Routed troops

[ulsterandy]

Is there anyway of saving routed troops? or once they run, they run of the map? I have tried but can not get them to stop running for more then a few secs before they carry on running.

[RCHarmon]

Sorry, but those boys are routed. They aint coming back.

[Jim_NSD]

Sometimes they will reform on their own and come back once their morale recovers to a useful level. That takes a while and they will never be as good as new. This depends on the initial quality of the troops and how badly they got hammered to make them rout in the first place.

-Jim

[pjsynnott]

I think it adds a lot to the game to see loose clouds of men heading in the general direction of...away.

I remember getting a nice surprise when I saw Dutch/Belgian brigade during d'Erlon's attack rally itself after running away a couple of hundred yards. So I ordered it back into the line, which it did, then I ordered it to double-time, whereupon it ran away again, for good I think. I guess asking them to run back into the fight was just too much. [;)]

[Leffe7]

In my games I try to handle routed/reformed units with extreme care. Let them rest away from battle by lying down and if possible with an officer nearby until their morale bar is full again.
Then I bring them back towards the battle, but I try to put them in the second line. Behind a friendly wavering unit, behind a threatened flank...
If I need to bring them directly into a firefight, I make sure they do not fight alone but at least some other friendly unit is nearby (giving a defense bonus). And I let them halt outside enemy musket range, if possible on a defensive terrain, and let the enemy come into range. Otherwise they may break again as soon as they take too many casualties while maneouvering.

In MP games, such units are also quite useful to threaten/deceive the enemy - as long as the unit doesn't get into combat again [;)]