Annihilating a routing army - how?

[KonradRichtmark]

Under what conditions exactly is an army instantly annihilated from routing, rather than retreating to another province as usual? I've seen it happen from time to time when I've had a victorious army pursue and re-engage a defeated enemy army. Sometimes it takes a few follow-up battles for it to happen, but it eventually does, and it doesn't seem like the enemy just ran out of men - it's rather like one moment it has a significant number of men left (but no or next to no organization), the next it annihilates and shows the battle to be over, no enemy survivors.

The Wiki says armies will be annihilated if they have nowhere to retreat, but it doesn't seem to be that either, as that pretty much requires either fighting on an island or deliberately trying to make that happen, which I wasn't doing.

 

[deanwebb]

Surrounding with at least one brigade per province and fleets blocking any retreat to transports will guarantee a battle of annihilation.

Otherwise, it seems to have to do with one side having significantly more org and supplies than the other. I've seen superior numbers from nations with equal army tech evaporate due to poor supply.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

I just did some tests by modding irregulars to have insane stats, and started the game as Mexico and fought against Texas. I only used irregulars to fight, while Texas had its starting stack of one infantry, one cavalry and one artillery. I attacked with different numbers in different contexts.

As far as I can tell, annihilation happens if all units in an army run out of organization during the first 10 days when no retreat is possible, *and* it is outnumbered 2 to 1 at the moment that happens. If one army runs out of organization but it isn't outnumbered 2 to 1, what happens is that the battle "continues" until those 10 days have passed without either side doing any damage to the other during that time, after which retreat happens normally.

 

[deanwebb]

That makes sense, thanks for getting that data.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

I have to qualify my statements a bit. I've seen cases where annihilation doesn't happen despite the above conditions being fulfilled. I suspect the winner also needs some amount of organization for it to happen. In an actual game (i.e. not a designed test situation) I've several times seen it not happen even though it should under my previous conclusion. Largely when the winning army was itself at low org from fighting.

 

[AsdfeZxcas]

For what it's worth, back in EU3 an army was insta-killed if you attacked it ten to one. I'm not sure if that was carried over into Victoria 2 or not but they are from the same era of Paradox games.

 

[Kovax]

In EU3, an army was stack-wiped if you beat it to the province it was retreating to before the end of the month when it recovered some ORG. That's a major tactical consideration in V2, but not necessarily an instant defeat unless other conditions are met.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

I studied the matter a bit further, did more tests and observations. I kept wondering why enemy stacks weren't getting annihilated like I thought they should, when I was pursuing them. As far as I can tell, there is a singular reason for it. Namely, only one brigade per side can rout and be taken out of the line during a day of the battle, regardless of how many might have gone down to zero organization. As there are 10 days during which retreat is impossible and annihilation is possible, any stack of more than 10 units is effectively immune to getting destroyed this way since there aren't enough no-retreat days for all of them to rout. Also, more often than not (if not always) it seems like brigades on zero org when the battle begins will still start in the battleline rather than skip the battle entirely. This didn't really show in my tests with Mexican super-irregulars against Texas, since the Texan army is just three brigades.

What's worse, it seems like the brigades on zero org that have not yet routed cannot be targeted either, but can shoot back at the enemy, causing situations where armies reduced to zero org spend days shooting at and inflicting casualties on the winner with impunity before the 10 first days are up.

So it seems like unless you're curbstomping small stacks, it's a fool's errand to try to go for annihilation. Instead it pays to hit the enemy stack after it has regained a little bit of org. It won't be annihilated, but you will inflict casualties at a very good kill-loss ratio as enemy brigades on low org trickle out of the battle and the remaining ones end up fighting outnumbered.

 

[RELee]

It's been a long while since I've played a game, but I seem to remember, somewhere in the the attic of my old brain, that I liked to keep a standing army of mounted troops handy so I could get an army in the province the enemy was trying to retreat into to get them all to die. More than one if I had enough brigades available. Like a 19th century blitzkrieg. Rush forward to get behind the enemy and then use my defensive strength to annihilate them as they tried to retreat. Loads of fun if you can pull it off.

 

[General WVPM]

Nice finds, Konrad's explanation matches battles I've seen in my campaigns. My advice to finish off army stacks is to either completely surround them (takes a lot of small armies) or keep a mobile force (cav) near, which rushes the retreat province. The first approach always stackwipes the enemy, the second approach forces the enemy to attack you, which sometimes results in a stackwipe and certainly counters the units without org firing at you.

 

[papapyro]

What's worse, it seems like the brigades on zero org that have not yet routed cannot be targeted either, but can shoot back at the enemy, causing situations where armies reduced to zero org spend days shooting at and inflicting casualties on the winner with impunity before the 10 first days are up.

Very good find, always wondered what was causing this