Question about skirmish mode

[jbguev]

As a quick aside, I just experienced my first (and second) suicide general. After playing half a campaign as the Julii and a full long campaign as the Brutii, I had never seen the "suicide general" phenomenon until yesterday.

I am currently playing a long campaign as the Seleucids, a faction I enjoy very much. I am purposefully playing slow (even for me) so that I can build Armored Elephants. Anyway, I had a row of 5 phalanx pikemen units (large size) with each unit arranged four deep. In front of them I deployed 4 units of archers with cataphracts defending my flanks and my general's unit behind the pikemen.

When I started the battle, the Scipii general unit charged straight at my archer units. I thought the archers would retreat like good little skirmishers (skirmish mode was definitely enabled) but no, they just stood there. Much to my surprise, however, the opposing general's unit continued through my archers to impale themselves on the outstretched pikes behind the archers, destroying the entire general's unit. The really strange thing is, the stampeding cavalry only killed 2 archers on their way to immortality.

When I saw it happening, I just stared at the screen. I really thought it was an aberration, but this afternoon it happened again in a different battle against the same foe. This time, however, the charging general's unit took out 25 of my archers in the front unit.

All this, of course, brings me to my question: why didn't the archers retreat when they were being charged by an enemy unit? In my previous battles, the archers seemed to retreat when faced with an advancing foe. Is there some other setting I need to address to make sure this happens, or do they only retreat when facing infantry?

Any observations or knowledge that can be imparted would be most appreciated. Thanks to everyone at the org for their help.

jbguev

[Herakleitos]

I experienced the exact same thing today, I am playing a German campaign and my unit of chosen archer warband was on skirmish mode but did'nt retreat behind my spearmen. A unit of Scipii roman cavalry ran straight through them and hit the spearmen while I lost only one archer!

I believe in M:TW a unit on skirmish would only take the unit it was targeting into account and ignore other troops rushing towards them, but I recall reading somewhere that now archers and the like are supposed to retreat whenever an enemy unit is too close; most of the time this works quite good in R:TW in my experience...

[Doug-Thompson]

That's bizzare. It must be because the units were charging the spears -- but why would the unit be charging spears? Even the AI is supposed to calculate the odds.

[Temujin]

I've seen this happen with or without troops supporting the skirmishers. It just seems like the skirmishers are much slower to react when charged by cavalry.

I think this is deliberate. Movement speeds being what they are, a unit of skirmishers could otherwise occupy a unit of heavy cavalry for far too long on a flank.

That said, there are some real flaws in skirmish mode. Yesterday, I had a unit of slingers get caught by charging gaul swordsmen in the middle of an open plain. Also, skirmishers shouldn't try to evade when separated from the enemy by an impassable obstacle, like a wall or river, but they do.

[HicRic]

I find skirmish mode is utterly fantastic when it comes to mounted troops (mostly horse archers) but sometimes less than useful with archers. My archers tend to start skirmishing when approached, but are just too slow to get out of the way in time, especially when charged by cavalry, even when they're only just in front of my battle line. I manually retreat them instead-but to say again, the skirmish function is great with horse archers.

[Smaug-V]

I found the same problem. Though it seems to be the worst with chariot archers. They sometimes skirmish for about a minute, and then stand still and wait for the enemy to come for then. Ive even seen them charge at the enemy, with half their ammo remaining. Didn't do much to reconcile me to chariots.

Smaug