Cossacks gotta go!!

[plasticpanzers]

The cossacks (both foot and horse) just gotta go! In
a 3 year campaign against Russia i regularly beat their
field armies but they just keep shooting lone cossack
units across the boarders. even when you zap em with
a 80,000 man army they just retreat INTO France instead
of away from it. You can spend an entire game trying
to liquidate them as they wander about freeing POWs.
They never operated as a raiding force like this. They
would spread out around an friendly army they were
attached too and ravage the countryside, not do it all
on their own 1000 miles from home! They need some
serious tweaking!!
Tim (plasticpanzers)

[ieamlot]

I agree. Also imo armies that are defeated should retreat back along their path of advance on towards their home territory, NOT, further into your territory.

[Montrose]

Yeah, having cossacks retreat towards friendly territory would help to solve most of this.

[Hanal]

This has been mentioned by quite a few people and I believe Eric is working on a fix.....

[YohanTM2]

It was disappointing to beat the British army and have them retreat towards Ile du France [X(]

[Dayvit781]

Given the patchwork nature of Europe, a Cossack operating in the middle of a country might still be able to retreat in any direction which the computer would consider "towards home country." Perhaps if the command was more specific, like towards the capital?

[plasticpanzers]

you might be able to forage for food but you could not
recieve orders from your HQ nor forage for munitions
for your weapons. In 1814 a number of cossack units
wandering about were cut to pieces by local French
citizens much like the retreating French army in Russia in 1812. It is a problem with the game like the POW
one that irks ya when you try to rub em out!
Tim

[Ralegh]

I am an advocate of making out-of-supply units more likely to surrender, and to start battle with less-than-full supplies (I have suggested half) - starting battle with a full pack of ammo is just silly.

[ian77]

ORIGINAL: Ralegh

I am an advocate of making out-of-supply units more likely to surrender, and to start battle with less-than-full supplies (I have suggested half) - starting battle with a full pack of ammo is just silly.

Good idea.

I thought this game was supposed to be grand strategic level... therefore we should not have to be chasing round after cossacks and other irr cav all over France, well not unless you are in an 1814 situation... perhaps they should have to operate within one province of an in supply army, even an allied army would count, and still be subject to Ralegh's suggestion.

I also agree, a defeated force would not move deeper into hostile territory, they should retreat or surrender.

Ian

[MartNick]

A defeated army would normally retreat along its line of supply. Which I think would be the best way to solve this.

[jchastain]

I think the suggested remedies here are good. Making units retreat in the proper direction is the most important; though it can be difficult to do when "home" is a somewhat elusive concept - ie. should a British army in Spain retreat towards Britain or Gibralter? How is that impacted if Portugal is a protectorate? What if portugal is a protectorate of Austria who is an ally? Anyway, I think this is one of those things that might take a little thought to really define the desired behavior.

The other thing I might add though would be to allow land units to intercept in the same way that navies do. You should be able to put an army on a border and have it move to adjacent provinces to intercept enemies rather than having to guess where they will elect to come through. The same logic would help immensely with the problem mentioned here as a home army would then react and attack the offending unit.