Surprise battle report

I just had to share this:

I followed the advice in the thread on movement problems and moved a field army against an enemy army laying siege to Kyrene, which had a garrison. Separately, the armies could not challenge the enemy army, but together, I felt that there was enough force to give them battle.

The battle map east of Kyrene is hilly in the extreme. The enemy was uphill from my attacking army in a defenseive formation and did not move. I brought the garrison units over and joined forces. Once the units had a chance to rest, I proceeded to move the army up the 45 degree mountain side to the left until it reached a mysterious red line. My units where utterly exhausted after this trek. Now my army was uphill from the enemy and a unit of tired archers let loose on enemy units. After scoring hits and dropping perhaps 20 enemies, I decided to let the archers wait and rest up a bit, so that they would have better aim.

Suddenly, the entire enemy army started to move off the field - uphill. To inflict some damage, I sent forth 4 cavalry units to hit the now exhausted enemy units and inflicted another 140 casualties.

So... This has to be the first time ever in my 20 years of computer strategy wargaming that I actually manoeuvred an army off the field without doing battle.

Absolutely amazing. I am not used to AI making sense. Normally they either run straight away or fight to the death.

Refreshing!

-Sygrod

yeah, i've seen them do that a mere handful of times. its better than their usual tactic: letting you totally outmanuever them, but i'd really like the AI to be able to move to intercept you, or to move to make sure it maintained the high ground, instead of picking its spot and rotating on that spot.

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Originally Posted by paullus

yeah, i've seen them do that a mere handful of times. its better than their usual tactic: letting you totally outmanuever them, but i'd really like the AI to be able to move to intercept you, or to move to make sure it maintained the high ground, instead of picking its spot and rotating on that spot.

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In MTW, the AI would maneuver it's forces to ensure they always had better ground than you, insofar as it was possible. So it was incomprehensible that such an ELEMENTARY piece of battlefield code would be lost in the transition from MTW to RTW. That single element would have made the AI much more challenging in battle. :no:

Yeah, I remember battles in MTW in which I had a hard time flanking a hilltop position, or approaching the enemy without sending vulnerable troops through forests. It's a shame the AI wasn't carried over between games.

Speaking of forests, any plans to make the trees smaller on the battlemap?

Having the best piece of ground isn't always the best strategy. Napoleon was very good at turning manuevers by making the "choicest" ground so heavily bombarded that it was suicide to keep it. Having some artillery and good missile units that I could place in a good position, I've discovered that I can make it very disadvantageous for an enemy unit to stay in place, no matter how elevated or fortified. This, however, depends on the map, but I've done it in both MTW and STW with fantastic results.

No matter how good a piece of ground is, it's not good enough to lose your army over.

In Shogun and MTW, this sort of tactical retreat was much more common than in RTW.

Often a weaker enemy would apparently decide to fight but on the battlefield, looking at your battle hardened & notorious killers, the army would decide that suddenly they realised they had better things to do elsewhere...
A couple of notable instances I experienced include a near full stack defending army running from my 16 Kensai attack force and a particular instance of my well outnumbered and outclassed army steadfastly staying in formation within a forest clump while the Mongol horde probed the middle, both flanks (about 150 losses to the Mongols, 60 or so to me), then withdrew realising that they couldn't beat me in the trees & I wasn't going to be lured out either.

It still happens in RTW but much less often :(

I hate it when the battle loads, just to have them immediately turn tail and run. They should have retreated before I was forced to load... twice.

I think its an intentional distinction between retreat on the strategic level (because they knew you outmatched them) and the tactical level (when only after seeing your army/maneuvres is it clear that discretion is the better part of valour).

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Originally Posted by hoom

I think its an intentional distinction between retreat on the strategic level (because they knew you outmatched them) and the tactical level (when only after seeing your army/maneuvres is it clear that discretion is the better part of valour).

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I'm pretty sure it's related to the fact that it calculates units with missiles as being more powerful at the start of the battle (with their full ammunition) than for the sake of autoresolve, with Armenia in .74 I ended up getting attacked with even odds for an autoresolve but when I started the battle, my horse archer army had a 3:1 advantage so the Seleucids fled. I normally managed to kill a large number of enemies by going full speed after them, but it was *really* annoying.

I've had this sort of thing a couple of times. It's mostly due to the fact that I wouldn't give fight till I had my forces arranged. By then the enemies would sort of have given up on me so... they went away. It's quite an exploit when you're sallying forth with a garisson to drive off an army about twice your size... :juggle: