Retreat Rules
Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:15 pm
The manual states that a unit that has to retreat will head to a random province under their political control. If it can't retreat then it will surrender.
While this works as advertised there should be additional rules added to prevent odd occurences.
-A politically controlled province containing enemy units shouldn't be valid. Or at least only 1 such move should be allowed. I moved into an enemy controlled province and defeated the enemy which caused them to retreat to an adjacent province they controlled politically but contained one of my armies. They had to fight again and they lost. They retreated to the original province they were in which still contained my victorious army from the first fight. They retreated several more times back and forth getting beat each time. I don't know if "randomly" it just kept picking the previous province or if the rivers and terrain rules out other valid provinces but it became a joke watching this army move back and forth over and over never surrendering. It finally ended it's move IN the province with my units. No more combat happened and we started the next turn sharing the province.
-In addition to that any province, even under it's political control, that the enemy moved from shouldn't be valid. I moved from a province that the USA controlled politically, beat it's army in the adjacent province and then it retreated basically through my army to end up where i just moved from. I understand by leaving an enemy politically controlled province without conquering it I'm leaving it to my enemy to keep. I just don't think the enemy should be able to escape through me after it just lost in the battle.
These additions I think would tighten up the retreats so they'd make more sense and avoid ridiculous situations. I think no valid retreat options should be checked before battle and make the army maybe fight longer than it normally would trying to win, but if all that failed they should just surrender. Bouncing around fighting 7 straight times is goofy.
While this works as advertised there should be additional rules added to prevent odd occurences.
-A politically controlled province containing enemy units shouldn't be valid. Or at least only 1 such move should be allowed. I moved into an enemy controlled province and defeated the enemy which caused them to retreat to an adjacent province they controlled politically but contained one of my armies. They had to fight again and they lost. They retreated to the original province they were in which still contained my victorious army from the first fight. They retreated several more times back and forth getting beat each time. I don't know if "randomly" it just kept picking the previous province or if the rivers and terrain rules out other valid provinces but it became a joke watching this army move back and forth over and over never surrendering. It finally ended it's move IN the province with my units. No more combat happened and we started the next turn sharing the province.
-In addition to that any province, even under it's political control, that the enemy moved from shouldn't be valid. I moved from a province that the USA controlled politically, beat it's army in the adjacent province and then it retreated basically through my army to end up where i just moved from. I understand by leaving an enemy politically controlled province without conquering it I'm leaving it to my enemy to keep. I just don't think the enemy should be able to escape through me after it just lost in the battle.
These additions I think would tighten up the retreats so they'd make more sense and avoid ridiculous situations. I think no valid retreat options should be checked before battle and make the army maybe fight longer than it normally would trying to win, but if all that failed they should just surrender. Bouncing around fighting 7 straight times is goofy.