Is this cheating?

[Callicles]

A lot of times when I am besieged and I don't have sufficient forces, while the enemy is moving to wall with the rams, I charge out with my family members to put the enemy's assault in disarray. It is very effective, especially when there are stone towers.

But every time I do it, it seems like an exploit. Thoughts?

[Horst Nordfink]

No. It is insane, but not cheating.

I generally use fire-arrows before the ram gets to the gate and a phalanx unit right behind the gate just in case they get through.

In my opinion, as long as you don't auto_win, it's not cheating.

[Intranetusa]

The only type of tactic that can be considered "cheating" would be fighting bridge battles by positioning units with the sarissa phalanx at one end of the bridge and allowing the enemy to march over (which disables their formation) and get slaughtered.

It's really an AI exploit, but it is "low." I've done it before, and I feel ashamed. >.<

[CaesarAugustus]

It's not as bad as having all of your units in the "cheat square" in the middle of town, when they can never rout and be run down by the enemy. As for the bridge battles, it's better to do that and just pretend that the enemy commander is an idiot or desperate than marching your phalanxes onto the bridge to break formation and be slaughtered.

[runes]

i was defending a city once and got caught off guard, all my units were killed (i had my FL and maybe 3 units in the city) except for my faction leader.

the ai chased me around the square until the clock ran out. i needed to keep this city so i sat there for 15 mins making my king run in circles.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

As for the OP, I wouldn't say that is cheating. However, if you feel it is an exploit, you can make a house rule about not doing it to make things more of a challenge.

For the bridge battles, that really isn't a cheat either, but I try to avoid it. Sometimes I will purposely do it, though. Like when an enemy won't stop sending stacks after me and I just want to end the war. It is a whole lot easier to not have to fight a real battle every single turn.