The order your men to battle while you stay back option

[Sir Saladin]

I just found a good use for this, several times I got run down and attacked by Khergits or deserters and when I chose the stay back while your men attack option my men got slaughtered but I was able to escape the encounter and keep all the stuff that was in my inventory. I'm not sure if this is old news to you guys but it is working as a good low level technique for me.<edit> I just tried it again and it seems Marnid and Borcha stay back too so they don't even get hurt, just the regular enlisted guys go on the suicide mission and even then when they get knocked out instead of dead they are still in my party.

 

[Zeaph]

I think your a chicken!!! Go out there and fight soldier!

 

[Bearhugger]

maybe m(arnid)&b(orcha) stayed back as well. because they were armed with ranged weapons and your regular troops werent?

 

[Sir Saladin]

maybe m(arnid)&b(orcha) stayed back as well. because they were armed with ranged weapons and your regular troops werent?

No, I'm talking about the menu screen that pops up when the attackers catch up with you and you either click on "attack" or "order your men to charge while you stay back" And when you pick the order them to attack button you don't see the battle you just get a list of how many enemies or party members got knocked out or killed, then you get another menu giving you the option to leave the battle or attack. When I pick leave battle the attackers don't follow anymore as if I really did send my peasants to their doom while running the other way. And I don't have Marnid or Borcha equipped with ranged weapons because I know better than that.

 

[Sir Prince]

Yes, I do that too. To make it clear for simple elfs; On the pre-battle menu, chose send followers into battle, then after that's sorted out you can click leave battle. You can lose troops but it gives you a chance of getting away. I did it in the last version 2.

 

[viggo]

nothing to do with your question, but what is the maximum amount of men you can have?

 

[Ingolifs]

Maximum amount of men in your party? Depends on your leadership. 0 leadership and you can lead 15. 8 leadership and you can lead 69.

Maximum amount of your men on the battlefield? Depends on your battle size and how many points you have in tactics.

 

[Stonewall382]

This is cheap, but if you don't want to lose anyone, couldn't you just enter the battle and then immediately retreat?
I've been using the battlefield retreat strategy in my new horse archer game--run in, whittle 'em down, retreat. Repeat.

 

[Ingolifs]

That's only really viable if you don't have troops with you. If you do, you'll find that retreating costs you some troop's lives.

 

[Stonewall382]

Ah, I see.

 

[okiN]

Not to mention that the enemy might catch up with you again, or you'll be unable to leave the battle in the first place.

 

[Bearhugger]

This is cheap, but if you don't want to lose anyone, couldn't you just enter the battle and then immediately retreat?
I've been using the battlefield retreat strategy in my new horse archer game--run in, whittle 'em down, retreat. Repeat.

if you also leave the battle after retreating, your loot eventually gets lower. so it might be harder for such a char to obtain money/equipment

 

[Blackish_sheep]

the easyist way is to let the enemy get close on the mpa then atack them, you get a leave battle option and the AI stands in place for a few seconds you can keep repeating this to escape to town

 

[Jhaerik]

I do that retreat trick as well when I play mounted, and ranger guys. I don't really think it is cheap or anything, more realistic than anything. Simulates "harrassing" the enemy rather well.

 

[Garth]

Bah, just charge forward and fight like hell.

If all your guys die and you lose some gold, big deal.

 

[chadz]

Actually, I believe (im nearly sure) that you can only retreat after killing/knocking out at least 1 foe. If you do this yourself, or let your men do this doesn't really matter.

 

[enkidu]

how do you retreat from the battlefield? I didnt even know this was an option

 

[leo]

Maximum amount of men in your party? Depends on your leadership. 0 leadership and you can lead 15. 8 leadership and you can lead 69.

Maximum amount of your men on the battlefield? Depends on your battle size and how many points you have in tactics.

Actually, this isn't the whole story.

What determines your maximum unit count is a simple formula with only two variables. You start with 5 cap regardless of any other factors, and you gain 5 more slots for each point in Leadership and one more slot for each point in Charisma.

In other words:

Maximum unit count = 5 + 5 * Leadership + Charisma

The corollary of this rule is that a character who never invested in leadership but did continue to increase his charisma would have an increased max army size. A merchant character with 30 charisma and no leadership has a maximum army of 35.

A hunter character with leadership skill = 0 and who has never improved his charisma has a maximum army size of 10. A character with 8 in leadership has a minimum army size of 69 (40 from leadership, 24 from charisma, 5 from initial starting value). But the actual maximum army size for a character with 8 leadership would be larger if the charisma statistic were higher than the minimum needed to get 8 leadership in the first place. A character with 8 leadership and 30 charisma would have a max army of 75.

 

[Narcissus]

how do you retreat from the battlefield? I didnt even know this was an option

Run to the very edge of the battlefield and a small window will pop up (similar to mounting your horse) that says something like 'leave battle'. I also think you can 'tab' out after killing a unit or two (not sure, though).

Narcissus

 

[chadz]

You can always tab out, but you need some distance to the enemies. If you tab out when you have some soldiers with you, it will be just like getting knocked out (without the HP loss) - they fight on and afterwards you get a statistic how many died etc.