Retreat route for armies

[ieamlot]

Is there a preset list that defeated armies follow in retreating. i.e. 1) back along the path of advance. 2) towards the nearest supply depot. 3) towards the nearest home territory.
They seem to move into any area adjacent. I don't believe this is realistic or helpful to a campaign against a country. Often the army defeated has moved into an area behind me disrupting my supply deopt.

[Montrose]

Completely agree. I really hope that 'retreating' armies can be made to stop going further into the victors territory - it's very silly.

[ericbabe]

There are about 15 rules that govern where retreating armies go. In brief,

1) they can't retreat into a province with ungarrisoned enemy units
2) they prefer to retreat into territory they control and then neutral territory, then enemy territory
3) they prefer to retreat into territory containing friendly depots
4) if they are the attackers, they will retreat into the province whence they came if possible
5) if forced to retreat into enemy territory with no depot, then their chance of surrendering upon retreat is increased

If none of this applies, however, they will be ejected into a random adjacent territory. A rule that sends that scuttling back toward their capital absent any other criteria might be a good one, and should work in most circumstances.

(I usually leave one militia or irregular cavalry behind my army to prevent retreats like this.)

Eric

[carnifex]

Well then why did the defending army retreat out of Copenhagen into Malmo instead of Jutland just now, violating #1 and #2? [:D]

Jutland was friendly to them and empty of any units, and Malmo had 3 Swedish militia guarding my depot, yet they went to Malmo, defeated my militia, ate my depot, and gave my Copenhagen crew a bad case of the foragies.

I've never seen this pre-patch, and I've fought over Copenhagen a lot - I was screwing around with the new patch making sure I could conquer multi-provincial minors and that's what happened.