Quote Originally Posted by Weebeast
Why is that sometimes my troops are 'disheartened by constant retreat' when I never hit the rout button? They all just chain rout and can't be rallied. Well, they do rally but in a second they rout again.
It's caused by the so called Benny-Hill code, to prevent players from running light cavalry around the map until the timer runs out. A unit that is constantly ordered to move away from the enemy will, after 15 move-orders or so, auto-rout. Attacking an enemy will reset the counter, so you can start running around again.

Routing units will not always rally when you order them, and it gives a nasty vice to the general if he does it. Therefor I only use it when I want to prevent a unit from getting shredded in a melee, if it is unable to disengage manually.

Rally gives a morale boost to fleeing units, so it can be used to stop them from routing. Quite often, however, the boost is insufficient and they keep running (thereby tiring themselves and making a succesful rally even more unlikely).