Is massive chain rout an actual thing in the game?

[Paxius]

Was besieging an Aserai city in 1.5.7 when a massive army of 2.5k Aserai troops came to relief it. What followed it was a first engagement of our armies where 300 of their troops died. I was surprised that further attacks didn't follow, they parked their army on top of a hill and then... just started retreating!

The routing happened in intervals of roughly 50 men, whole army would retreat until 50 men escaped from the battlefield, then the whole army would reform and form a line. All it took for them to run away again was a single casualty! And the whole process would repeat: army routs, starts retreating, tries reforming, poor Aserai recruit dies and the whole army is on the run again. The new troops that spawned didn't even witness the first engagement but would run nonetheless.

This screenshot was taken when I figured out that something was wrong. As you can see, retreated Aserai numbers are disproportionately high.

And here is the end result screen:

Almost 1900 troops just ran away just because their best friend died. This massive rout never happened before to me or since.


Now there are a few factors that might have added to this incident:
- Aserai army was inexperienced, this happened in the middle of a war that they were losing badly. So it might have been that they had lower morale, but "Bob died, it is over, let's run away" low morale simply puzzles my mind
- The troop limit in this battle was 600, don't know if it had any effect. Usually the bigger the battle size, the worse I perform, but that's just me I guess

So I wanted to know if:
- Is this is common behaviour, has anything similar happened before
- And what are the reasons for this massive rout that I witnessed

 

[Marbles20]

I've had it happen in large battles 1k vs 1k. It basically has the reinforcing units get the same morale as the original units and they make an 'organized retreat' once the new arrivals are engaged. In other words they will still fight as they make their way off the map. You can sit back and take it as a win. The routing units typically all get captured after battle so you get to cherry pick the most expensive units for a large bounty when turned in.

 

[Midnitewolf]

Yeah I have had quite a few battle where I just let the enemy route rather than take more losses trying to fight them.

 

[five bucks]

Morale overall generally doesn't work as they advertised that it would in the dev blogs. Yet. (?)

 

[Antaeus]

I've had 60 bandits run from solitary me after 3 head shots.

But never that many.

I have noticed some peculiar behaviour occurring in battles with limited sizes though, that might have something to do with your scenario.

I've had enemy generals purposely retreat when they are well outnumbered. And then screen their retreat with cavalry. I'm impressed by this behaviour - and it can catch you off guard thinking they're fleeing when all of a sudden they turn and you start losing men.

But sometimes it seems to happen long before they have run out of reinforcements, and if you engage their screening troops, most of their army still retreats from the field except for the screeners, then more reinforcements show up and retreat straight away as if their order is outstanding from the already retreated AI noble - and their retreat turns into a rout.

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

I usually see this only when outnumbered, it seems the AI will choose to be aggressive if they outnumber you be at least 100, and they send all of their generals charging in solo. They typically get turned into swiss cheese by my HAs, half of them die, and that causes the AI to lose cohesion and morale. I hope the morale bars make it into 1.5.9 or 1.5.10 so we can see what's actually going on - all it takes is one cav charge and they mostly break.

Though I have been counter-charged before, not sure if the reinforcements "refill" their morale but it was pretty terrifying to have a squadron of Faris flank my cav unit chasing their infantry and ended up killing most of my companions.

 

[Tryvenyal]

I had this happen really early in my last game. having 20-25 troops, T1-T3, alot ranged. Facing ~40 looters. I killed 5 in ranged combat and all routed. This never happened before 1.5.8.

 

[Marbles20]

I had this happen really early in my last game. having 20-25 troops, T1-T3, alot ranged. Facing ~40 looters. I killed 5 in ranged combat and all routed. This never happened before 1.5.8.

Actually that has been pretty normal with looters. I have to turn off ranged attacks (even infantry ranged) in order to get them to engage infantry. Even then they rout pretty fast as one would expect from people with rocks and farm implements for weapons.

 

[Ikea Knight]

@Dejan
This topic might be worth looking into.

 

[Apocal]

I've had it happen in large battles 1k vs 1k. It basically has the reinforcing units get the same morale as the original units and they make an 'organized retreat' once the new arrivals are engaged. In other words they will still fight as they make their way off the map. You can sit back and take it as a win. The routing units typically all get captured after battle so you get to cherry pick the most expensive units for a large bounty when turned in.

I finally had it happen to me, it wasn't a really big battle (500ish vs. my 250ish) but something like 190 them suddenly upped and fled. We were fighting very close to the map edge, if that's a factor.

 

[ImperialDane]

I have had it happen once. Basically i got the drop on my opponent and then got knocked out. Sped it up a bit to get through and took me some time to realise what was going on as the game was lagging at intervals. As they'd all retreat, new troops would drop in and instantly start retreating.

 

[intrepid70]

What I've noticed multiple times in my game is that around a 300 vs 300 battle I could be ahead with about 200 kills vs 100 for the AI. Then suddenly the right side fills with red and the kill total is about 225 vs 180. I get these huge surges in losses every battle.

 

[Marbles20]

What I've noticed multiple times in my game is that around a 300 vs 300 battle I could be ahead with about 200 kills vs 100 for the AI. Then suddenly the right side fills with red and the kill total is about 225 vs 180. I get these huge surges in losses every battle.

The losses primarily your infantry? I think it could be the fact that the front line infantry takes the brunt of the damage. Unlike organized battles where lines of infantry would switch out with each other for breaks the frontmost line deals with line after line of enemies. So they eventually get their HP chipped away until you get a wave of your troops that are defeated. Then your next line takes over to finish the battle.

If you've ever seen the HBO series Rome they have a good example of line switches in the first season I believe.

 

[intrepid70]

The behaivor you mention can be seen in game, less so then in Warband. I fully expect to take losses and those losses being associated with taking damage over time. What I'm referring to is different. It isn't specific to infantry or any other soldier. After a certain point is appears the game just decides things can't be this way and balances the scales. Like I said there is just a massive wave of deaths from the AI.

 

[Fungo]

I have had this happen when the enemy destroyed thier first two waves in my shieldwall, while I killed thier commanders. So I guess it makes sense, especially when half of thier army is recruits.