Auto-routing alternatives

[Zeldor]

OTHER important thing that should be done with routing mechanics:

'never routs' attibute given to the defender of the capitol [just fort, not province]. The last soldiers defending the capitol should never even think about leaving the battlefield. They have nowhere to go so they should fight till death. That's good both from thematic and gameplay aspect.

In one game cleveland attacked my army with quite large force. I have won the battle but I had elephants that died. They triggered the auto-rout sequence and it was my last province. So I have lost 38! [thirty eight!] mages! due to auto-rout into enemy territory. I could have successfully defended that fort for 10-20 turns, until someone would bring proper siege force. But no, they decided to run away into enemy territory when winning just because some elephants died. It has sense when you have a place to run away and regroup.

[thejeff]

But you can retreat from a capital battle. If you've got other provinces, the troops can even escape and continue fighting.

You may even want all your researchers to escape and join the relieving army that was one turn away from lifting the siege before it was too late.

[Dedas]

In history it is VERY rare that defenders, even when defending a castle or bastion, fought to the last man. Either they surrendered or found ways of escape.

[cleveland]

Zeldor said:
In one game cleveland attacked my army with quite large force.

It really was an extremely unsatisfying battle for both of us.

All of his mages spontaneously retreated after I paralyzed his Golem, to be lost because his fort was surrounded. I can justify this, though...they were running for their lives, and choose to surrender rather than be killed on the field; certainly not uncommon in human history.

So all that stood between me and total victory was a paralyzed Golem. My manikins start chiseling him down from 70hp...68hp...67hp......5hp...3hp when the auto-rout kicked. My commanders retreated, and the remaining ~50 manikins suffered mindless dissolution. Doh!

[Zeldor]

We are playing a game with pretenders. Most units fanatically follow their beliefs.

Routing from your last bastion shouldn't be an option. You stay there and die in the glory of your god. Well, glory of what's left from that god.

cleveland:
If there was no routing on both sides at all I think I would win that batttle. Golem was not hurt as long as my mages were there. They would banish remaining manikins and golem would probably kill your leaders.

[cleveland]

Zeldor said:
If there was no routing on both sides at all I think I would win that batttle.

Definitely. But your army routed thematically: their champion was paralyzed. My army routed athematically: it was supper time, and you can't kill a paralyzed 3hp golem on an empty stomach.

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Back to the topic of the thread:

Endoperez said:
I'd understand initiating the auto-rout at turn 125, auto-kill at 150, but 400 turns?

I just threw 5X out there as a seemingly impossible-to-reach-without-having-entered-an-infinite-loop turn limit.

125/150 seems pretty reasonable, and would certainly be better than 50/75.

I frankly don't have enough experience to suggest "optimal" turn limits, but 50/75 is too short; simply increasing the limits would be a quick and easy way to alleviate the problem (read: available in 3.16, in time for the megagame).

[Zeldor]

cleveland:

No, my Golem had absolutely nothing to do with it. My elephants had probably around 70% HP of my whole army, golem was doing fine but 1 feebleminded mage with bodyguards decided to help the golem, they died and it was enough to get over 75% limit and start routing of my other mages. If I had no elephants it would never happen, quite stupid solution.

And about limit:
Yep, it should be really increased. Sometimes there are situation when you just cannot finish it very fast. But you need most of the time just few turns more. Usually with all that stales there are just few units and processing that is very fast. My tartarian in urapara would just get few more afflictions [I wonder what happens if he gets all possible ones] but many mindless beings would be saved from that humiliating death.

[thejeff]

Of course the old (dom2) 75% or units was worse. 2-3 points of PD routing or dying meant your SC pretender fled the field.

[vfb]

I'd prefer to not see the combat length extended beyond 75 turns. In the late game you can end up with 2 big armies fighting each other, both sides with Fog Warriors up, some Army of Lead/Gold, Antimagic, Rigor Mortis, Storm Warriors, Life after Death ... etc etc. That kind of fight can just drag on and on, and mages don't help much because they fatigue out almost as fast as the armies.

What I'd like to see is, instead of death at turn 50 or 75, just move the attackers to a friendly neighboring province, as if they had retreated. No need to auto-route the attacker at turn 50 either. The defender still has a chance to wipe out the entire attacking army, by cutting off all avenues of retreat.

[Endoperez]

vfb said:
What I'd like to see is, instead of death at turn 50 or 75, just move the attackers to a friendly neighboring province, as if they had retreated. No need to auto-route the attacker at turn 50 either. The defender still has a chance to wipe out the entire attacking army, by cutting off all avenues of retreat.

That would actually be far worse punishment: you have to rescript your entire army, redistribute your troops among your commanders again, etc etc. So much hassle for what was, essentially, a defeat.

You had a good point about long battles, though.