Ships retreating towards the enemy

[havoc1371]

I've mentioned this in a thread before, but it doesn't seem to get any attention. I see my ships attacked and then retreat away from friendly ports towards enemy ports and ships. They even will skirt around the enemy that attacked them to move towards enemy ports. Why? It is frustrating to have a ship attacked 2 hexes from a friendly port, repeatedly attacked and retreat, farther and farther away till it is destroyed, because it makes itself easier to attack with each retreat.

What idiot captain would take his damaged ship(s) towards the enemy and away from a safe port? And don't tell me its because of the presence of enemy ships when it will move right past them to go further from safety.

[ThunderLizard11]

I've only noticed this in the Naval Mod not vanilla

[havoc1371]

Only playing the stock game and its especially noticeable in the North Sea and the Med, where your ships tend to retreat away from friendly ports, towards the enemy, even moving around enemy ships to do it.

[Hubert Cater]

The way the current retreat mechanism works is that it first looks for the lowest number of possible adjacent enemy units when considering a retreat hex. Then it checks for the highest possible supply hex after that.

So in theory if it is in supply range of a friendly port and can retreat to a hex with the lowest number of adjacent enemy units, and then with a higher potential supply value, then it should retreat towards that friendly port.

If none of that applies, then I would need to see an example turn to assess if there is a possible misunderstanding or a possible bug.

[Hellfirejet]

Hi Hubert, The retreat issue has been happening since I started playing Strategic Command, at least 80% of the time ships head further away from any home ports when taking battle damage. Is retreats hard coded? Or can a retreat destination option be added to Fleet Scripts? For example if combat takes place in the North sea then any British ships would retreat towards either Scapa Flow, Rosyth, London or Portsmouth. German ships would retreat towards Kiel or Wilhelmshaven, any French ships would retreat towards home ports also like Le Havre or Brest etc. Fixing the retreat problem is of pretty high importance for all naval units, Battleships etc are expensive and can't be replaced when sunk, so any option that improves their survivability and gets them to a safe harbour damaged but repairable has to be a better option for the naval game as a whole.[;)]

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Kirk23,

If the above algorithm applies in the situations you've described, then it could conceivably send the naval units further away from port if the best hexes, e.g. the ones with the least number of enemy units is in turn taking the retreated unit away from port.

If on the other hand the naval unit could move towards a friendly port and still be selecting a hex that had the least number of enemy units adjacent to it, then that indeed would be an issue I could look into resolving.

Close to port it should work, but in theory far away from port it could be an issue as there is no supply value for the retreat function to make that relative consideration against.

I can add this to the list but in can get quite tricky when very far away from any friendly ports where the action could still seem unintuitive because the retreat was considering a port over 50-75 hexes away.

The medium to very short range distance from a friendly port would be much more obvious of course and especially so if you see the ports on the map during the retreat.

Hubert

[Hellfirejet]

Hi Hubert,
Many thanks for swift reply, I have seen situations in the North Sea for instance where German ships were closer to the British coast than the British ships were, and damaged British ships always move towards Germany and away from Britain, this also applies in the reverse situation when British ships are closer to German coast than the damaged retreating German ships which move further away from Germany and safety. I think no matter the situation ships should in all cases move closer to home and never away, if ships did this then you could increase the hex retreat value from 2 to something like half their movement for a Battleship in World At War a Battleship has an action point of 16 then it could retreat as many as 8 hexes, if fog of war is in effect, then a retreating ship moving 8 hexes would more than likely move out of any attacking ships spotting range.[:)]

[Hellfirejet]

Hi Hubert,
It sounds like the biggest problem for the AI is the fact that it takes into account what enemy ships a blocking its path. The naval game is really abstract with weekly alternating turns etc, I would much rather see the AI disregard what enemy ships block the route home, and just go for it. There are a number of cases throughout history where ships have crossed paths without ever being spotted be that by laying down a smoke screen to hide themselves, or zig zagging to confuse primitive radar, the action could even be at night for that matter and ships moving at speed 10 or more miles apart could easily slip through the net.[;)]

[Hubert Cater]

This is a bit of a tricky one because if the main goal is for the naval units to only consider home ports they could retreat right next to an enemy unit (as a result) and I doubt that is desirable either as they are then easily attacked once again.

1) Assuming the retreat range does not change, the following question is what I would be asking here, as in do we want units to generally try and escape away from and hide from the attackers (with the possibility to move closer to a nearby port) or just go to a nearby port regardless of how they may retreat, meaning they may end up next to an enemy unit for a possible easy follow up attack.

2) Sailing through an enemy unit could be a possibility but then it might suffer from a strength point loss during the retreat under the current rules.

3) The other option is to perhaps increase the retreat range as suggested, but we'd still have to consider 1) and 2) above as well as they could still be factors even with increased range

[Hellfirejet]

Would it make it easier for the AI if all Allied ports were an option and not just Home?

[Hubert Cater]

To clarify, if we are discussing combat and retreat from combat, this is not currently a function of the AI, rather a retreat mechanism that would be the same for AI or player controlled units that retreat from attack.

If on the other hand we are discussing something outside of combat, e.g. an AI naval unit that is low on strength, with no current plan, and looking to find its way back to a friendly port, then yes I believe it will try and circumvent enemy naval units (but not always if there is no other route) and it should have sufficient AP (e.g. the default AP) to generally do so in a reasonable way, e.g. it might take a long way around but it should make its way back in a general direction of a friendly port.

[Hellfirejet]

Hi Hubert,
My main concern is the retreat mechanism that retreat from an attack! Trying to find the best way to avoid damaged ships retreating further away from safe ports.[;)]

[havoc1371]

Hard to provide a screen shot of it occurring unless it happens during my turn to my opponent. I'll try to remember to screen shot if it happens.

[Hubert Cater]

I've run a few additional tests and I may have found an area of improvement here that I will look into adding into the code, thanks for all feedback gentlemen [:)]

[Hellfirejet]

I've run a few additional tests and I may have found an area of improvement here that I will look into adding into the code, thanks for all feedback gentlemen[:)]


Hi Hubert,
Any improvement that helps the Naval retreat behave in a logical manner, has to improve the game in general which is what we all want, thanks for listening to our concerns.[&o]

[CaesarAug]

Many thanks to the developers! These games get better all the time with such dedication to the players. [&o]