Multi-sided attacks

[magogian]

Question: Let's say I have an enemy surrounded on five sides, with the sixth side being open. I attack with units from all five of my sides against his one hex. From the manual, I understand that he takes additional damage because I am conducted, in effect, flank attacks. Does he also take further damage because it is harder for him to retreat - only one hex, while receiving lots of fire? Or, is it purely the flanking effect. (What I'm getting at is that a unit would take severe losses if trying to retreat through a narrow corridor).

[JAMiAM]

In cases like this, the defender will generally take greater losses from the disengagement attacks against it, when it moves through the ezoc's as it retreats. In general, this is a good tactic to employ in the earlier attacks during the turn, so that the defender retreats, instead of fighting to the death. Provided that it retreats, later attacks against it will be more successful as the unit will be in a minimize loss tolerance setting, and in retreated, or routed, deployment, with severe hits to its readiness and unit quality. Smaller units in this state are easily overrun (retreat before combat) so they make it much easier to penetrate and exploit through breaks in the enemy lines, as advancing units are not subject to the movement penalties for moving through ezoc's.

[magogian]

ah okay.  thanks for the info.  It seemed like there was some effect like that - but I wasn't sure.