Routing in v1.02

[Whacker]

I haven't seen any other threads to this effect, so I'll go ahead and start up this one. Mods if another exist, please point us in that direction and feel free to lock this one.

Anyone else think that routing is a bit weird in the v1.02 patch? By "wierd", I mean that units who route tend to regain their morale and come back to the fight more often than naught. I just ran a battle where I had a unit route and regroup *3* times. Three! And it wasn't the general's unit or even close to the general's unit!

I remember CA stating that there were some changes to these mechanics so that routing would be changed somewhat, and something to the effect of that one may need to ensure that they chase a router a good distance off, or all the way off the map, but this just feels quite a bit excessive. Am I the only one who thinks this?

[Slug For A Butt]

I am thinking that people bitch about RTW/M2TW not being as good on the battlefield as MTW a lot of the time with rose tinted spectacles.
Don't you remember the same units reforming time after time in MTW after they had routed? Nothing new or weird... good or bad I'll let you decide.

[FactionHeir]

Same as before really. If you don't kill enough of the unit but only rout it due to shocking it (gunpowder for instance or chain rout) it will keep comping back. Only when its lower than 1/4 will it actually keep routing.

[Shahed]

If this is the case I'm quite pleased to hear it.
I felt too few were KIA and too many POW, compared to MTW/VI.

[Doug-Thompson]

Now that you mention it, yes, I have noticed more rallying. Of course, they don't rally while being chased. Good thing router chasing has been improved.

It's all for the better. Certainly makes things more interesting.

[pike master]

also more fighting to the death with them putting up more of a fight when they do.

[Whacker]

also more fighting to the death with them putting up more of a fight when they do.

I've noticed this as well, much more fighting to the death.

Now that you mention it, yes, I have noticed more rallying. Of course, they don't rally while being chased. Good thing router chasing has been improved.

It's all for the better. Certainly makes things more interesting.

I still say it's just a bit excessive. When a unit that's depleted by ~2/3rds rallies upwards of two, three times, it's just a bit nuts. I guess my problem may lie in the fact that I've got guys all over the field rallying at random points, and they aren't even close to the general, or the general is dead. If they tied it more closely to proximity to the general and his rally ability, that'd be much more along the lines of what I'd like to see. Given the posts so far, looks like I could very well be a big minority here.

Edit
@ Sinan - Well stop slacking and get on it already, ya lazy bum! Seriously would like to year your opinions after you get awhile to test this.

[Shahed]

I have not tried 1.20 so I'll have to wait a bit to give my opinion. Currently, from what you mention, it could be good as you get more kills, battles might take longer, you'll have to actually pursue routers. I do see the point about no proximity to general, general KIA, and unit is decimated. I gues I'll have to try it soon-ish.

[Foz]

I do like the fighting to the death changes, but agree that the routing changes are a bit excessive. It seems like not only is there more rallying, but also more occasion to rally: units seem to rout faster now, and not necessarily because of a morale shock either. Could just be a fluke thing though if I've had particularly streaky luck in 1.2 so far.

Concerning the rallying... yeah. I had a fight earlier where I routed all but one of the AI's units. Some kind of archers that were sitting further away from the main battle I think. My men pursued their fleeing battle line, I had knights aimed at the last non-fleeing unit as well as numerous router herds... and before any of them got there, like 5 enemy units whipped around and joined combat again. They weren't even very far away from the guys who were chasing them, but suddenly most of the enemy army recovers. It felt really far fetched given the circumstances.

I do like the idea though in some respects. It seems reasonable that a unit would stop fleeing in terror if there was no imminent threat to it, so if you fail to pursue the unit, it makes sense that it will recover a good bit of the time. It just feels like they run too soon and consequently recover from routing too often now, or perhaps I mean they recover in too unlikely circumstances now. Either way it really distracts from the feel of battle and the immersion, and also detracts heavily from tactics as units are seemingly prone to running away at the drop of a hat. This more often than not turns the battlefield from organized warfare into mere tides of men, prone to the requisite ebb and flow, and makes positional tactics largely irrelevant as a result.

