No shots fired, 1/2 the enemy dead

Just beginning Empire RTI patched 1.2. Sent a cavalry screen into Algonquin territory in front of George. My 2 Cav got ambushed by over a 1,000 French troops (Line infantry and Native units, no cannons). Battlescreen would not allow withdrawal so I played it out on the battle map. Ran my cavalary around a bit until the French lost sight of them. Timer ran out. No shots were fired, no meelee occurred. Got the screen End Battle or Chase routers. Chose end battle.

Result was....Heroic Victory! 570 French troops were killed. One of my cav gained 2 exp, the other gained 1.

Does this also happen in the GC? Seems like a cheap way to reduce enemy numbers.

This is what you get when you use the timer. Since the time run out for the French they lost the battle and consequently lost some troops. You can consider this an exploit.

Thanks Monsieur,

If I don't use the timer, would I still be able to save my cav?

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Originally Posted by Ivar the Terrible

Thanks Monsieur,

If I don't use the timer, would I still be able to save my cav?

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No you wouldn’t.

If it is an exploit then it is not a deliberate one on your part. Loosing a battle is a big deal in this game and perhaps why the AI will never withdraw from battle.

I have seen similar effects in naval battles where to save a sloop I run out the timer and the AI suffered damage…though not so much.

Thanks FisherKing, I like the idea of using a cavalry screen but I'd rather not lose my cavalry or see i/2 the enemy dead for no good reason. I'll try autoresolve next time and see how that works out.

If you auto resolve you probably loose them all.

The problem is that the game doesn't allow a tactical retreat. In M2TW you could withdraw your army during a battle and that army would survive if it had some place to retreat to. Since IRC that is no longer possible you have the odd choice to get defeated and get all your men dead or run around in circles and get 50 percent of the enemy dead, probably because of exhaustion. I find it strange that cavalry unit that is attacked by a couple of infantry can't escape.

I think the game should generally not kill anyone unless the losing army has only like 5 men perunits left and would be pretty much disintegrated, except perhaps if the remaining five guys are veterans or elite soldiers.

should be possible to harass enemy armies with dragoons as in attack them, shoot a few, then retreat from the battle without any further casualties for either army, kind of like a war of attrition.

wot about if u force u troops to rout do they still lose some of their men?

You bet you do! Check the thread “No Retreats!”

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Originally Posted by Fisherking

You bet you do! Check the thread “No Retreats!”

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Actually, you do not. If one simply groups their army prior to clicking "end deployment" and then immediately clicks on the retreat flag, your army will route off the field without any losses.

The battle results screen will pop up with the words "crushing defeat" , but there will be no troop losses at all. I have tested this with both the timer on and the timer off--it makes no difference. It would probalby also be best to place your army to the rear of their starting area to ensure no enemy contact, but i did not do this in my tests and I still incurred no losses

The only way I could see this not happening is if the opposing armies were too close at the start of battle and the enemy had a chance to actually catch some of your retreating forces before they routed off the map. This might also happen if one had enemy troops both in front and in back of them, but I haven't had a chance to test that situation yet. I could also see enemy mortars reaching out to take out some troops before they got off the map, but I have not been able to test that situation either.

Cheers

i am not sure of this 100% because i was not paying full attention but i have had several units retreat during battle in battles i am losing and the ones that get to map edge without enemy contact seem to survive the battle IIRC. maybe this needs to be tested properly