A little stupid... possibly unfair? About armies retreating after defeat.

[Dayve]

The following occured on VH/M

I'm playing as France, so OF COURSE Savoy declared war on me before 1705, despite a state gift on the first turn. I decided not to fight a defensive war so i went straight in and cut off their sea-trade by having my army set up camp in their only trading dock.

From there i was attacked by an army of provincial cavalry (5 units) and militia (4 units), along with a 4 star general. I thought this would be an easy win, what with my army being made up of line infantry x6, estrangers x4, lancers x2 and an 8 star general, along with 8 guns without canister shot tech.

I set my army up as usual, a front line and a reserve line in equal numbers, cavalry behind, protected and ready to strike wherever needed, artillery up front. I let my artillery fire 2 volleys before ordering my front line to move in front of them as the enemy was nearing and canister shot was unavailable. At this point i watched in horror as units of provincial cavalry charged into my front line, armed with ring bayonets, and decimated them. One unit lost in excess of 90 out of 120 men in the charge and was routed instantly, the rest soon followed. On a side note, i find losing 90/120 men to a charge from provincial cavalry, who are armed with swords, absolutely ludicrous, especially when my line infantry were armed with ring bayonets, as mentioned.

My reserve line won the battle, but at the cost of around 50% of their overall strength. All 8 guns were lost. The only units left relatively intact were the cavalry and general. After i had won the battle i was attacked by another army the same size and composition as the first, more or less. A victory was impossible and without the option of retreat, i auto-resolved, lost, and the army was destroyed.

Here's the kicker. The army of Savoy broke off into 2 halves and started pillaging everything i owned. I raised a 5-unit army from Paris, gave them a general and sent them off after the Savoy army in the north, and raised another and sent them off in the south. In the north, when i attacked, i saw that the odds were greatly in my favour and so i auto-resolved, and won the battle with barely any casualties. The Savoy(ans?) had around 3 units left, and retreated north, to Alsace-Lorraine. Being unable to follow them, i had no choice but to end turn. On my next turn, i moved my army closer to them, but was still out of reach. Then, they took Alsace-Lorraine, as it was undefended. I beat the army in the south also, and with only 40 men left they ran around my countryside burning everything for about 2 turns until i could catch them. The only thing missing was Benny Hill music.

Why is it that when i get defeated in enemy territory, even though i have about 300 men left, my army disappears, but when i defeat the enemy DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP in my territory and he has 300 men left, not only is he able to retreat EVEN DEEPER into my territory, instead of back towards his own, but able to outrun my army and take whatever region is lightly defended?

I mean surely my general didn't think after the battle... ahh what can 300 enemies do? We'll give them a head-start on their retreat toward our undefended inner-territories.

[anweRU]

I have to agree. It is irritating as hell. I hope one of the patches will fix it.

[Fisherking]

I have had some angst about this issue for a while. Even when you survive to retreat in your territory a great number of men you would have thought would have survived seem to evaporate.

But it must be a game mechanism of some sort.

Another odd thing I saw to day was in naval battle.

I had a sloop pirating a trade route. I was attacked by a British Indiaman. Rather than loose my sloop I got a few shots in and ran circles around him for the rest of the battle. Getting in a shot when it was safe, but generally just running out the clock.

Well I was defending and won. For some reason it sunk his fleet…I put a few holes in his sails but I don’t think I took out a gun! What the heck was that?

If it happened to the AI I am guessing it could happen to me too!

[Dayve]

Does it have something to do with an army (or navy's) movement points? If they fight with no movement points left and lose, they disintegrate into thin air, but if they have movement points left they can just retreat absolutely anywhere they like and continue to be a threat even with only 40 men in the entire army.

[Mailman653]

It's been discovered that it's possible there is an entry in the unit tables that determines if a unit disbands after a battle, if this is the case, it could explain why sometimes units which still had some soldiers left at the end of the battle, disapear after you return to the campaign map screen.

[0rly?]

Never auto-resolve important battles, if you leave your generals to their own devices in these kinds of situations they are prone to fudging it up and leaving you with bands of unruly deserters and hooligans ransacking the countryside. It's better to take personal responsibility for the total destruction of foreigners invading your homelands.