disheartened by the constant retreat...

[bretwalda]

In one petty battle, when exerting a "police action" against rebels, I employed the usual tactics of standing in a circle and shooting arrows at the unit of feudal sergeants. I was baiting them with a steppe cavalry which was my leaders unit. So I kept running from them while the rest of the army peppered arrows (the two units of bulgarian brigands were quite effective on that :)) The enemy unit was down to 40something when

my leader run and quit the battle...

Of course I won the day the other units did not even waver... But this was stange. My leader unit did not even stop and I could not rally them even though I was far away from my end of the battlefield (it ran through the bridge all the way to the other end...) Stange. I will check but I am pretty sure the unit got some bad vice because of this...

[Procrustes]

I've had that happen before - cheap cav like steppe and hobliars seem prone to it. You're lucky that the rest of your army held, really sucks otherwise.

I recently had a desperate battle against the horde where I finally had to throw my general - a royal prince - against the mongol general - a unit of steppe heavies. My prince fought valiantly and with some help broke the enemy unit and killed the Khan, but he got reduced to only three men and routed. Afterwards he got a "coward" vice and his men were whispering how he fled the field shrieking like a little girl. Really seemed unfair.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I believe units get a morale penalty if their back is to the enemy. That might be the cause of your woes, although in reality they wouldn't be afraid if they could outrun them.

Crazed Rabbit

[bretwalda]

That is allright with me, that they get a moral penalty for showing their back and even rout for the same reason. The odd part was that I could not rally them, even though there were no other enemy units, no threat, no great casualties... I kept pressing ctrl + R but they only rallied for a split second and run again. Strange.

I believe units get a morale penalty if their back is to the enemy. That might be the cause of your woes, although in reality they wouldn't be afraid if they could outrun them.

Crazed Rabbit

[Marquis de Said]

Did you just run around with the Steppe Cavalry without engaging the enemy?

Apparently it is programmed in the game that if a unit just runs around or away from the enemy without engaging, it will rout after a certain time. This was done to stop some players from winning defensive battles by running the clock down with a light cavalry unit that keeps running around in circles.

I tested this in one battle with a unit of RK's defending against one unit of archers and one unit of spearmen. I managed to run around for two thirds of the battle time and then my RK's routed and did not rally.

[henoch]

for me there are two generals;

hard-plated man, likely with horse, who will, after a while, join battle as the centre part of his life, and

generals. who nearly never fight, but run from hot-spot to hot-spot, giving the units a "boost" (apply on arty, too); bonus while fighting/shooting as well as most important: make their reaction an inch better.

[bretwalda]

That is quite probable that this happened... But it is still strange: at least the AI could calculate the odds of autocalc and if it favors the defender the cavalry should not rout... Also running down the clock is not impossible: all you have to do is to hold the line for a little time and then have 2 units running around - the way that they are not never too close to the enemy. The enemy will tire, you can shoot arrows and whoa the time is up...

The way it happened to me was silly ;) There was a single enemy unit and I had 5 or 6 units. The only one without arrows was running around, obviously. And ran while the rest was winning. Anyway I guess this rule is for gameplay purposes, so just got to live with it.

Did you just run around with the Steppe Cavalry without engaging the enemy?

Apparently it is programmed in the game that if a unit just runs around or away from the enemy without engaging, it will rout after a certain time. This was done to stop some players from winning defensive battles by running the clock down with a light cavalry unit that keeps running around in circles.

I tested this in one battle with a unit of RK's defending against one unit of archers and one unit of spearmen. I managed to run around for two thirds of the battle time and then my RK's routed and did not rally.

I usually try to have my generals to engage in fight (I don't want them to develop vices) at least at the end when most of the enemy units are fleeing. Also, if there are too few chasers, it always helps to have an extra horse unit.

[henoch]

turn the clock off... good choice i`d say.
yes running around is possible, but the same way you can "push" a unit "off-board". two units required. one to each "edge", and open/wide formation. ..and don`t run if not necessary (when hunting/-pushing)

[bretwalda]

I don't want to turn clock off... (btw. where can I do that - can I do it in between campaign?) I play archer heavy, especially horse archer but p. arbalester, etc as well. If I turn clock off I won't stop until all of the arrows are in the enemy, because I have all the time I want. Oh and in this case does the sun set and rise?

I was lucky I never needed to search the map for a hiding enemy - that would be very annoying...

turn the clock off... good choice i`d say.
yes running around is possible, but the same way you can "push" a unit "off-board". two units required. one to each "edge", and open/wide formation. ..and don`t run if not necessary (when hunting/-pushing)

[The_Emperor]

Ahh yes the "Life of Brian Arena fight" code.

It seriously limits the amount of moving around you can do. When i fought the mongols as the Byz, I didn't retreat from the enemy, and only reformed my battle line, yet a couple of Elite Varangian Guard units later fled the field because of it.

