Matrix Games Forums

I've noticed that my unit of lancers never show up in detailed battles.
I've fought 12 battles against the French and the lancers only showed up once...!

I seem to be above the unit battle limit by one - which will put one of my units in the reinforcement queue - but why is it always the lancers?! [&:]
The lancers are attached to a corps exactly like the rest of my units.
I've tried unattaching it, moved it to another corps - but it's still not showing up.

Is there some rule in the game doing this?
Making lancers less likely to start on map in detailed battles if you've hit the unit limit?

By the way, reinforcements coming in from adjacent regions work fine. They show up when they should.

never seen this in my games (I tend to have a lot of Polish Lancers with me)

so not really sure what you are getting

(I know I seem to lose one of my Guards, at times, but that is the last unit in the Army)

Units aren't quite randomly included in battle below the battle limits -- it's more like "arbitrarily" where arbitrarily means determined by values that are explainable only in terms of the computer code.  I suppose an improvement to this system would be to include units by morale or alphabetically or some such.

I've seen a similar effect... though not with lancers... the game just seems to always use certain units and leave the same units as reinforcements.  In one game as GB a Guard unit I had always came in as a reinforcement.  In other games I could always predict which units would be left out of the battle too and it would always be the same guys... I gave up trying to figure what was going on and just went with it. 

Alphabetically would mean players could name their units in a pattern that made sure certain units always participated.
That might be a little unfortunate as it would remove a charming element of uncertainty from the gameplay.
The uncertainty in itself is fine - actually an important and often overlooked component of game design - so I'm not sure it would be an improvement to make this game mechanic more predictable.
I'd rather see that you make it truly random - so it's not the same unit/units that get left out all the time.

Of course the randomness needs to be controlled somewhat - perhaps by unit type quotas that made sure a somewhat sensible mix of troops showed up for battle.
Or, as you said, by letting morale effect the matter to some degree.
But still, it still would be charming and challenging if you got a really rotten setup and unit mix from time to time.
To make the gameplay more interesting, challenging and dynamic.
And it would also mimic history quite well, where battles where often affected and even decided by things completely random and out of the commanders' control.

A lot of factors that have to be considered.
Not an easy job you have, Eric... [;)]