Manually Withdrawing Armies

[Ellyll]

This is such an underused mechanic, I am having trouble even finding detailed information on it. It is also relatively hard to test in a real game due to how insanely tilted the battle mechanic is towards routing.

What it seems to be, though, is that if you manually withdraw after ten days, your troops take massive casualties without dealing damage for the time it takes to walk to the next province.

If you intentionally set your moral low, however, they INSTANTLY stop taking losses when their morale hits zero, they become immune to further attacks, and through the magic of routing manage to retreat in much better order and with much lower losses that if they hadn't routed.

Does this about sum it up?

EDIT: I managed to do some testing, results in reply below.

Basically, it does end the battle immediately when you withdraw, but it takes 12 days to be able to not 10. It also still counts as a loss even if you out casualty your enemy severely.

 

[Octavius Antony]

Uh, far as I know, you stop taking casualties the moment you retreat from combat. You also can't choose where the units shatter to if they retreat due to low morale. Leaving while above .5 morale allows a target province to be selected.

 

[Ellyll]

I will have to try harder to get a better test condition then. It seemed to me that choosing the province caused my troops to stop dealing damage while still taking it until the retreat was complete. It may have been a bad die roll though.

 

[Ellyll]

So, as I wrote above, I managed to get some better testing in. The secret was to pick Prussia n the 30 years war and bait an Austrian stack onto me.

The battle started on July 21 and retreat did not become available until August 2nd, which is 12 days, or 4 full phases instead of 10 days I have heard before.

The battle counts as a noticeable warscore loss even if you withdraw in good order and out casualty your enemy severely, although if you do so you at least gain more army tradition than them (assuming you DO out casualty them).

However, an orderly withdraw by a force that out casualties the "victor" resets most of the morale of the slaughtered force while leaving the moral of the slaughtering force low - pretty much guaranteeing a stack wipe one province over absent zone of control.

This is laughable in that it requires intentionally tanking your moral to induce a "rout" in order to simulate an orderly withdraw, as an orderly withdraw causes your entire army to be destroyed on pursuit one province later and thus actually simulates a rout.

At least now I know and can act accordingly.

To sum up, A "Rout" is achieved by running out of moral, which causes your units to simulate an orderly withdraw to a safe province rebuilding along the way, while an order for a "orderly withdraw" causes your army to become annihilated in pursuit and actually routed one province later absent fort support.

I see now why no one really uses this option. I also see why some people engage in creative means to intentionally tank their own moral mid battle to simulate what a withdraw should be.

 

[Dominion]

Of course you lose WS. You lost the battle.
AT gains depend on losses, so, yes, you will always gain more AT than your enemy if your casualties are higher. This has nothing to do with shattered retreat. Or any retreat for that matter.
Your assumption regarding morale is... interesting. I don't have half an idea what you want to say. You mean that the victor gains a morale boost? That's normal combat and has nothing to do with retreat.
Nothing in your comment has anything to do with retreat. You're describing normal combat scenarios and drawing conclusions about retreat that are incorrect.

 

[Ellyll]

Note 2: Changing unit types to tank your moral before a battle has apparently been patched to cause your forces to fight with 0.00 moral for up to a week rather than fleeing early.

 

[Ellyll]

Of course you lose WS. You lost the battle.
AT gains depend on losses, so, yes, you will always gain more AT than your enemy. This has nothing to do with shattered retreat. Or any retreat for that matter.
Your assumption regarding morale is... interesting. I don't have half an idea what you want to say. You mean that the victor gains a morale boost? That's normal combat and has nothing to do with retreat.

My point, in short, is that not only did most historical battles not end in routes, it makes it very, very hard to strategically bleed out an opponent through structured engagements unless you turn the entire system on it's head.

In other words, to simulate orderly withdraws you must connive ways to have the enemy "route" you. After all, casualties in EU4 affect moral, but moral does not affect casualties. (other than stack wipes), so "routing" your army to a safe area while rebuilding and marching back to reengage is actually pretty common. Ordering a withdraw and rebuilding and reengaging is nearly unheard of.

