Retreats and Retreat Orders

[elxaime]

Just curious as to whether this is working as designed.

In a PBEM campaign game as Prussia, the East Prussian Army had, as expected, been defeated by the 160,000 Russians. Both armies ended up in Koenigsberg. However next turn, when I tried to move the Prussians out of Koenigsberg, setting them with army orders to retreat if engaged, they instead remained mired in Koenigsberg where there were four further battles they all lost with a total morale loss of about thirteen. To compound matters, it ended with the Prussians, instead of retreating southwest along the road towards the rest of Prussia, retreating east - towards Russia mind you - into a trackless forest.

I have seen this happen as well in several AGEOD American Civil War PBEM. An army will be defeated but simply not be allowed to retreat the next turn, remaining "stuck" for a ruinous series of unavoidable additional encounters. Then they retreat in a seemingly random direction. I have been on both sides of this - my Confederate opponent lost an entire 50,000 man army this way when the CSA army, instead of retreating towards its depot, retreated out of supply into the mountains.

I hope the retreat and battle routines can be looked at some more. I realize that at times armies were routed. But they were even then usually able to retreat - and retreat in a direction they chose.

Being stuck in an additional battle and being unable to retreat and then retreating in a random direction happens too often for these eras.

[Dortmund]

Maybe it's just because you have slow units (artillery, wagons, etc.) in the force that block or slow your retreat. Try to divide the force in two: a fast force and a slow force. The problem is that if the enemy catches the slow force (there's a probability) maybe he will capture your cannons and wagons, but at least you'll escape.

I had a problem like that with a force of indians and french regulars in the WIA game and it worked quite good. The enemy was able to catch one of the forces (I don't remember wich one), wich took heavy caualties but managed to escape to another region with my cannons and wagons damaged but without losing them.

[Durk]

Often this is caused by zone of control issues. You will note this by seeing all the red regions when you click on a stack. My solution is to move a force, even a few cavalry units, into the adjacent region. These negate the areas control by your opponent and you can retreat. Retreat rules are pretty good, except you cannot retreat is your enemy controls all adjacent regions.
Otherwise, I agree with Dortmund.

[Jagger2013]

I have had a few weird retreats in my current game. It sounds like a trailing light cavalry unit securing a line of retreat behind the army might be a good idea when the issue is in doubt.