Question on battle turn limit

[Olm]

I had heard of this, but never bothered.
I probably should have.

I had a fully kitted Ettin attack an army of ~200 guys.
As I expected they could barely hurt him and with regeneration 13 he didn't bother the very few hits.

So he was happily chopping away on his enemies, clearing one tile most of the time. Suddenly the message came, that my army was routed. I could not understand how that happened, as the Ettin was my only unit on the field, and he was berserk, so who routed? Since he was berserk, he didn't bother and continued chopping until a message told me my enemies were routed. Soon after the Ettin shared the field with only a few decaying undead, when he finally disappeared and the battle ended with a victory for my enemy.

I guess there is no way to change this unfair result, but at least I want to understand the game mechanics behind it, so I not again loose >70 GEMs worth on such an event.

And does that mean I can not use berserking thugs/SCs, or for example Golems against large armies, if they don't kill fast enough?

[Peter Ebbesen]

IIRC it is 50 turns to auto-rout for attacker, 75 turns to auto-loss for attacker.

This mechanism exists to make sure that battles end, as there are a any number of combinations of troops and magic in Dominions 3 that would otherwise result in never-ending battles.

And yes, if you want to play around with berserking troops, which is just one of the ways to run up against the limit, you should be prepared to lose them if the enemy is capable of outlasting you. The most common example of this is attacking a skellyspammer.

[Soyweiser]

There was also a mechanic that could result in death for the defender, which makes the vengeance of the dead spell so dangerous. Eventually, they will have enough kills to not be able to kill the spirits of the dead.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen

IIRC it is 50 turns to auto-rout for attacker, 75 turns to auto-loss for attacker.

Isn't it 50 rounds to the attacker automatically routing, 75 until defender auto-routs, and turn 100 when everyone left on the battlefield automatically perishes?