Have I mentioned yet that I also despise how my foot units fail to understand that they shouldn't try to run down routing units? They never ever catch them, and it annoys me to no end that they try anyway and in the process shift all over the battlefield instead of holding the battle line I want them in. Wish there was some way to have foot units default to no action (waiting for an order) when their target routs.

[Shahed]

Guard mode does that. If you enable it, they usually stay at the line. Has this changed in 1.20 ?

[Foz]

Guard mode does that. If you enable it, they usually stay at the line. Has this changed in 1.20 ?

Probably not. I just assumed it was only useful for sticking a unit to a spot on defense, and not if you were going to issue an attack command. Oops!

So, thanks for the tip. I guess you really do learn something new every day, even if it is something you should've already known...

[Shahed]

That's my whole issue with Guard mode.

In MTW/VI you had Hold Position and Hold Formation, two different commands. Now you have one and it often does'nt do what you actually want it to. If you want them to hold formation, forget it... unless it's spearwall, even so it seems incredibly hard to actually hold a formation. Hell ! "---rant censored---".

If you want them to hold position, that actually works, most of the time.

[Fußball]

I like routing the way it is now. Think of it this way: You have a unit that was just maimed down to half size and decides, they cannot win this fight so they run. Said routing unit is simply routing to get out of harms way, not wanting to die and all, finally get to a position where they are not being chased. They stop, tired but still shaken, slowly reform what is left of the unit. They are ready to fight again. I believe that is a bit more realistic than a unit of 30 or so still routing without a unit chasing them. Which happened more pre v1.2.

I do enjoy the fighting to the death that units do. What I do not enjoy is they do not fight hard enough. Fighting to the death ( I shall call it FttD for now ) units are usually surrounded when it triggers, meaning they cannot go anywhere and that it is the men's last resort. I think that the unit should gain a slight attack bonus and begin to fight more until one of three things happen. The enemy units move, are routed or are destroyed. The FttD unit is destroyed. Or if somehow the FttD unit is no longer surrounded, route may trigger.

Tschüß!
Erich

[Whacker]

@ Foz - Try guard mode, it seems to stop that chasing of routers. It's worked so far for me in v1.02 when I remembered to use it.

I like routing the way it is now. Think of it this way: You have a unit that was just maimed down to half size and decides, they cannot win this fight so they run. Said routing unit is simply routing to get out of harms way, not wanting to die and all, finally get to a position where they are not being chased. They stop, tired but still shaken, slowly reform what is left of the unit. They are ready to fight again. I believe that is a bit more realistic than a unit of 30 or so still routing without a unit chasing them. Which happened more pre v1.2.

I do enjoy the fighting to the death that units do. What I do not enjoy is they do not fight hard enough. Fighting to the death ( I shall call it FttD for now ) units are usually surrounded when it triggers, meaning they cannot go anywhere and that it is the men's last resort. I think that the unit should gain a slight attack bonus and begin to fight more until one of three things happen. The enemy units move, are routed or are destroyed. The FttD unit is destroyed. Or if somehow the FttD unit is no longer surrounded, route may trigger.

I think this kind of sums up a few points of discussion nicely. Personally, I'd like to see:

1. units route much less sooner than they do right now,
2. something like a "three strikes and you're out" penalty, aka there's no more rallying after a certain number of routes,
3. routing tied much more closely to fatigue. I've seen too many exhausted units rally, and this doesn't seem right,
4. lower grades units much less likely to rally, higher more possible, and all things in between as relative,
5. rallying tied more closely to proximity to the general, if he's dead then rallying all around much less likely.