I am not saying the winning force would take nothing from winning the field, but engage - disengage - fall back and cover flanks was the standard for warfare at this point in time. Full on army breaking was much more rare. And it makes it very to to proactively fight wars of attrition. (Which is something I must admit I am fond of.)

 

[Dominion]

But it isn't? You can absolutely retreat and rebuild. It's just that retreating one province over and reengaging doesn't work because they get a morale boost for winning.
Wait a few month's ticks and you're fine.

Historical accuracy has nothing to do with any of this.

 

[Ellyll]

But it isn't? You can absolutely retreat and rebuild. It's just that retreating one province over and reengaging doesn't work because they get a morale boost for winning.
Wait a few month's ticks and you're fine.

Historical accuracy has nothing to do with any of this.

That only works in ZOC. They can start walking the same day you do and stack wipe you when you reach the retreat province. In order to be protected you must rout.

And, while historical accuracy surely isn't paramount, they do use it as a reason for a lot of the OP "Lucky" nations and such. =P

When It comes down to it though, I just want it because it opens up more play styles.

 

[Ellyll]

Actually, on testing further I was able tow make the army retreat more than one province manually. So that helps at least. Nearly half wa month before that becomes available is still a bit much, I think.

 

[Octavius Antony]

Yeah, you should absolutely just manually retreat as soon as possible if you are going to lose a battle. Lowering your morale in any way makes any other armies not involved in that battle useless for just as long as the one that needs to retreat. Winning a battle recovers a portion of morale based on the difficulty of winning the battle. This helps keep an army from getting wiped one day after a long drawn out battle. On top of this, stack cycling was removed with a change where retreating a portion of an engaged army lowered the morale of all other units in the same combat.

 

[Kagemin]

Am I missing something? I was under the impression that manual retreats are one of the most basic ideas in warfare.

Got caught in a bad engagement? Got some bad early rolls in an even fight? Losing a fight for whatever reason? Retreat to a safer spot of your choice before your losses are too high and try again under better circumstances once you've recovered and joined your forces. Miles better than fighting to a shattered retreat (the losses will often screw up your ratios and result in massive losses towards the end) and then running away with having no (or only indirect) control where to. There are exceptions of course where you have lower morale but inflict more losses, but even then it's often a better idea to go for a controlled retreat.

 

[Tacticus101]

Manual retreats are not a underused mechanics, they are practically essential to use in late game warfare or in multiplayer.

The difference between shattered retreats, when your army runs out of Moral, and manual retreats is that you can pick the province you retreat to. Otherwise the moral recovery mechanic works the same way.

If you want to bleed an enemy it can easily be done using favorable battle conditions and manual retreats. There are even several strategies I know people use to build armies specifically with very front loaded damage in order to kill as many enemies as possible before retreating from otherwise superior forces.

Whether a battle is a win or loss is entirely dependent on which army retreats first. It is entirely possible to overwhelm a high quality army with large numbers or high moral, taking far more casualties but winning the battle at the end. The benefit of dealing more casualties is that you bleed your enemies, you wont also get to win the battle.

You are drawing conclusions based on misinformation.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Actually, on testing further I was able tow make the army retreat more than one province manually. So that helps at least. Nearly half wa month before that becomes available is still a bit much, I think.

You can manually retreat pretty large distances, and this can be helpful without forts if you have another army that would alter the outcome of the fight but couldn't get to your forces that were caught (or you just did a bad attack into mountains or something).

 

[PhoenixG]

Note 2: Changing unit types to tank your moral before a battle has apparently been patched to cause your forces to fight with 0.00 moral for up to a week rather than fleeing early.

Wrong, you don't drop to zero. You'll drop to minimum morale. it's like 0.5 and you'll fight till it really drop to zero. You can even exploit it by cycling units type to extend a "losing" the fight, since if you drop below the minimum morale, you'll actually gain morale when switching unit types.

Also if you want to prove something, never use Prussia as example. Since they got OP mil ideas and it will skew the outcome