Matrix Games Forums

Does anyone know how the retreat algorithm works in this game? It is constantly making really questionable decisions and beginning to turn me off to the game.

Example 1: Instead of retreating to a safe hex (one to which I had ordered the unit to move to) the game retreats my stack to an out-of-supply isolated hex where the stack is likely to be killed.

Example 2: Instead of retreating a stack along a road (which should have been the obvious choice), the game retreats a stack off road into a forest. The result again is that the stack is unnecessarily surrounded and eliminated.

In both these cases the better retreat option met all the conditions laid out in the manual for a valid retreat hex, so I'm at a loss as to why the game keeps selecting the WORST retreat option.

I would really appreciate it if anyone could make sense of this for me in terms of what factors the algorithm is taking into account when it retreats units...because the only thing I see is some really silly decisions being made .

Among your examples, only not retreating through the road sounds indeed a bit weird, but it can also be said that the unit could have tried to retreat to a more defensible hex (woods) instead of open terrain.

Have you checked if your preferred retreat path was going through enemy Zone of Control? Considering that they got surrounded later, it sounds likely they had plenty of enemy units around them.

In general I consider those as casual accidents that may happen realistically: units being pushed away after a combat won't always take the correct decision. I've played hundreds of turns and I haven't noticed consistently bad behavior, so it's probably a series of unfortunate choices in your case. Two examples aren't enough to make conclusions.

HOWEVER there are still some bugs around so it's always good to raise a question. I've recently found two bugs and so far the devs have been responsive (said bugs should be patched out next version).

Oh, it should select the best retreat hex and definitely not retreat to an out of supply hex.
There's a new patch coming on very soon so if it happens again after the patch, bring it up again as there's something not right.
cheers,
Brian