Enemies fleeing

Posts : 42 Join date : 2013-09-16

There are times in battle when an enemy unit will retreat, but instead of going the opposite way of my line of battle, they walk thru my line of infantry, the unit that was engaged with them tries to follow and hits another enemy unit, the retreating unti pass a morale check, and then gets to flank or rear my line of infantry. Now any time my units have retreated they have always gone away from the line of infantry. So to me this seems a bit unfair. And to be honest what army when it retreats go forawrd in the first place, let alone would be "allowed" by the rest of the infantry line to pass to the rear or flank? This doesnt happen every time, but the fact that it can even happen just doesnt seems right. I actually get punished for whipping up on an enemy ?

Posts : 3124 Join date : 2012-11-13

Jormogon wrote:: There are times in battle when an enemy unit will retreat, but instead of going the opposite way of my line of battle, they walk thru my line of infantry, the unit that was engaged with them tries to follow and hits another enemy unit, the retreating unti pass a morale check, and then gets to flank or rear my line of infantry. Now any time my units have retreated they have always gone away from the line of infantry. So to me this seems a bit unfair. And to be honest what army when it retreats go forawrd in the first place, let alone would be "allowed" by the rest of the infantry line to pass to the rear or flank? This doesnt happen every time, but the fact that it can even happen just doesnt seems right. I actually get punished for whipping up on an enemy ?

It is my understanding that this only happens when an enemy AI unit is flanked/reared. When this happens and the enemy AI unit flees, it will move directly away from the instigator. Sometimes, and because the enemy AI unit is surrounded by a player's units, this means that it will have to pass through player's units in order to move directly away from the instigator. While a unit is fleeing and is passing through enemy units, it receives automatic attacks of opportunity.

Posts : 782 Join date : 2013-07-19

I have an idea to fix this mechanic, that you could perhaps find useful. Units could still flee through enemy units as they do now, receiving hits of opportunity, however, instead of being able to turn around right on the opponent's units like they do now sometimes causing potentially fatal rears, they will have to reach a certain distance from any units engaged in battle (probably about the distance of a squad of units). So for example, if they ran, they would not be able to stop running until they have gotten a decent distance away from any units they could potentially flank. If on the other hand, a unit is chasing the retreating unit, getting attacks of opportunity while no other battles are happening nearby, than the fleeing unit should still be able to stop fleeing and enter battle with it's attacker as it is done now. It also makes sense, because if you retreat, it's usually done with the goal to get away from the enemies' units, not to get next to them or inside them. Razz

Hopefully that all made sense.

This is somewhat unrelated but I think worth bringing up. Is it intentional that units can be flanked when they aren't already engaged in combat? For example, the way it is now, if I had an archer facing down but not in battle, and an enemy attacked it from the top, it would count as a rear even though the archer was not attacking anyone below them. I know this didn't used to happen so maybe it was added as a feature. Just wanted to check. Intentional or not, I actually like the mechanic for the most part but it can cause odd flanks when attacking fleeing units when they stop. Sometimes the fleeing unit will be flanked and other times the chasing unit will be flanked.

Posts : 3124 Join date : 2012-11-13

Bobba wrote:: I have an idea to fix this mechanic, that you could perhaps find useful. Units could still flee through enemy units as they do now, receiving hits of opportunity, however, instead of being able to turn around right on the opponent's units like they do now sometimes causing potentially fatal rears, they will have to reach a certain distance from any units engaged in battle (probably about the distance of a squad of units). So for example, if they ran, they would not be able to stop running until they have gotten a decent distance away from any units they could potentially flank. If on the other hand, a unit is chasing the retreating unit, getting attacks of opportunity while no other battles are happening nearby, than the fleeing unit should still be able to stop fleeing and enter battle with it's attacker as it is done now. It also makes sense, because if you retreat, it's usually done with the goal to get away from the enemies' units, not to get next to them or inside them. Razz

Hopefully that all made sense.

I like your way of thinking. Instead of changing the mechanism, we decided to actually change the initial time before a fleeing unit can retreat. Right now it is about 8 seconds, so in order to have the unit cover more ground, while fleeing, we have increased the time to 12 seconds. So, the first Morale check for "Rally" will occur in 12 seconds and all the subsequent checks (if the first one fails that is) every 8 seconds.

Bobba wrote:: This is somewhat unrelated but I think worth bringing up. Is it intentional that units can be flanked when they aren't already engaged in combat? For example, the way it is now, if I had an archer facing down but not in battle, and an enemy attacked it from the top, it would count as a rear even though the archer was not attacking anyone below them. I know this didn't used to happen so maybe it was added as a feature. Just wanted to check. Intentional or not, I actually like the mechanic for the most part but it can cause odd flanks when attacking fleeing units when they stop. Sometimes the fleeing unit will be flanked and other times the chasing unit will be flanked.

Good question. Yes, we left it there intentionally. A unit can be flanked/reared, even if it is not engaged because we wanted to simulate the shock of receiving an attack on your flanks, rear without directly facing the enemy. However, the penalty due to flanking occurs only during the first round, as the unit could then turn and face the enemy in the next turn and there is no panic involved as in the case of doing so while being engaged with another enemy unit.

Posts : 782 Join date : 2013-07-19

Thanks for the reply Rune. I think it's good that the unit will flee farther before it's first check. That will probably be enough to make it less of a problem.

Posts : 42 Join date : 2013-09-16

Thanks for taking a look into this. I will have to pay more attention and make sure that the only time this is happening is when flanking and rearing happens. I would imagine so, since I can't remember any other time that it has happened recently.

Also one of those wierd things that I noticed is I have benn "flanked" when a unit it is almost fully covered on a flank by a building yet, some how the enemy gets to flank me.