Yes, let's withdraw FORWARDS, what a good idea...

hi all

lately I have been taking defeats more often, and sometimes deliberately, vs the Mongols and Timurids

I have been increasingly frustrated with what I see as unrealistic pathfinding on the campaign map after my armies "withdraw" from the battle.

In one example, after peppering a mongol stack with crossbow bolts, taking the charge and killing the general, I withdrew to avoid fighting the other two full stacks mooching about on the nearby hilltop.

My army decided the most logical way to withdraw and avoid slaughter was ONWARDS!!! (weaving a path through the six or so full mongol armies who politely doffed their hats as they passed)

surely this is silly - if you can't move your troops through an enemies' area of influence why should they be able to "retreat" through one

on top of that, they marched about three thousand kilometres into russia - much further than I could move them in my normal turn, and after their move allowance was used up getting to the battle in the first place!

I've been using move_character to sort this kind of thing out so it's no more than a minor annoyance, but it sort of feels like cheating so I was just wondering if anyone else agreed with me?

Yeah, this can get funny, even annoying sometimes. I especially hate it when the enemy withdraws where you can't follow, only to be sure to be a pain in the behind two turns further down. Fleets are the most irritating. Being blockaded on and off for turn after turn after turn just because you can't sink the enemy is unnerving, to say the least.
I don't usually withdraw my armies from the field myself. You take losses in withdrawing that you haven't taken on the battlefield - which makes playing a missile-heavy army somewhat less efficient than it might be. I usually try to bring enough manpower to actually win the fight. If I haven't got that kind of troop strength around, I often leave the general out of the fight and sacrifice a whole army while taking down as many Mongols or Timurids (the usual suspects here) as I can.

Same stupid thing when the defending army routs out the wall.
they will just go to the nearest exit without taking to mind that its full with enemy that they just fought

The same exists on the battle map...

In one bridge battle, I had one army facing the enemy (HRE IIRC) and a small reinforcement coming from behind (Xbows)

After depleting their ammo to the back ot the enmy General BG, I asked the unit of Xbows to "withdraw" and then went to the main battle line...

A suddenly flashing red light to the bottom of the screen caught my attention.... My Xbows had decided that "withdrawing" meant crossing the entire enemy battle line, the bridge and my own battle line to exit on the opposite side they came from...~:mecry:

Well the same happens to the battle AI when they rout at a bridge battle. They always rout and cross the bridge instead of going back where they came from.

More annoying is an enemy fleet carrying troops. They always withdraw to the island you try to protect instead of returning home. So the next turn you are facing the army you wanted to learn to swim.:wall:

The simple solution would be to allow the human player to choose the destination to which the withdrawing army heads.

Presumably the AI has a routine which calculates it at the moment so it would not be too difficult to insert a human interaction into that process where the army is player controlled.

Has anyone figured out how the game decides on the escape direction?

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Originally Posted by Philbert

Has anyone figured out how the game decides on the escape direction?

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Step 1. Locate nearest hostile unit.
Step 2. Route DIRECTLY towards that unit to maximize fun factor!
Step 3. Profit!

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Originally Posted by Whacker

Step 1. Locate nearest hostile unit.
Step 2. Route DIRECTLY towards that unit to maximize fun factor!
Step 3. Profit!

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You forgot to add for add: Can also route directly towards nothing important including anywhere near your own provinces or other relatively safe areas, possibly into friendly or allied territory, lowering your relations with them considerably.

Tschüß!
Erich

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Originally Posted by Fußball

You forgot to add for add: Can also route directly towards nothing important including anywhere near your own provinces or other relatively safe areas, possibly into friendly or allied territory, lowering your relations with them considerably.

Tschüß!
Erich

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If you want some real laughs, edit descr_character and give your guys something like 1000-2000 movement points. I play on the BigMap mod (2x sized map) so my scale is different, but... I lost a battle in the middle of Anatolia and the remains of my stack ended up on the french-german border! :laugh4: :laugh4: What ever happened to just heading for the nearest settlement???

Fleets are even worse. I think direction is based upon 'select worse possible location for a small depleted fleet to be at the start of the next turn.'

I guess that button isn't well named. I found some military sciences definition distinguishing "withdrawal" (planned retrograde operation in which a force in contact disenganges and moves away from the enemy) vs. "retreat" as "any movement away from the enemy hat is forced by the enemy. Normally very disorderly in nature".

So that button is actually a retreat-button. Never tried myself, but to withdraw you may try to move your units towards the border you chose to be the best to leave manually, i.e. under your full command, and hit the white flag button only when they're at that border.

