AI generals too influential?

**Sakkura** · 05-26-2007, 22:23

I agree the kill ratio (and how fast things were killed) in RTW was ridiculous. However, in my opinion the morale was not nearly as bad. In EB you routinely see units that have to lose 80% or more of their strength before routing, which seems incorrect to me. And too many units seem to simply fight to the last man without routing - to my knowledge that was quite rare historically, limited to special units like the Sacred Band of Thebes?

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 05-26-2007, 23:31

It's difficult. Historically routs were usually catastrophic and the cascade effect was much more pronounced. Once part of your phalanx routs there's a gaping hole in your defence and then everyone usually takes a holiday.

It's very difficult to balance. Often the killing didn't begin in earnest until the rout. We can't model that in EB, panic doesn't start until men start dieing. In reality it usually starts when you realise the enemy isn't going to cave.

The only time you do yet the right effect is when a general dies and the army's infantry gets hit in the back by heavy cav.

**Danest** · 05-26-2007, 23:51

The generals are almost always tough, but I've only experienced the lone super-man general a few times. Rarely enough that I suspect it's a glitch or something rather than the norm (my elephants pushed a lone general around the town square for a few minutes before he finally died). Every once in while, a general will still die with startling speed.

**LordCurlyton** · 05-27-2007, 04:57

Agreed. I am a big fan of the much greater balance in EB and only when you get a general with stacked hitpoint bonuses do you get totally crazy results. And since I've been on a Hellenic faction spree, whenever I encounter an ungodly I just whip his army and then surround him with 4-6 phalanxes. As long as you can trigger its "Fighting to the Death" bit you're golden, and a square of phalanx pikes never fails to do so.