Withdraw/Flanking = underdeveloped feature?

[Master Kodama]

Frankly, I don't think I have yet even seen a unit withdraw from combat, and the "Flanking" promotion, which adds a meesely +10%, would only be useful in vanilla with units like Cavalry that already start with a 30% chance to retreat. Also, which units have a (decidedly miniscule) chance to retreat, and which done, doesn't actually make much sense: why do CATAPULTS get a 20% chance to retreat, but horse archers get none??

I think that mounted units' ability to flank and provide support, as well as archery units ability to act as support and skirmishers, should be better represented in the game, for a better gameplay feel if nothing else. The simplest and most obvious way to do this would be to bump up certain mounted units' withdraw chance (by about 10%-20%, depending), and give archery units an inate chance to withdraw as well... maybe have some gunpowder units as well. However, it doesn't seem very realistic for longbowmen to be able to retreat from riflemen; nor for a knight, with his heavy armor, to escape the range of a longbow; nor for crossbowmen to outrun horse archers. It also wouldn't make sense for an archer to be able to withdraw from fighting a tank.

So, I was wondering, would it be at all possible to give certain units a withdrawal chance, but have that chance be negated when combating certain other units-types (UNITCOMBAT) or unit-classes (UNITCLASS)? I think that this would allow for some realistic and balanced parameters for withdrawing from combat, which to my mind seems sorely underrepresented in the game.

 

[panzooka]

or having the attacking unit with hidden stat of -xx% target withdraw chance

 

[NKVD]

i'm still waiting for a game that take into account flanking, pincers and encirclement movement like military genius like Napoleon and Von Manstein was able to accomplish... the object of war is to encircle the opponent in pincher moves to cut them off from their supply roads and their supply depots...once armies are too away from their supply they should began to get lower hit points and never get the heal thing...this way there would be real battle fronts stretch with strong points rather than the stacking of units because they could be encircled and/or their supply roads cut off...plus you've get no bonus for attacking a stack from behind or from their flank (like in Rome Total War) I hope this will be the 1/3 of new things with Civilization 5...

 

[killbot]

Basically, what I did for my game was increase all units' retreat chances by 33% and multiply the speeds by 3. I like the game a lot more now.

 

[Master Kodama]

Basically, what I did for my game was increase all units' retreat chances by 33% and multiply the speeds by 3. I like the game a lot more now.

Interesting. I don't think I would like my units being able to zip around QUITE that fast, but I have considered upping some units speeds.

However, this would not solve the problem which really concerns me: how to make certain units incapable of retreating from certain other units, but fully capable of reatreating from others (e.g. archer can retreat from swordsman/spearman but not from knight/horse archer).

 

[NKVD]

Basically, what I did for my game was increase all units' retreat chances by 33% and multiply the speeds by 3. I like the game a lot more now.

nice idea...retreat at 33%. maybe not the speed cause it would be really to easy to get anywhere in the other teritory