Mopping up.

I have a question, when you win a battle do you generally, always, never continue the battle and clear out the rest of the routing enemy?

I wonder because my battles are generally decisive (partially because I don't enter into battle with a drastic numerical disadvantage unless I absolutely have to) and the enemy army generally routs.

Also, I'm circa 200 bce and have conquered as the Romani most of Western/Central Europe except the Iberian peninsula and have only fought 140 battles or so.

I guess I'm kind of a turtler, but I was wondering if my mopping up after every battle is part of why I've fought a relatively few number (in my uneducated opinion) of battles? Ie no armies retreat so I don't fight them a few turns later. Thanks for the input.

Your number of battles is strangely low yes, what difficulty do you play on?

on VH/M the AI gets scripted money, lots and lots of them, so mopping up makes little difference; I always do it, even micromanaging the pursuit of every enemy unit, and I believe most others do as well from the screens I have seen. Next turn the AI will have hired a new stack of Mercs and produced lots of either Leets or cheap levy (no balanced armies for the Artificial Idiot). So it has little to do with that. I suspect you have either overrun your enemies fast and that they thus had little time to fight you.
I play slow-ish and I believe I usually would have fought about 300+ battles at 200 BC.

And welcome to the Forum.

I always try to mop up enemy forces. Not doing so will likely mean more battles (especially if you play on alex.exe, where they retrain), but I usually find I have more than enough battles to fight anyway thanks to scripted cash for the AI (not just from higher difficulty levels. The AI also gets a lot of cash if they run low on money, which is fairly frequent for all but the wealthier factions since they waste it.

I do so with gusto. Especially if the enemy is the Carthaginians, Ptolies, or Seleukids. Or some units I really don't like (to fight against), like phalanx units. Apeleutheroi also make for good sport. I recently attacked, routed, and hunted down one unit of them with a unit of Rycalawre. Yes, they're that slow.

Of course, any enemy FMs have to die first. Especially if they're annoying cavalry generals, who like to run away even before the rest of their men routs.

Yea, I try to kill every last man. Mostly because it's just a nuisance to have lots of army remnants roaming the map. Since the AI is too stupid to consolidate them into a halfway decent force, they just come back to attack again. It's just a huge pain to constantly fight phalanx units with 15 men left...

I enjoy the mop-ups. Not quite as efficient as I'd like though, but I think I've read somewhere that with less than 6 the unit dissolves anyway?

Depends on its experience, I have seen units of 1- 3 men on Huge settings, with gold chevrons, so I always kill everyone. And keep some light horse for chasing the FM.

Well, in EB chasing FM is not very improtant unless you are fighting Sauromatae and he spent all his bodyguards. As he becomes more and more inept, it will be easier to defeat his army than one led by captain.

However, mercenary spam has led me into rethinking this. :(

Only if I want to kill the FM or if there are elite units I want to slaughter. Nerver against eleutheroi.

ps: wheren does the word "Apeleutheroi" come from?

All Eleutheroi die when they loose a battle.
Though of course, the "Defenders" respwn next round, so you will have to defeat them, then take town in one go.

Most battles are against enemy factions spamming fullstacks though and I take great pleasure in hunting them down.

When i play as non phalanx, infantry army, i always try to encircle the foes, defeat them inside the box, with a cavalry act as "plug", so they will generally start fight to the death, but for some good reason, when i withdraw my cav, they stop to fight and try to run, and guess, almost completely surrounded, but rout? Epic slaughter...

When playing as cavalry army, who need separate mop up situation? Defeat them one by one in detail.

Phalanx? Sarissa? Keep some hippakontistai for cleaning up the mess.

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Originally Posted by Cute Wolf

Phalanx? Sarissa? Keep some hippakontistai for cleaning up the mess.

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Hippakontistai take ages for this though, due to their crappy spacing.

A truly unparalleled unit for mopping up though are Scythed Chariots. They have an even more wide spacing, but this is coupled with a terrific area attack. In fact, they're so effective at this that using them for mopping up only is still cost efficient.

I always pursue a routing enemy force. There isn't much reason not to.