I guess it is quite ok hat you don't have influence on your army where it runs when it runs away, both on campign and battle map. If you had, they would not run. I only miss that you do not have that choice when you decide yourself not to accept a battle when offered to you. That's one of the major points in deciding to deny battle, that you'd be able to move into a position you'll find safer (mountains or whatever), making it more costly for the enemy to take you out. Actually, I believe that's one of the factors the AI takes into account for pathfinding, but still: when I decide to withdraw, I want to decide whereto. When the army decides to retreat, it's ok that I can just watch where they run to.

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Yes, let's withdraw FORWARDS, what a good idea...

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Isn't it logical? Why flee away from the foe if you can flee through him? :saint:

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Originally Posted by Didz

Fleets are even worse. I think direction is based upon 'select worse possible location for a small depleted fleet to be at the start of the next turn.'

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No no no, you've got it all wrong. The logic is "Select the BEST spot for the fleet that just lost to go sightseeing in enemy waters! Preferably next to a large enemy port or large enemy fleet stack!"

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Originally Posted by Bijo

Isn't it logical? Why flee away from the foe if you can flee through him? :saint:

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Brilliant! :idea: The closer you are to danger, the farther you are from harm.

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Originally Posted by Canopus

Never tried myself, but to withdraw you may try to move your units towards the border you chose to be the best to leave manually, i.e. under your full command, and hit the white flag button only when they're at that border.

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I have tried this and it seems to work. Actually despite what many have been saying I have never had any trouble getting my troops to withdraw from the battle map in an orderly fashion, away from the enemy.

It's just that, having done that, I find it surprising that once on the campaign map they would decide to turn around and charge straight past him again!

ROFL !

Agreed on all points.

In battle, troops try to reach the closest map border, this leads, especially in bridge battles, to the fact that routing units flee towards the enemy.
However, skirmishers are worse, actually. Instead of moving directly away from the closest enemy unit they move to the map edge where they entered from. Always. Even if your battle setup rotated 180° due to maneuvering.

Ciaran they are talking about the campaign map.... I think.

IMO the best way is to WALK upto the closest enemy city and SURRENDER !.... NOT ?

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Originally Posted by Bijo

Isn't it logical? Why flee away from the foe if you can flee through him? :saint:

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Of course, it's the last thing your enemy will expect. Brilliant! :idea2:

so affectively using a cavalry army for hit and run will just lose you the whole army? most probably right?

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Originally Posted by Sinan

Ciaran they are talking about the campaign map.... I think.

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Do we, now?

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In one example, after peppering a mongol stack with crossbow bolts, taking the charge and killing the general, I withdrew to avoid fighting the other two full stacks mooching about on the nearby hilltop.

My army decided the most logical way to withdraw and avoid slaughter was ONWARDS!!! (weaving a path through the six or so full mongol armies who politely doffed their hats as they passed)

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However, the point is, both on the battle map as well on the strategy map, retreats are somewhat... flawed.
The reatreat option before a battle is mostly useless, in my opinion, because the distance the stack covers when using that almost never is enough to get it to savety, as a rule it´s better to start the battle and then withdraw. That way the stack at least covers the entire routing distance, even though it´s rather unpredictable where it may end up. I´m not sure about it, but it might be an argument for building forts, that a routing army, if possible, will retreat into a fortified positions, be it a city/castle, a fort or a ship.

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The reatreat option before a battle is mostly useless, in my opinion, because the distance the stack covers when using that almost never is enough to get it to savety, as a rule it´s better to start the battle and then withdraw.

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Withdrawing your stack once when attacked will usually only take you about four tiles further away, that much is true. But it will often land you in more favorable terrain, and it can also happen that the enemy doesn't have the movement points left to get to you again. It's not a total withdrawal from the theater of war, more a temporary avoidance of a battle offered. If the enemy gives chase and really wants that battle to happen, there's not much you can do, but I think that's not unrealistic.

I just had a strange case in which this withdrawal/retreat stuff really worked in my favor. I won a large field battle against the Timurids (:2thumbsup:) and took lots of valuable prisoners. I ransomed them for more than 5,000 fl - those high XP troops are worth a lot of money even if you haven't caught a general. The ransomed troops, of course, retreated as far away as one full move... and thus left the usual Timurid cluster of stacks far behind. I was able to take them on once more with the garrison of nearby Damascus and destroy them utterly this time. :yes: I also noticed that, since I had fought and destroyed two Timurid stacks in the one battle (yeah, let's dwell on it a little longer, shall we?! :beam: ), the prisoners went in two groups that retreated in different directions.

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Originally Posted by Ciaran

Do we, now?

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:gathering:

:gah2: