had the reverse of this situation where the enemy was in a valley and although there was a narrow path that they could come up it would have been suicide. Of course they were doomed anyway because I was able to rain arrows on them from a ledge without taking a single return hit.

Even if troop movement is possible in these situation usually any siege equipment simply will not move if the terrain is too steep.

It's just something you have to be aware of when in mountainous terrain.

As to whether it should be a considered a bug, I guess there are several ways to look at it. One could say it is a bug if you think that the developers always intended for one able to be able to fight and have contact with the enemy no matter what the terrain, but then another other way to look at it would be that these chance impossible situations existed in real life and the game is just duplicating that.

Of course if the latter is the case, one should also not be allowed auto-calculate the outcome just as one cannot assault a fortification when no siege equipment is present.

The bottom line for me is that it hasn't happened enough for it to be a major problem.

Cheers

[Skott]

Yeah, I've even had it happen to where I can be up high and they cant get to me. In this game you have to save before every fight. If it happens just reload and then auto calculate or withdraw.