Even short movements it seems, all add up to the penalty. it may be designed with the best intentions in mind (to prevent your men from chasing the enemy all around the map and suffering a heart attack) but it is very annoying.

it is certainly my biggest MTW complaint.

[CherryDanish]

A few points.

First, it's easy to run the clock as the AI has a fatal flaw. Occupy the enemy with all your units but one or two small fast units. Keep those units hidden or unengaged in a corner of the map not likely to draw attention. Tie the AI up for half the clock time with your main forces. They'll retreat to the edge of the map unless you go to them.

Another way to beat the AI is to hold off the Ai for 3/4 of the time duration. If their forces are not engaged at that time they retreat, attacking them usually ends in routing their forces at that point. I do this with the horde when I'm tired of 4-5 hour fights.

During castle assaults, I've seen the AI hide units in wooded areas around the keep. So I always keep one or two units of light cav to run around the edges of the map while I blast the walls away.

Ahh yes the "Life of Brian Arena fight" code.

This was hilarious!

I've rarely had to deal with this, but I have seen evidence of it. Once as the English I was feigning Hobilar charges against wooded units of spears, peasants and urban militia. Finally, I pull them out and isolate a unit of peasants. I give the order to charge and 4 hobilar units rush in from 3 of 4 sides ... the last one, sensing certain victory, flees. I used his unit to fill up depleted units and when I got to the general, I disbanded him. Again I saw this happen to a group of HAs when I played as the Byz, but I regained control of them.

In my current campaign as the Turks, I recently wanted to test the AI on a bridge fight as they were retreating when ever I sent a unit accross (Odd tactic when they had so many spear and missle units). I sent in a unit of Turcoman horse archers who easily crossed, but drew 3 units of royal knights in pursuit. I thought for sure they'd rout but they forced the knights to chase them over half the map and when they were FINALLY cornered by the AI, but they fought till the last man. I was so pumped and suprised that they didn't rout. At that moment I didn't have the time to manage them as I tried to take advantage of the number of units pursuing them and the fact that they were swapping missle units which gave me a numbers advantage to force accross the bridge with foot and cav units. Too bad. I'm sure it had something to do with them being trained in a province with a +2 morale bonus building.

[HopAlongBunny]

Train your HA's in a town with a mosque or ribat ; makes them much more resilient

[bretwalda]

It seems to me, though I am not sure that all horse archer types (HA, Székely, Heavy Steppe Cav, etc.) are more or less free from this problem. Using the skirmish mode will prevent using this and the unit can "do a retrograde motion" without such penalty - running when the enemy gets too close. You can even fake charges by charging and a few meters before reaching the enemy unit you switch to skirmish mode - whoa your units backs up and keeps shooting distance... But the enemy most probably turned towards this unit and may even charge this unit allowing the other units to pepper with arrows...

[Nichren]

Train your HA's in a town with a mosque or ribat ; makes them much more resilient

Do catholics get something similar? e.g. English

[bretwalda]

Do catholics get something similar? e.g. English

They do: church, monastery and reliquary. Just that - I believe - English don't get horse archers. (But Hungarians do also Székely-s and on the steppes various steppe cavalries...)

I really like archer (and horse archer) heavy tactics. They are especially useful in the begining, the early era. These forces are very versatile, however their impact later lessen...

[Nichren]

They do: church, monastery and reliquary.

Sorry should of been more informative, the churches were what I was after. As for horse archers got to love them.

[henoch]

@bretwalda
if you order a HA to move, make it "engage at will" (yours), because if you leave them on "skirmish" while flanking, there is the rare chance you order them to move where don`t like to (are pressed away by a lost single man etc) and flee because of this "misorder" (yep, they blame the general..)
as soon as they have reached the position press "s" again.

[Ludens]

As far as I know there are three different morale penalties for troops being chased by other units:
1) Back threatened
2) Skirmisher pursued for a long distance by equal or faster speed unit
3) The 'Benny Hill code' which activates an unrecoverable rout when a unit has been chased for a long time to prevent players from running out the timer (I thought Benny Hill was the name of the player who invented this 'tactic' but it is actually the name of a comedian who was chased a lot). Skirmishers are not affected if they have munition left. However, if they do not have any arrows left they are at risk and get an additional morale penalty for skirmishing without munition.

So as you can see, horse archers are less likely to rout when chased than ordinary light cavalry because the Benny Hill Code does not apply to them as long as they have munition left and they are faster than most cavalry so 'being pursued'-penalty is not a problem.

Some time ago I had a discussion with a few other players in the Entrance Hall about how to avoid triggering the Benny Hill code. You can find it here: attempt to avoid the benny hill code. It seems that the time counter is reset if you engage in combat, no matter how short. But this is not a huge help since light cavalry is likely to get shredded if. You can find an old (pre-MTW) explanation of the Benny Hill code in this thread: ADVICE: solve autorout bug