Yes, let's withdraw FORWARDS, what a good idea...

**phonicsmonkey** · 05-14-2007, 08:20

hi all

lately I have been taking defeats more often, and sometimes deliberately, vs the Mongols and Timurids

I have been increasingly frustrated with what I see as unrealistic pathfinding on the campaign map after my armies "withdraw" from the battle.

In one example, after peppering a mongol stack with crossbow bolts, taking the charge and killing the general, I withdrew to avoid fighting the other two full stacks mooching about on the nearby hilltop.

My army decided the most logical way to withdraw and avoid slaughter was ONWARDS!!! (weaving a path through the six or so full mongol armies who politely doffed their hats as they passed)

surely this is silly - if you can't move your troops through an enemies' area of influence why should they be able to "retreat" through one

on top of that, they marched about three thousand kilometres into russia - much further than I could move them in my normal turn, and after their move allowance was used up getting to the battle in the first place!

I've been using move_character to sort this kind of thing out so it's no more than a minor annoyance, but it sort of feels like cheating so I was just wondering if anyone else agreed with me?

**Empirate** · 05-14-2007, 08:42

Yeah, this can get funny, even annoying sometimes. I especially hate it when the enemy withdraws where you can't follow, only to be sure to be a pain in the behind two turns further down. Fleets are the most irritating. Being blockaded on and off for turn after turn after turn just because you can't sink the enemy is unnerving, to say the least.
I don't usually withdraw my armies from the field myself. You take losses in withdrawing that you haven't taken on the battlefield - which makes playing a missile-heavy army somewhat less efficient than it might be. I usually try to bring enough manpower to actually win the fight. If I haven't got that kind of troop strength around, I often leave the general out of the fight and sacrifice a whole army while taking down as many Mongols or Timurids (the usual suspects here) as I can.

**Eng** · 05-14-2007, 08:46

Same stupid thing when the defending army routs out the wall.
they will just go to the nearest exit without taking to mind that its full with enemy that they just fought

**_Tristan_** · 05-14-2007, 10:25

The same exists on the battle map...

In one bridge battle, I had one army facing the enemy (HRE IIRC) and a small reinforcement coming from behind (Xbows)

After depleting their ammo to the back ot the enmy General BG, I asked the unit of Xbows to "withdraw" and then went to the main battle line...

A suddenly flashing red light to the bottom of the screen caught my attention.... My Xbows had decided that "withdrawing" meant crossing the entire enemy battle line, the bridge and my own battle line to exit on the opposite side they came from...

**Monsieur Alphonse** · 05-14-2007, 10:47

Well the same happens to the battle AI when they rout at a bridge battle. They always rout and cross the bridge instead of going back where they came from.

More annoying is an enemy fleet carrying troops. They always withdraw to the island you try to protect instead of returning home. So the next turn you are facing the army you wanted to learn to swim.

**Didz** · 05-14-2007, 12:35

The simple solution would be to allow the human player to choose the destination to which the withdrawing army heads.

Presumably the AI has a routine which calculates it at the moment so it would not be too difficult to insert a human interaction into that process where the army is player controlled.