Killing own routing units

[Shadow]

I was thinking if there could be a function that allows you to order your units to kill routing ones so as to force the fleeing units to stop and return to fighting

What you people think?

[Peasant Phill]

Was this 'tactic' used very often? I know about Agincourt where French knights killed the routing Genoese sailors. But the Genoese were mercenaries and AFAIK the French knights killed them out of rage not to 'encourage' them to start fighting again.

[Watchman]

Those were crossbowmen, mind you. I've read the knights by and large either confused them as an enemy attack, and/or thought they'd changed sides. Plus with medieval unit C-and-C as well as the warrior aristocracy's attitude to combat, if a part of the cavalry line which didn't have too many Genoese in the way decided to advance (since the mercs had obviously failed) the rest would almost certainly follow suit if only so as not to be though of as dawdling in the face of the enemy...

I don't think even the steppe nomads and derived empires (like the Ottomans) practiced that sort of Stalinist motivation of troops. It wasn't really feasible with the weaponry of the time if nothing else - try to stop routing troops by killing them, and the buggers just may in desperation fight you. Better really to just let them go by so the reserve formation is in shape and order to take on the pursuing enemy.

However, unreliable formations and allies were commonly placed in locations where they couldn't surreptiously sneak away from, and would be very vulnerable if they changed sides. This sometimes sort of backfired - I've read that when the Ottomans fought Tamerlane it turned out to have been a mistake to put their dragooned nomad auxiliaries in the front rank - these happened to share a language and culture base with the enemy, and found it pretty easy to defect en masse. And if pretty much the whole army is unreliable - as was the case for who was it, Kitbogha or whatever the Atabeg of Mosul was called, before Antioch during the First Crusade when his assorted vassals and clients flatly walked away with their troops and left him to get mauled by the Crusaders...

It's probably actually just nice the game doesn't go too deep into the political side of things, eh ? Saves frustration.

[Ser Clegane]

It's probably actually just nice the game doesn't go too deep into the political side of things, eh ? Saves frustration.

Although it might add a very interesting twist to battles if e.g. bribed troops would switch sides not on the campaign map but on the battle map (at least if such a thing would not be overdone and occur only once in a while)

[Bar Kochba]

but if you could do that then if you had a rich empire you can do it every battle and people will just abuse the power

[Ser Clegane]

but if you could do that then if you had a rich empire you can do it every battle and people will just abuse the power

I generally agree with yopu - hence my remark that such a feature should not be overdone - money should not be the most important factor here. Factors like loyalty (see old M:TW) or in which region the troops have originally been recruited could play a more importnat role
(note: I am not expecting something like this to appear in the upcoming M:TW2 - but it might be a nice way to spice up battles in future game; but again: only when it isn't overdone and cannot be exploited).