Retreating Units

[logosys]

Ok, I've recently gotten 'Complete' after playing vanilla for a while. Why is it that in Complete (and I'm assuming Conquests) sometimes retreating units don't retreat...

I've lost 3 straight horsemen to a spearman they haven't been able to knock a single point off of. Shouldn't they give up after they lose their first 3 hps and are down to just 1?

 

[wilbill]

There's a random factor involved in whether a unit retreats or not. You've had some bad luck. Also, if your unit's down to one hitpoint, it won't retreat or if the unit it's attacking is at one hp, you won't retreat.

 

[The Last Conformist]

In Original Release Vanilla, units always retreated if able. This was found to make mounted/mechanized units too powerful, so the random factor was introduced in one of the Vanilla patches.

 

[classical_hero]

There's a random factor involved in whether a unit retreats or not. You've had some bad luck. Also, if your unit's down to one hitpoint, it won't retreat or if the unit it's attacking is at one hp, you won't retreat.

I thought that it should be all the time that an attacking unit that has retreat abilities should always do so unless they are attacking a one hp defender. Obviously this does not happen. I have been the one who has both benefited and lost out to this.

 

[The Last Conformist]

It might be mentioned that the chance a unit retreats goes up with experience. The exact percentages can be seen in the Editor - if you set them all to 100%, you'd regain the Original Release behaviour.

 

[Jaybe]

It might be mentioned that the chance a unit retreats goes up with experience. The exact percentages can be seen in the Editor - if you set them all to 100%, you'd regain the Original Release behaviour.

Not so, much to my recent surprise. The chance to retreat is modified by the experience level of the opposing unit. Even Elites with 100% retreat capability do not ALWAYS retreat given the opportunity (when opponent is not down to 1 HP).

 

[The Last Conformist]

Not so, much to my recent surprise. The chance to retreat is modified by the experience level of the opposing unit. Even Elites with 100% retreat capability do not ALWAYS retreat given the opportunity (when opponent is not down to 1 HP).

Really? Has anyone, then, worked out how it depends on the exp level of the enemy?

 

[The Last Conformist]

OK, I upped the retreat bonus for regulars to 100, and sent 100 regular horsemen of them attacking a 1.255.1 regular spearman. 96 of the retreated.

Rather odd, I must say.

 

[Offa]

The retreat chances have been studied carefully by BomberEscort and others and appears to work as follows:

Retreat possible if attacking unit drops from 2 HP to 1 HP, and is implemented before the attacker attacks with 1HP left.

Zero chance if defender has 1 HP, or fast defender.
Only one chance per turn to retreat, barring odd circumstances.

If retreat is possible it depends on the defender and attacker retreat bonuses which themselves depend on experience (conscript 34, regular 50, veteran 58, elite 66).

The formula used to work out the chance of retreat in an individual case is thought to be:

prob of retreat= (attacker retreat bonus) / ( defender retreat bonus +50).

The game creates a pseudo random number to test whether to retreat the unit and acts accordingly.

This is how I simulate retreats in my town capture simulation, and I presume how BomberEscort combat calculator works unless I have missed something.

 

[Culak]

Does anyone know how the retreat chance is calculated for the armies (since I noticed that they have the ability to retreat)?
Perharps it is the same calculation as for the normal units but how to determine their experience ?

 

[The Last Conformist]

@Offa: Going by that formula, only about 67 of my horsemen should have survived ...

 

[Oystein]

Did you mod retreat bonus for just regular units?

For your modded regular vs regular, 67% should retreat. But if the defender promoted to unmodded veteran the retreat chance is increased 93%, then decrease to 86% when defender is promoted to elite. Still you got more retreats than expected, but the result is not that unlikly.