Feint retreat

Has any one successfully pulled this maneuver off? Will it make the enemy break formation?

With horse-archers, all the time. :P

But seriously, the AI usually breaks formation anyway if you position your troops slightly apart, which makes it particularly easy to beat the phalanx.

oh good idea about the positioning of units, i've never really thought of it. And yeah since the ai is stupid they will most definetly fall for a feint. They even deploy their genera suicidally into the jaws of my ambushing troops (thank the lord for the forests of germania when fighting the romans)

I use the feigned retreat all of the time. As Quirinus intimated, it is a staple of horse archer tactics. But it works for every kind of unit.. You can have a unit of peltasts run up, shower an enemy unit with javelins, and then run away when they come out after you. Then have your peltasts run past those hoplites you have hidden in the woods, drawing the enemy past for a flank attack.

It takes a lot of micro-managing however, so it is not the easiest thing to do in multiplayer, where you cannot pause.

And just to point up how far the quality of the AI has fallen......in STW, the AI will often use that tactic against you.

I learned the hard way.......:wall:

Fighting against an AI horse archer faction in RTW, they still do that whole shoot/retreat/shoot routine don't they? I find the battle AI not so bad, it's the strategic AI where it really shows its seams.

But that's me, I get a decent challenge from M/M. =P

I would not describe it so much as shoot/retreat/shoot. They are just set to skirmish mode by default. So they shoot all the time and if an enemy comes close they skirmish away is all.

Yeah its not really an active shoot retreat, just a default setting. The AI is a pain in the #%# to fight horse archers. Thankfully, they follow the rules of the auto-calc and do not deploy large numbers of HA's as a result (brethes a sigh of relief)

Whenever I try to retreat with infantry, they take so stinking long that I lose like 20 of them as they run away! Drives me bonkers. It's like they stick to the AI units. Of course the AI has noooo problem pulling away from my men instantly. So I rarely retreat; I'll lose fewer men if I just do a slugfest with the AI. :duel:

Well the key is as always speed. there are certain infantry types that are slower than others. to simply classify all infantry as one speed is inaccurate. for example i find that the Thracian mercenaries are faster than most other infantry in the game, they even keep up with horses somewhat ( about 2 and a half seconds slower). I know use them as feinters and to give my cavalry an extra punch after theirs has lost a charge bonus and is stagnated (Must admit is was stolen from Alexander the great and i use it because of its success and in homage) :laugh4:
In addition missile troops are always faster than infantry, it follows the same for light-heavy cav and missile cav-melee cav.