Rout to start a battle?
 

An odd thing just happened to me. I'm messing around with Serpent Cult in a single-player game. I built an army with 10 Hydra Hatchlings and a Serpent Priest to lead them. Then I sent them into battle against some independent archers and militia. They rout as soon as the battle starts. I can't figure out why. None of my units get hit, let alone killed. None of the enemy units can cause fear or anything like that. Could it be my own poison cloud doing something to my commander? Even though he's 100% PR?

Re: Rout to start a battle?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It shouldn't. You sure that you haven't accidently gave your troops a wrong orders?

The other option is that perhaps you got extremely unlucky with first valley of arrows, and it hit your hatchlings, causing the falied morale checks? (but the wounds would already regenrate itself during your turn when your troups routed)

Re: Rout to start a battle?
 

I've double-checked and I discovered that one Hatchling did get hit by an arrow. Sorry, I checked before but when you have a lot of similar units close together it is difficult to be sure if you've looked at all of them.

Anyway, I guess that is why they retreated. It still seems pretty silly, they have a Morale of 12 you'd think it'd take more than one single hit to a pack of Hatchlings running. I guess the small size of the group (10 Hatchlings) must be part of the problem.

Re: Rout to start a battle?
 

I expect it's simply a very unusual example. Try it 20 more times and see how often they rout from one shortbow volley again. My guess is it is less than a 5% chance. A couple of arrow fodder out in front might help too.

PvK