[Ciaran]

If it´s indeed so that units tend to rally after a rout then it´s a good thing in my book, a very good thing indeed. Yes, I´m one of those "rose-tinted-glasses MTW player" as someone so quaintly put it. The thing is, it makes the battles more interesting. In RTW (and M2TW 1.1) a unit that routed was practically gone from the field, without further consideration needed. Now you´ve got the choice, chase that unit from the field and expose one of your units, or keep your army close and risk routing units to rally and come back, especially if they routed due to a chain rout. As well, not all is lost when your own units start to rout. You´ll have to play on VH to have something left of the unit that´s worth rallying, on Medium I´ve seen spear militia fight on and on and they only routed when there were about ten men left.

Morale, in the end, is what sets the TW games apart from any other strategy game I know of.

[Moah]

May be more common in 1.02 but I've seen it quite a lot previously.

Playing Turks I now have Janissary Musketeers and use a couple of units of them to clear up rebels, no general nearby.

The rebel units stand for a bit, then rout (or charge more often in 1.2). But they then reform after they're out of range and not being fired at. They then come back in, get shot up, run away again.

Generally I don't think i've seen them reform more than 3 times.

But i've also seen similar routing behaviour previously against Naptha or archers. It's a good one to observe (vs small rebel armies) because you have a small number of units.

Remember if a unit had routed once its morale is fragile and is quick to rout again so its not like full strength units returning to battle.

And also remember this works both ways.

I've won at least two battles because my routing janissary musketeers reformed a little distance off and returned to teh fray. As they could attack from a distance they could have a renewed impact on the enemy without instantly getting routed again. One of my (close) victories against Timurids would probably have been a defeat if they hadn't rallied (and this was after the death of my general).

[econ21]

I have not noticed a change in the propensity to rally after the patch. Even on 1.0 or 1.1 with VH, I worked on the assumption that the enemy would eventually rally if you did not pursue (and his entire army was not in flight). I like it, although if you have 3 or more cavalry units (for pursuit), it does not seem to be an issue.

[sapi]

The main issue i've found is that even if you rout their entire battle line (which I did), decent units (such as the byz inf/varangians I was fighting) will still rally after fleeing for a few seconds.

It's annoying to have a second battle line form, doubly so when you can smash it with a single charge...

[dopp]

I think guard mode is a little buggy because the men hold formation and don't fight back at all.

Historically it was very rare for units to rally on the battlefield once broken. I think it's different in M2TW to make the battles longer.

[econ21]

Historically it was very rare for units to rally on the battlefield once broken.

I'm not sure why you say that - I would have thought it was the norm for routing units to rally on the battlefield if not pursued. From Hastings through Waterloo, attacking units would often attack, break, run away back to safety (ie rout) and then rally & reform to come back again. It's probably harder to think of examples of defenders routing and rallying, as they were more likely to be pursued.

At least in terms of the Napoleonic wars, which I know most about, Waterloo is thought of as the exception in that almost the whole French army eventually routed and did not rally. But even then, that characterisation was probably overplayed - only three French eagles were lost on the day (less than the number of Allied colours captured).

[SadCat]

Anyone else think that routing is a bit weird in the v1.02 patch? By "wierd", I mean that units who route tend to regain their morale and come back to the fight more often than naught. I just ran a battle where I had a unit route and regroup *3* times. Three! And it wasn't the general's unit or even close to the general's unit!

I remember CA stating that there were some changes to these mechanics so that routing would be changed somewhat, and something to the effect of that one may need to ensure that they chase a router a good distance off, or all the way off the map, but this just feels quite a bit excessive. Am I the only one who thinks this?

With 2 1/2 stacks coming on to the field after the main one starts to rout it jest gets insane. I had 4 horse units but trying to chase the routers out of 3 side of the map at the same time meant a lot of unit jumping. I vote for a bit excessive as is, but better than not having to chase them. Say recover once if General is dead, twice if he is alive, but he best be sitting on them and a high rated General to get them back a 3rd time. I do think they may be running a bit sooner that 1.0 but not sure as I had gun powder units as well. SadCat

[Slug For A Butt]

I am thinking that people bitch about RTW/M2TW not being as good on the battlefield as MTW a lot of the time with rose tinted spectacles.
Don't you remember the same units reforming time after time in MTW after they had routed? Nothing new or weird... good or bad I'll let you decide.

