So, I’m playing as the Greeks, and I’m attacking a Roman city, Ariminum, with one army of a full 20 units (including a general) entering from the east, and as reinforcements I have another army of a full 20 units (no general) standing by to the southwest. All signs point to a long but highly winnable battle.
But, once the battle begins, simply I can go to where the reinforcements are gathered and… at least half of them have suffered huge losses before ever even entering battle. (Also, some of them are weirdly clumped in the corner—they seem to have taken the most losses.) Each affected unit is down to less than half their previous numbers, often into the single digits—and they often continue depleting, despite never interacting with an enemy. …Once you start trying to involve them in battle is when the game tends to crash.
Now, if I can exit the battle before the game crashes, then I get a results screen… a baffling one, which lists all my losses as kills by the opponent, and even lists some losses as dealt by my armies to the opponent (even if I never so much as approach their walls, let alone fight). I tested all this by starting the battle with all my main army’s units clumped at the east side, then having all except the general flee the battle, then waiting for my reinforcements to enter, then exiting the battle through the pause menu. (This is documented in the screenshots below.)
What’s more is that, upon exiting the battle, I find that _both_ armies have been horrifically depleted (even if neither has interacted with the enemy)—as though the process of entering and exiting battle somehow requires warriors to go through a nigh-impossible obstacle course of death.
(I don’t know if it’s relevant, but Ariminum has suffered a plague earlier in the game—but it was many turns ago and all relevant characters and settlements recovered. Besides, I don’t think that would be relevant because not even the Black Plague killed as many people as quickly and in such a proportion as this bug does before my eyes.)
If I could attach the relevant save file, I would. (sigh) I’ll keep it aside for reference, at least. In any case, this entire problem has me at a loss. I’m using the Steam version, no mods, and I’ve tried validating all installed files in Steam (with no change). Since this is the only battle in which I’ve had this bug, it’s possible I could just skip it using the autobattle, but that would feel cheap (and I’d like to know what this problem is in case it’s something I need to fix sooner rather than later).
But, once the battle begins, simply I can go to where the reinforcements are gathered and… at least half of them have suffered huge losses before ever even entering battle. (Also, some of them are weirdly clumped in the corner—they seem to have taken the most losses.) Each affected unit is down to less than half their previous numbers, often into the single digits—and they often continue depleting, despite never interacting with an enemy. …Once you start trying to involve them in battle is when the game tends to crash.
Now, if I can exit the battle before the game crashes, then I get a results screen… a baffling one, which lists all my losses as kills by the opponent, and even lists some losses as dealt by my armies to the opponent (even if I never so much as approach their walls, let alone fight). I tested all this by starting the battle with all my main army’s units clumped at the east side, then having all except the general flee the battle, then waiting for my reinforcements to enter, then exiting the battle through the pause menu. (This is documented in the screenshots below.)
What’s more is that, upon exiting the battle, I find that _both_ armies have been horrifically depleted (even if neither has interacted with the enemy)—as though the process of entering and exiting battle somehow requires warriors to go through a nigh-impossible obstacle course of death.
(I don’t know if it’s relevant, but Ariminum has suffered a plague earlier in the game—but it was many turns ago and all relevant characters and settlements recovered. Besides, I don’t think that would be relevant because not even the Black Plague killed as many people as quickly and in such a proportion as this bug does before my eyes.)
If I could attach the relevant save file, I would. (sigh) I’ll keep it aside for reference, at least. In any case, this entire problem has me at a loss. I’m using the Steam version, no mods, and I’ve tried validating all installed files in Steam (with no change). Since this is the only battle in which I’ve had this bug, it’s possible I could just skip it using the autobattle, but that would feel cheap (and I’d like to know what this problem is in case it’s something I need to fix sooner rather than later).