Ok so im playing as England, France and its Vassals assault me. My armies retreat and they attack and I die. Not a big deal I get it my morale sucks as I was just defeated. So why does the AI just keep on retreating when the reverse happens? When fighting one of Frances vassals or fighting France in Vassal territory the AI army keeps retreating instead of being wiped out. There seems to be a bug, I get to the army before it leaves the province but instead of my Army fighting theirs they just keep on retreating.
Enemy Retreats, I die?
- Thread starter Jayrayway
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As far as I can tell your retreat distance depends on if you are crossing over your own cored Providences. So in France they have a lot of distance they can retreat but you have usually only 1 spot nearby that is yours, but if they land on your island and beat you up on say London you will retreat as far north as you have cored Providences, like york if you don't have Scotland yet.
There are two kinds of retreats, one where the army only moves one province away and another where it flees to the other side of your country. When doing the latter, it will ignore enemy armies. I'm afraid I don't know what triggers one as opposed to the other, but both can happen to the player.
My guess is that you were either
A) deep inside french territory, in which case the losing army only retreats 1 province away (this is the same for the AI as well)
or
B) you only had limited territory, in which case you didn't have the defensive depth to fall back more then one province.
In my Ottoblob game, an army that was defeat in Verona (I controlled it, I was going for sultan of rum achiev) ran all the way back to Constantinople.
A) deep inside french territory, in which case the losing army only retreats 1 province away (this is the same for the AI as well)
or
B) you only had limited territory, in which case you didn't have the defensive depth to fall back more then one province.
In my Ottoblob game, an army that was defeat in Verona (I controlled it, I was going for sultan of rum achiev) ran all the way back to Constantinople.
It was the begining of the Game, there where no provinces lost. I had just defeated Frances army and they had retreated into Ild de france. I follow and arrived 2 days after they did. The Vassal army totally ignored my Army and simply kept moving as if I was not there.
This is normal behavior, they run back to their home province as a vassal or even the south-west corner of France to get away. (I'm trying hard not to make a Vichy joke now.)
The one-province retreat is much less common, it only happens to me when I am surrounded by enemy provinces or armies. But I don't know exactly what triggers it either. There does seem room for either clarity or a rule change.
Personally, in many cases I'd prefer the one-province retreat, as the big run away takes an army out of the theater and stops it from reinforcing for up to months.
What I mean is that my army simply lets them keep moving. Shouldn't they fight and shatter the Army? If it was the other way around my Army would be utterly destroyed so why does the AI simply get to keep on trucking and live to fight another day.
No, I understand what you meant and I was responding.
If you look at an army, there's a little white "surrender" flag over a retreating army. As long as the army has it, it (1) cannot be given orders, (2) will not re-inforce, and (3) cannot be engaged by an enemy army. It will recover morale during this period.
In most cases, an army will auto-retreat to the opposite corner of it's empire. This will happen to both the player and the AI, whether you want it to or not.
There are cases where you get a 1-province retreat only, but I don't know the exact conditions. In your case it's easy to understand: as England in the Hundred Year's War, you don't have anywhere safe on the continent to run to--all your provinces border the enemy--so the army logic of "getting as far away as possible and re-grouping" only moves you to Normandy or so, not enough time to cover morale.
Chasing a retreating army isn't a bad idea, as it doesn't recover strength and you will catch up sooner or later. It is risky, though, since if you are defeated deep in enemy territory you can end up in the short-retreat mode again.
As I understood - an army does the major retreat when it is in home territory or near the border of it, but if it's in hostile territory - the army will retreat only 1 province, which makes deep intrusions into enemy territory risky without strategic reserves.
Ah i understand now, so its not a bug. I just have to decide if following the army is worth the risk. And I got ya, my armys have nowhere to retreat to so they only go 1 providence.