COORDINATED RETREAT

[Jebivjetar]

I use that tactic only with Pahlava when i can not beat an enemy army with my HAs in a single battle. In my experience that's the best tactic for Pahlava, especially in the start of campaign, where i'm unable to train new units due to poor money income. And i really like when, eg. AS phalanxes start to retreat, then i shot them form the back and kill em all!

When i lead an infantry based armies i stay in a battle until the end and never retreat, no matter if i'm about to lose or win.

[Macilrille]

Historically and in RL a coordinated retreat is the absolute hardest maneuvre to pull off. It takes a very well trained army, good communication and luck; most coordinated retreats has turned into routs. If it was easy or possible to do in EB, EB would be ahistorical, which is what it aims not to be...

Sorry for the brewity.

[levi758336]

Use your skirmishers as a screening force. They'll take heavy casualities, but in a close battle keep them off fire at will so that they retain a volley of javelins, then if you need to pull your much more expensive heavy infantry/phalangites out of the line of battle you can volley the enemy in the back, through click them, and when it's mixed up sacrifice the skirmisher unit. The most important thing is that you have to either have planned to do a retreat from the beginning, or it can't be at the point that the units are about to rout. Ie: It has to be before the definitive point of the battle. After that the likli-hood is that you'll take such high casualties running away that your units will rout, and then suffer even higher casualties.

Also if you're planning on using this tactic alot, for whatever reason, you should seriously evaluate the weapon types of your enemy to decide what kind of skirmisher you need. Obviously if you're fighting the Getai it would be better to have a lower armored unit for this tactic for instance.

Edit:

After re-reading your original post it seems like you mean you want to retreat and then attack again using the same unit during a battle, a bit like cavalry is often used. Is this correct? My first question in response to that would be...why? Some infantry units get a charge bonus, but it's not usually enough to justify the casualties you take running away. Unfortunately I've yet to see a unit in the RTW engine make any sort of fighting withdrawal, ie move backwards while maintaining a line and fighting. It seems that you can move, or you can fight, but you can't really do both as such. In the absence of being able to fight while moving backwards you have to turn and show your tail to the enemy, usually getting it stuck by something pointy. It would be incredibly useful to be able to suck in infantry or cavalry units into an open-ended box maneuver if you could do that, but you can accomplish a similar thing using this formation:

^^ ---^^
^^^

where ^ are heavy infantry and - are light infantry or skirmishers. Skirmishers work really well because of the natural skirmish mode, just leave it off until the enemy is close enough. But light infantry can do the same thing by running them behind your heavy infantry, or you can use phalangites or other heavy spearmen as your center and force run your light infantry through the attackers and then turn around and you have the attacking force in a box. Compliment that with a cavalry charge and you're talking insta-rout.

[Cute Wolf]

Coordinated retreat is best used with horse archer based army. Javelin armed cavalry could archieve the same, but less effective. And with infantry army, unless you fought against pure infantry army, that will be almost impossible. Anyway, if you are forced to do a coordinated retreat with infantry, always sent some disposable akontistai, gundi palta, or leves to hold the enemy line for a while.

[Macilrille]

Yes Levi, seems you are right, II wants to engage- disengage- engage.

Well II, think about it, RL that is even harder (and as a re-enactment fighter I know this), you are fighting your enemy; how will you retreat? Turn around and run? He gets a couple of free hits on your back as you turn... bad idea. Run backwards faster than he can move forwards? In terrain that will at this point be littered with dead and wounded? Believe me; that too is a very bad idea.
Look here and here to get an idea. The second is especially good as at the end you can see what happens when people try to retreat across dead buddies and the enemy rush them.

And yes, we fight to win.

[Imperator Invictus]

After re-reading your original post it seems like you mean you want to retreat and then attack again using the same unit during a battle, a bit like cavalry is often used. Is this correct?

Yes

Thanks guys, you are good tacticians. I also know some tactics with peltasts but I wanted to use the same tactic that Hannibal used at Cannae with Iberian Infantry, or the 10.000 greek mercenaries of Xenophon in Anabasis, or the Arabs, when Islam brought them from the deserts to destroy two empires at the same time.

"Hannibal stood with his men in the weak center and held them to a controlled retreat. The crescent of Hispanic and Gallic troops buckled inwards as they gradually withdrew. Knowing the superiority of the Roman infantry, Hannibal had instructed his infantry to withdraw deliberately, thus creating an even tighter semicircle around the attacking Roman forces. By doing so, he had turned the strength of the Roman infantry into a weakness" (Battle of Cannae)

Controlled retreat - that's what I'm talking about

[Macilrille]

Battles in EB are not long enough for that really. But someone mentioned a couple of months ago that Sword infantry in Guard Mode recieving a charge without countercharging will actually slowly, very slowly give a little- very little, ground.

I have not noticed it.

You may want to have a look in the AAR section where I keep a list of Tactical Advice.

Edit, you can actually recreate it in a way; if you set up with your flanks slightly forwards the idiot AI may conform to you and one with you can recreate is routing the enemy cav on the flanks with your own and attack his infantry's flanks and rear.

[Randal]

I've found that retreating with infantry units is very possible without suffering heavy casualties as long as another unit is still engaging the enemy.

A few enemies will try and follow your disengaging unit, but being in "combat mode" they will move very slowly whereas your troops are running full-tilt. You can stop and kill these handful pursuers at leisure if you want, though this may take some time, or just ignore them and charge in again, though this will make your charge a bit ragged as some of your troops will stop to engage the handful pursuers.

Still, this way you can pin down the enemy with a cheap unit in guard-mode and deliver multiple rear-charges with a harder-hitting unit. I imagine it's bad for enemy morale too. I've noticed units that were stubbornly holding ground break when my troops withdrew and charged back in. (Camillan Hastati/Principes against Solduros = long, long grind even if you surround them with four times their numbers. Much better to rout them.)

[Demosthenes]

Coordinated retreat is my favorite tactic in siegebattles, both as attacker and defender.
As Defender I sally out every turn, unload my arrows and slingpellets on the enemy and then retreat. This way your enemy might very well lose the taste for a siege.

When attacking it's a good way to decimate your enemy if you field archers of some kind and don't plan on starving. In my roman campaign I took sabaian full-crap-stacked town with only 3 units of scythian riders (and around 10 hippeis).

I'm just tossing ideas here, but what if you siege a town with 1 cavalry unit only, and every turn, when the enemy sallies out, you evade until time runs out. It should be possible to starve any city this way, right?