When fighting in heavy woods I do sometimes chose not to chase them down as it can be a right pain finding all the sprites stuck behind the trees. Otherwise, yeah, kill them all! In EBII we will probably have the ransom mechanic, which is a big incentive to capture as many enemies as possible.

only spearmen, legionary and commander(whether captain or FM I don't care). I let the rest flee.

Now, i am wondering what motivates people to get that captain when the rest of army fled anyway...

I do it just for fun. to me, there is an extra point when I kill the commander.

I specifically don't mop up, and I play with Alex-EB. When the battle's over, it's over. I was finding it unfair that when I lose a battle, I never get wiped out while the enemy always does against me, just because I let the battle go on longer than it should.

I've been liking this. It adds an extra challenge, and I end up having to find ways to kills the commander before the whole army routs (sometimes the FM gets away!) - and I end up trying to kill as many of the enemies while the battle's still going on... Sometimes the enemy host will live to fight another day, sometimes they disperse. It's more exciting to me this way, and it feels more realistic.

Except they'll retrain...LOL. Then you say hello to Round 2!

I usually challenge myself at EVERY battle to have a 100% kill ratio... Of corse, i don't get it always... but pretty often! Thanks to the over-stamina of the Sweboz light infantry! they are machines!

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Originally Posted by Saldunz

I specifically don't mop up, and I play with Alex-EB. When the battle's over, it's over. I was finding it unfair that when I lose a battle, I never get wiped out while the enemy always does against me, just because I let the battle go on longer than it should.

I've been liking this. It adds an extra challenge, and I end up having to find ways to kills the commander before the whole army routs (sometimes the FM gets away!) - and I end up trying to kill as many of the enemies while the battle's still going on... Sometimes the enemy host will live to fight another day, sometimes they disperse. It's more exciting to me this way, and it feels more realistic.

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Well they've certainly just chased me down in the wooded hills outside Antioch. A full stack of good phalanx, elite support and Cretan archers now reduced to just units of 4, 11, 53, and other oddments. :(

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Originally Posted by vartan

Except they'll retrain...LOL. Then you say hello to Round 2!

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Yeah, that's kind of my point. I do the same when I lose a battle, so it makes sense that they do too... It's kind of why I use Alex-EB...

And I see no challenge in having 100% kill ratios when an army is routing. Just having a couple of cavalry units takes care of that.

using Alex, I find that chasing routers is hard work-often times I suffer more losses pursuing them than in the actual battle itself, since isolated units will inevitably fight to the last. as a result, pursuits, as preferable as they are, are rare, and typically against the enemy elites. but when that does happen safely, with no units on the enemy side fighting to the last, I'm pretty indescriminate.

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Originally Posted by Ibrahim

using Alex, I find that chasing routers is hard work-often times I suffer more losses pursuing them than in the actual battle itself, since isolated units will inevitably fight to the last. as a result, pursuits, as preferable as they are, are rare, and typically against the enemy elites. but when that does happen safely, with no units on the enemy side fighting to the last, I'm pretty indescriminate.

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Most FightToDeaths occur by elites. But even then, most don't occur unless the routing unit is almost completely surrounded.

I always take two light cavalry units and send them around to the enemy's rear flank to catch routers, especially FMs, due to their "immortal" bodyguards.

I nearly always role play. As Carthage if I am fighting the Roman dogs I will only chase down the Roman troops, and let the others flee like Samnites and others (hey, Hannibal did this). As the Celts, Germans, Iberians, and Dacians I go for the noble units (prestige in killing them) and let the low end units go away like the levy spearmen and that sort of thing.

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Originally Posted by vartan

Most FightToDeaths occur by elites. But even then, most don't occur unless the routing unit is almost completely surrounded.

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true; in my case its because I usually end up surrounding the enemy in little "pockets".

Kill them all or they'll just come back and waste your time. And don't let the general get away, or he'll spawn an army of mercenaries to attack you with next turn.

I for one prefer to leave no survivers (dead enemies are always the best) - especially not the enemy general. That guy is always "target number one" for my soldiers... (insert evil laugh).