Warning: If you're intercepted, you have to win

[GM1940]

Curious campaign map feature: if you move towards the enemy and are intercepted, the ensuing battle puts the onus of victory on you, not the enemy, which is curious since one would expect you could at least halt where you are and establish that as your armies position.

Courland DoWed me as Sweden, and I moved one of my two armies to the bridge over the river frontier - the Daugava I guess - without first merging it with the army sitting in Riga. Whoops. They intercepted me - I wasn't precisely sure where - and my mobile army was worse than what was sitting in Riga.

So I decided I'd be cautious, rather than unecessarily fight a battle with half my army. I sat back in a defensive position and used my demi-cannon to blow up a house the Courlanders occupied but otherwise didn't do much. Waited out the 1 hour battle clock - which is a real joy with a maximum 4x time compression - and got "crushing defeat." At least it didn't impose any nonsense casualties on me, but it did drive my forces all the way back to the town far northeast of Riga. Absurd.

I appreciate the rationale for an intercept feature, and one that's worth using, but putting the onus of victory on the interceptee seems to make interception rather overpowered! It essentially "imposes" a battle which is defensive for the interceptor! That isn't normally something you can do in TW. The interceptee does have the option to retreat right at the getgo but that's more or less the same result as if they wait out the battle clock taking no casualties; either way I assume the general risks getting negative traits.

[pevergreen]

Its an ambush, you have to fight through it.

The troops ambusing certainly have the advantage, they can kill men then retreat...

I think its normal.

[A Very Super Market]

Isn't it the same in the other games?

Ambushes require you to defeat them, otherwise you are "defeated" and run away.

[GM1940]

I don't think we're talking about something akin to the ambush mechanic from previous TW games. This interception is, as I understand it from what I experienced and from page 16 of the manual, something that is available to any army when its zone of control (the dull green which surrounds a unit) is impinged; and the way it seems to work now is that if you impinge that zone of control and the defender chooses to "intercept," the onus of victory is on the "attacked" "impinger."

I guess it could work fine this way in gameplay terms, it's just counterintuitive enough that I really didn't expect my army to fly backwards a long distance after simply 'being halted' by the enemy; if interception almost always happens, then essentially you are 'attacking' any time you enter enemy ZOC; in other words, the ZOC is what you attack as much as the enemy?

Perhaps this facilitates defense of outlying territory.

[Gaiseric]

I agree with you GM1940, it should be the other way around. The enemy is attacking you so it should be on the offensive not defensive. It makes sense this way too when you think about it. You enter the enemys' zone of control, and they have the option to ignore you or chase you away.

[GM1940]

I'm thinking the motive here was to make "entering the zone of control" equivalent to attacking the army, and to beef up the value of interception by giving it the best victory onus. When I moved on the Courlanders with my whole force there was no interception.

[JaM]

actually it works OK - imagine this - same zone of controll are there for forts too, so if this behaviour would be reversed, then you will be forced to sally out and fight even if you have only few unit inside. Instead now you can just stay in and enemy will had to attack you, or withdraw...