What causes an unprompted rout?

[De Bullseye]

Units running away...

I have an easy time understanding it if they are getting swarmed/slaughtered/etc.

I have a harder time understanding it when they are:
1. winning
and/or
2. not in contact with the enemy

I was near the end of what SHOULD have been a succesful attack (MI campaign). I had this really sweet hill layered with units. I had reserves in place to fill any gaps. I had a CA unit waaay out there luring 1-3 units of KS around.

The Mongols marched right up the hill and took a beating. The battle started 1100vs1400 (in Mongol's favor)... After a Mongol charge (even though I was the 'attacker', they were doing the attacking on the field..right up the hill).
The Mongols were down to around 600 men, . There was one group of 40 KS still marching up the hill (against my 900-1000). The remainder of the Mongols were fleeing (along with their general).

Then... about 3 groups of units back, one of my YS units began to flee for NO REASON. They weren't NEAR the enemy (the whopping 40 guys that were still coming).

So this group of 80 YS caused a domino effect. I couldn't get them to halt and a minute later they have my whole army running away (mostly honor 1-2).

My army runs right down the back side of the hill... Just as the Mongol LC come back online and come charging in.

Grrrrr! Seems like the only challege to fighting the computer's Mongols is trying to keep my men from running away. This is especially annoying when I'M WINNING and taking almost NO CASUALTIES (until they start to run).

DB

[BSM_Skkzarg]

Actually sounds like they started running due to another unit routing - you mentioned the "lure" - did it bolt first perhaps? If so, your likely a victim of the infamous "benny hill rout" that is programmed into the game.

Q!
Skkz

------------------
BSM_Skkzarg
"ARG when I'm Happy, ARG when I'm Sad, ARG when I'm good or bad. ARG!"
"ARG to port! ARG to starboard! Arg from stem to stern! ARG!"

[DeathOnaPaleHorse]

LOL... the Benny hill rout... it makes sense... if I saw a unit routing right through my lines, I would run like hell too.I can imagine the Benny Hill music playing while my samurai run off the map.

[YagyuKamiizumi]

Then a Kensai comes up and slaps them repeatedly on the head!
-------------------------------------
'Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there' -George Carlin

[Cheetah]

Where was your general and how many stars did he have? Were your men tired or not?

[Kraellin]

bullseye,

this is the classic 'rout bug'. it's a known thing in this game and is mentioned in several other threads. there's also an explanation from one of the programmers which he calls the 'benny hill' feature. perhaps someone can direct you to those topics.

K.


------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[shingenmitch2]

TWO DIFFERENT THINGS

The "chain rout" is NOT the "Benny Hill rout"

The "chain rout" is a cascading rout that occurs when your guys see friendly troops fleeing. This makes your other troops VERY nervous (they actually take a morale hit) and MUCH easier to start routing on their own. If another unit routs, now your troops see 2 friendlies running -- with greater morale hit -- this can cascade down the line until your entire army is running.

The "Benny Hill" detection code is different. This code starts an automatic rout of a unit if it is trying to avoid contact with the enemy (i.e. you have enemies footies chasing around your CA, eventually the CA will simply "rout" if you keep it running away.) UNFORTUNATELY this same code keeps tracks of all your units. And on occaision, you'll have a unit make enough moves (moves that the computer considers away from the enemy -- my understanding is 20) without giving it an attack order. The computer sees this as avoiding a fight and will AUTO rout the unit, from which it won't recover.

Now since u have a routing unit it MAY cause the "chain rout" cascade effect.