@Whacker. Just apologising in case you thought I was flaming you, it wasn't my intention. Just my clumsy way of putting things.

[dopp]

Sorry, I meant armies, not individual units. I was referring to breaking an entire enemy battle line in M2TW and have them rally 10 seconds later.

[econ21]

Sorry, I meant armies, not individual units. I was referring to breaking an entire enemy battle line in M2TW and have them rally 10 seconds later.

OK, I see your point. Yes, the whole army routing and quickly rallying is odd, although as I said, I haven't found that a problem so long as I have a few pursuing cavalry units. It may be more of an issue against high command generals, e.g. the Mongols, but I have not fought them much. And again, if anyone could rally a "fleeing" army, I suspect it would be the Mongols.

TW has always been a bit "all or nothing" in its battles. I suspect most historical battles did not end in the disintegration of the losing army. Waterloo being the Napoleonic exception that proves the rule. A successful disengagement, a fighting retreat or even a pause due to mutual exhaustion were probably more likely. To be fair to TW though, the disintegration of the losing army only tends to happen if the victor has sufficient cavalry to chase the losers. You could nerf TW cavalry in stats and it would still be invaluable for that reason.

[Moah]

TW has always been a bit "all or nothing" in its battles. I suspect most historical battles did not end in the disintegration of the losing army. Waterloo being the Napoleonic exception that proves the rule. A successful disengagement, a fighting retreat or even a pause due to mutual exhaustion were probably more likely. To be fair to TW though, the disintegration of the losing army only tends to happen if the victor has sufficient cavalry to chase the losers. You could nerf TW cavalry in stats and it would still be invaluable for that reason.

Actually that's one of the reasons I've found TW so good. Form my reading of history I've got the impression that it is the routing of one side that genreally marks the end of a a battle, and then the casualities come in that slaughter.

Casualties while fighting were generally surpisingly low but then when one side runs it is slaughtered, and that's where you get your massive cacualty imbalances.

For example Mon Graupius was given some totally ridiculous casulaty count by the roman historians: Something like 10,000 celts and 84 romans. There are generally thought to be 3 explanations.

1) Exaggeration.

2) The roman historian didn't count auxiliaries as romans, thus only 84 romans died, but possibly 100's of aux. - who were alwasy sent in first.

3) Routing. The suggestion is only a few hundred britons were dead when their line broke, then teh vicotrious army slaughtered the fleeing britons.

But in other cases, like Bannockburn, it was the routing english being trapped by the river and drowning or being hacked to death in water or on bank that led to teh death toll - not the initial pikes. There are various other examples.

Casualties are low, then your shield wall breaks. YOur side runs. They are slaughtered. I find it very realistic.

As someone here posted above, morale is the one factor that makes TW better than all the other contenders - and I'd rather not have lots of units fighting to the death. I think that was pretty rare!

Morale rules good. me like.

[Slaists]

That's my whole issue with Guard mode.

In MTW/VI you had Hold Position and Hold Formation, two different commands. Now you have one and it often does'nt do what you actually want it to. If you want them to hold formation, forget it... unless it's spearwall, even so it seems incredibly hard to actually hold a formation. Hell ! "---rant censored---".

If you want them to hold position, that actually works, most of the time.

Well... two different developer teams. MTW I was developed in UK while MTW II - in Australia.

[TeutonicKnight]

I prefer routing units reform and return to the fight.

