Battle won without any combat

[sdrga]

I had the strangest battle last night. I'm the British and my opponent was France and the battle was in Normandy (my province).

At first, the French invaded with a much larger army than I had so I retreated to the castle. On the next turn, I put an army about the same size as the invading French into the province.

After the French did a little reinforcing of their army, hostilities commenced. I think I had about 1100 and they had about 850. I was on higher ground than the French as the battle began, and I started a wide flanking maneuver with a missile-heavy group of infantry in order to break up their formation. I was way far away from the French army at this point and nowhere near in range.

I noticed the French army begin to retreat and I assumed they were seeking higher ground. Not so: they continued to proceed to close to the map edge. They were not routing, they were "marching quickly". All of a sudden I got the victory banner, even though no combat at all had occured.

Has anyone else encountered this? Was this due to a bug OR was it the brilliance of my flanking maneuver? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Swoosh So]

Its the computer withdrawing when it thinks it cant win.

Hooooooooooooowl

[Boondock Saint]

The French battle cry ....

WE SURRENDER!

... "the French army, whats that?"

------------------
Dont blame me for my son stan he saw the damn cartoon and now he's off to join the clan! BLAME CANADA BLAME CANADA!

It seems everythings gone wrong since Canada came along!

.com ref #123321003

Johnny human torch, a bag full of oily rags and a lighter.

[sdrga]

It could have made that decision (that it couldn't win) without even going into tactical mode.

The last thing that happened before the battle choice dialog came up was that they reinforced, so the AI must have intended to fight at that point.

[EuroLord]

Hi,

Ive had that happen a few times.

Its just the AI deciding it cannot win, and withdrawing.

EuroLord

[muffinman14]

That has happened to me alot but one time i invaded a province and had 700 men and the frenchies had 60 urban militia and didnt retreat.

[Redllama]

I was fighting the rebels in Finland, they started out on top of this incredibly tall mountain.. yet when I flanked and proceded to press up the hill, they all turned tail and ran. I think it was the manuvering that made them run. I think its like the impetous.. worried by pursuit or flanks.. I think this is worried that we're surrounded and we're all going to die.

[xtianity]

Thing is the ai can make stupid mistakes like:

I am fighting the swiss rebels and they have only one province left. Now we get ready to battle but they just march quickly, even though it said ready to fight as there is no escape.
They walk off the map going to their castle knowing there is no other option than to fight (as they have no other provinces) so basically we went to war and then they admit defeat and leave it up to time.

Wierd.

[Lord Romulous]

I think alot of it depends on how good the general leading each forces are.

often my enemies will retreat if my forces are lead by a bad ass general. Most often what will happen is that my outnumbered forces will win the first skirmish of the battle ie missile fight or catching a enemy unit out in front.

the enemy general will see his intial losses and my bad ass general and decide that despite he outnumbers me 2 to 1 he is better off retreating.

[Alrowan]

welli saw a bunch of russians off the field this way.... i was upset too, i wanted to fight

[GilJaysmith]

The battle AI will recommend withdrawal if it realises it's overpowered and a strategic withdrawal is possible. It's also remarkably honest, in that it only considers enemy units it can actually see, or saw recently and can still remember.

So what may have happened is that a sizeable portion of your troops were initially unseen, and when they came into line-of-sight, the AI thought, "Holy Moley - there's more of them than I thought - let's get out of here."

[Bob the Insane]

That is very interesting to learn, thanks..

I have often seen this especially as battles get larger with roughly equal, it is often possible to win a battle and force the AI to retreat by correctly manourving your troops to tacticly superior positions.

I ran a quick test once, in a hard campaign, when I had forced a enemy army (Egyptian) to withdraw with an army slightly smaller than theirs (my 1800 to their 2100). Every time I moved my troops to a tacticly superior position the AI would retreat to a better defensive postion until it just withdrew completely..

I reloaded and just sent my troops on a mad charge at the enemy. My forces being made up of cavalry, defensive and attacking infantry and archers all moved forward at their own pace and charged up a hill at the enemy piecemeal as their speed allowed. This time the Egyptians stood their ground and predicable slaugthered my insanely poor attack...

Sometimes the AI does really shine...


[This message has been edited by Bob the Insane (edited 10-29-2002).]

[G0THIC-Lobster]

err....use catapult and chuck dead horse over them with diease. Or kill their general. Open their city gate and of course gather a huge army and scare the F&&k outta them

[sdrga]

Thanks for everyone's feedback. This teaches me a lot.

Now, does this go for me as well? If I see myself on the battlefield and realize I'm in an untenable position, can I withdraw relatively unscathed? And... what is the key for that CTRL-W? And based on our routing discussion from the other day, I'm assuming that a withdraw is treated differently from a routing force. Am I correct? Thanks again for all the feedback.

[chunkynut]

I usually find its when i reach a similar height to the AI in a battle formation.

And another point which was mentioned by muffinman was that a unit of AI milita sergeants v 1100 crack troops and they decided to fight??? Why oh why wasn't it the 'Holy Moley' cak your undies and run to the castle!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[maroule]

Quote Originally posted by Boondock Saint:

... "the French army, whats that?"

[/QUOTE]

the thing that saved your asses in Yorktown

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by chunkynut:
And another point which was mentioned by muffinman was that a unit of AI milita sergeants v 1100 crack troops and they decided to fight??? Why oh why wasn't it the 'Holy Moley' cak your undies and run to the castle!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif[/QUOTE]

Perhaps they didn't have a castle or it was full, or there was no retreat for some other reason. The campaign map will tell the battle AI whether it has the option to withdraw. If there's no retreat, then withdrawing would lead to the entire army being captured, so the battle AI assumes it's fighting to the last man.

Other fascinating facts about AI withdrawals:

Withdrawals happen less often (or possibly not at all) on Easy, the point of Easy being that there's lots of fighting and you get to win a lot.

Withdrawals also don't happen right after the battle starts, so the AI gets a chance to think things through, and you have a chance to attack.

Finally, there's a chance that the AI will decide to attack regardless of overwhelming odds and regardless of whether it could instead safely withdraw to another region. This is to stop you getting complacent.