Follow, Pursue

[marquo]

I am opening his matter as a separate thread.

I posted: "I have noticed that sometimes a stack will move beyond the region I ordered to it to move after winning a battle; I presume this is because it is chasing the losing stack? And often this pursuing stack gets butchered as it crashes unintentionally into a well defended region....can stacks "autoassign" themselves to pursue defeated foes?"

And Captain_Orso graciously replied: "Your stack will attempt to do what you ordered it to do. If you've targeted an enemy stack when issuing movement orders, your stack will do its best to reach that enemy stack and attack it, in general. If the enemy stack retreats out of the region, your stack will follow it --not pursue-- and attempt to go to battle with it again. This will occur so long as your stack has enough cohesion, including over several turns, but generally after the two stacks have fought enough one will sit down and catch its breath while the other crawls away. This can happen after the first battle or after the third; it all depends."

Let me reframe: I move a corps commanded by Jackson into Montgomery County next to Washington, D.C. where it engages a defending stack and decimates it; next (and without my orders) I find Jackson banging his head against the defenses of Washington, D.C. where he gets a bloody nose. Is this WAD?

Also, what is the difference between "follow" and "pursue" in game terms?

Thanks

[Cardinal Ape]

I could be wrong here..

Following is when a stack chases another stack across regions on the game board.

Pursuit is something that happens after a battle were retreating units are abstractly pursued by the victor to cause more damage to the losing force - this does not involve actual movement on the board.

As far as Jackson I am not sure. Was he in assault posture and just happened to follow another unit into D.C.?

[Durk]

What is happening, whether you intend it or not is this: when you move into the region, you drop your force onto the opposing force. So there is not something going on which is not intended. By dropping your force on the opposing force, you have issued a command to follow/pursue the force wherever it goes. So that is kind of 'pursue.'
Which is pretty much the same thing as follow.

In game language, however, pursue means you have cavalry units which will inflict losses on the enemy because you have superior cavalry forces while remaining in the region of the battle. While follow means when you drop onto an enemy force you have issued the command to make that force, not the region, the target.

So, be careful not to drop onto an enemy force unless you mean to. The game will provide a dialogue, x unit to attack y unit instead of x unit moves to y region.

[ArmChairGeneral]

For what it is worth, like everything else in this game, your force is not guaranteed to successfully execute the "Follow" quasi-special order. Sometimes this is due to movement time and or cohesion issues, but it feels like there is also some sort of Evasion or Hide mechanic going on where the enemy is able to break contact and your force is not able to follow them.

[BattleVonWar]

Read in the manual, you have two options when attacking an enemy naval unit. By dropping your Stack on the opposing stack directly you target it, instead of the region.(god knows if I got this right) I assume this means that the "force will attempt even on land to chase the opposition no matter where it goes." Small regions especially where such a mistake could easily be made make this dangerous. I have often dropped a stack on an enemy stack..on the other I can see the usefulness, I loathe watching an enemy stack march right through my Army behind my lines when I want to kill it, not take the region.

P.S. This game is so intricate. You can learn a new thing every day

[Captain_Orso]

Dragging one of your stacks on to another stack, whether friendly or enemy, is called intercepting.

Yes, how well your stack is able to intercept an enemy stack depends on your stack's detection value vs the enemy stack's evasion value with terrain, MC of the region, mobility and weather added in.

[marquo]

The result of inadvertent interception can be devastating, with your stack following a retreating unit and ending up in a region where it is attacked or attacks at overwhelming bad odds and devastated. My Stonewall stack ended up attacking the fortifications of Washington D.C. when all I wanted was to occupy Montgomery County. Then of course it might also retreat and end up 2 or 3 regions away from where the initial move was intended.

[Rod Smart]

Use the intercept command when you want to track down and destroy an enemy force, and don't care about taking regions. For example, chasing partisans and cavalry raids around behind your lines.

Don't use the intercept when you only want to take the region. You can destroy a stack by marching 15 days straight, and as mentioned, when you chase a small unit into a big unit and get creamed.

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I've had some goofy results from using this command, like when in the middle of a turn the unit I'm chasing gets on a river and ends up 12 regions away from where I started, or I'm chasing a naval stack with naval units, and the stack I'm chasing ends up being a land force on the river, and my naval stack becomes epically confused by trying to intercept a unit on land.

[Paule3000]

I always thought there should be a better (visual) representation of the "Intercept" special order in the UI, so you can tell more easily who is ordered to intercept whom.

But a distinct button for the "Intercept" special order might be a nice idea, too.

[Captain_Orso]

I've requested a long time ago to have intercepting stacks have their target in the tool-tip of their move; you already get the a tool-tip telling you to where a stack in plotted to move. Pocus said he put it on his list of things to do, but it's pretty far down the list.