Which way should they route???

[JCoyote]

I've been having an annoying issue fighting the Timurids when they try to cross bridges: their elephants, if they get to my side of the bridge, route TOWARDS my soldiers. Hell, I had one elephant keep turning side to side, very conveniently going up and down my rows of missile troops killing all of them, all while "fleeing".

Is routing broken? Shouldn't fleeing animals and people run AWAY from the enemy? I'm getting a lot of enemy units on bridge/fjord battles oh so conveniently do a "routing charge" on my soldiers.

[ForlornHope]

Hi JCoyote,

are you sure the elephants didn't run amok? Because that could be a reason for their seemingly erratic behaviour. It should say that in the info screen if you hover your cursor over the unit, something like "running amok" (haven't fought elephants yet, but I did so plenty in RTW and I know this feature is in again).

If not, then I fear that's yet another bug. Quite bad, as that was a common problem in RTW as well...

[Musashi]

Yeah, elephants don't "rout" they basically go nuts instead. They start trampling anyone near them.

[JCoyote]

I guess "near them" includes arquebusiers who are firing on them 75 yards up a hill, route means amuck, amuck means "in orderly groups of 4 or more", and potential targets can't include well over a thousand friendly soldiers right on their heels...

This isn't just the elephants, all enemy units route outwards from the bridge crossing, instead of back over the bridge... which is more appropriate, and yes, would clog the bridge. That's WHY bridge crossings are supposed to be so tough. They basically ALL "flee" towards me if they've gotten near my end of the bridge. Just in the case of elephants, they do a lot more damage.

It bugs me because it's not terribly accurate behavior, nor is fleeing enemy units conveniently rallying once they just happen to be around my flanks.

[Rilder]

that bridge routing problem is an old bug since RTW, never been fixed I think, as for elephant amokness, is it just me or do they tend to hang on the field a bit longer then usual, During a weird turmid siege were the enemy got stuck in front of my gates and amoked 3 units of elephants they ran through the enemy lines went out a bit then ran back through there lines up to like 3-5 times

[dopp]

It's just the bridge pathfinding problem. It actually helps when the enemy routs like that, because you get to kill them all when they flee through you instead of having to cross the bridge yourself to finish them off.

[katank]

I think they just seek nearest map edge to rout. However, the detection that makes them run away from your units seem to malfunction during bridge battles.

@ dopp, heavy cav that mostly routs but rallies and decides to come crash your flanks is decidedly not fun. I rather they try to rout back across the bridge and cause a huge traffic jam that I can shoot into.

[JCoyote]

Yeah dopp, when I'm fighting off 2 stacks of Timurids trying to cross a fjord, with no less than 12 Elephant Artillery hammering my side, I really don't have room in my forces for anyone to go running after the handfuls that always slip through when they route at me. As English I need several culverin to try to hit the elephants at range, ribaults to fire on the bridge and in case they rush the panzerphants, arquebusiers to fire on the bridge and cause panic, longbowmen behind them to do actual damage, and spears to stand at the bridge mouth where they also get hammered by the elephants. (I lost over 300 spearmen to the elephant artillery alone...) But really, the force balance I needed didn't have room for anyone to leave the bridge mouth to chase down routers.

[Midnight]

I've actually had a unit that I ordered to withdraw (a 1-man unit of Highland Archers - I reckoned almost anything would be better) leave the map by going diagonally across to another edge, instead of turning around and leaving from the edge at which he'd arrived. Crazy.

[sapi]

Midnight, i've had the same thing :P

I manually moved my general next to the edge of the map and ordered him to withdraw...so he ran to the other side of the map.

Smart.