I hate chasing people all over the map just to kill them. :)

[Empirate]

Clausewitz put it like this: Cavalry may not be the deciding factor of a battle anymore [in the Napoleonic era, that was], but it is still the deciding factor in wether a victory is decisive. Historically, router chasing was the most important function of all cavalry - making sure all your efforts on the battlefield, all the great risks your side took in accepting the battle, all the lives lost were actually worth something more than a warm feeling afterwards. I think this is what TW games try to incorporate in tactical battles - although historically the chasing of routers would often go on for days. After the battle of Bannockburn, e. g., king Edward's retinue was chased around and decimated for many days before he was finally able to get on a ship home.
So if an army is destroyed on the battlefield in M2TW, this is a representation of your annihilation of enemy fighting capabilities that would in reality have taken much longer.

In M1TW it happened quite often that an enemy army that "knew" it was beaten withdrew from the fields. Especially when you had routed the first set of 16 units, enemy reinforcements would often pull back before reaching the fighting premises. This preserved part of the enemy's strength for another day, and I think it was an excellent mechanic. Also, in M1TW, even if you had cavalry, you'd often not be able to catch all routers despite they had great pathfinding for router chasers. Fatigue was much more important and it happened quite often that after a long, drawn-out battle, your cavalry was so exhausted it was slowed to a walk.

The "automatic" router chasing of RTW was a great downside to that game IMO, and M2TW in 1.2 has gone that way, too (although it was obviously intended to be this way from the start...). Units never reformed, but you didn't have an exactly hard time to catch them...

I like units reforming after a rout, I like it very much - it adds tactical depth in forcing you to either chase, losing a unit needed in the fight that still goes on at other spots, or let them reform and become a (bit of a) threat again. Love it!

I seem to find that enemy armies under mere captains rout easier since 1.2, while generals are much more able to keep their forces together. Also, missile fire seems to detract from morale more. I've found that firing a few volleys of crossbow bolts into the approaching enemy makes them much more susceptible to be broken soon after contact with your charging melee troops. This only seems to go for the first wave, those that take most damage from the missiles, while undamaged regiments coming up right behind rout much less easily. Maybe this has to do with a larger penalty for being outnumbered locally, I dunno.

[dopp]

TW has always been a bit "all or nothing" in its battles. I suspect most historical battles did not end in the disintegration of the losing army. Waterloo being the Napoleonic exception that proves the rule. A successful disengagement, a fighting retreat or even a pause due to mutual exhaustion were probably more likely. To be fair to TW though, the disintegration of the losing army only tends to happen if the victor has sufficient cavalry to chase the losers. You could nerf TW cavalry in stats and it would still be invaluable for that reason.

Say rather that most historical battles were inconclusive draws where even the nominal 'loser' retreated in good order. An army that simply routs is usually completely destroyed as a fighting force, but this is comparatively rare and is often the mark of a 'decisive battle'. Many of the defeated soldiers may survive, but they will be scattered (often deserted) or taken prisoner. More importantly, their confidence and fighting spirit (and that of their generals) will be badly shattered and the army may take many months to recover. If attacked, it may distintegrate completely even before contact.

"All or nothing" isn't a bad thing, though. The whole point of the Western art of war is to force a decision on the battlefield by annihilating the enemy army (the Eastern art of war is the exact opposite: evade and delay). It has been a spectacularly successful way of fighting. In fact, the irritating thing is that the AI doesn't recognize the principle; it doesn't realize that it's beaten even if it has absolutely nothing left to throw at you.

[TinCow]

In fact, the irritating thing is that the AI doesn't recognize the principle; it doesn't realize that it's beaten even if it has absolutely nothing left to throw at you.

I think you've identified a major area where the AI can be improved. If the AI withdrew from a battle when it was losing more regularly, I think the difficulty level would be much improved. The only times I ever see a withdrawal are when there are two waves of AI units, the first wave is destroyed or routed, and the second wave is a good distance back from the frontlines and is not committed to the battle. In that case, the second line will often withdraw if heavily outnumbered. This is the correct decision, but the AI doesn't ever seem to try to withdraw from a mainline engagement. Since it usually throws everything into the fray at once, this means that withdrawal rarely happens and it keeps fighting until it is dead or you are.