Unrealistic retreats

[Happycat]

On more than one occasion, I have experienced a situation where I have retreated a few hexes, and built a new line---usually behind a river and with a second line of units behind the first, to prevent retreats.

Of course, the territory I have just retreated out of remains mine until an enemy unit enters each hex. What can happen is that when the enemy units close in, they do not occupy all of the hexes I have vacated. So, when they attack across the river, my defending unit will retreat TOWARDS the enemy, into an unoccupied hex that is still nominally under my control.

This is unrealistic, and makes the tactic of strategic withdrawal somewhat useless at times.

Any chance of fixing this? Something I can see that might help would be to have a "retreat-no retreat" toggle for units to stop this from happening.

Stauffenberg and I considered implementing a house rule that attacks across a river cannot occur until the attacker owns all of the hexes on his side of the river, but this of course detracts from the ability to simulate blitzkrieg.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I think this problem can be solved by doing the following.

1) You should change the rules so units don't exert ZOC across rivers, lakes etc.
2) If a unit must retreat after combat then the computer should check all adjacent hexes and group
possible retreat possibilities in the following categories:
1) A friendly hex NOT in enemy ZOC
2) A friendly hex in disputed ZOC (i. e. both sides have ZOC in the hex)
3) A friendly hex only in enemy ZOC (e. g. friendly hexes across a river)
3) The computer should always try to retreat the unit to a hex in group 1 before they try to retreat a
unit to group 2. If several hexes are possible retreat targets (belong to the same group) then the
retreat hex should be the hex directly opposite to the attacker if possible. E. g. if the attacker
attacked from 1 o'clock then the defender should have first priority towards 7 o'clock.
4) Retreats into group 1 or 2 should be performed normally, but if the only possible retreat hex is
a hex in group 3 then the unit should remain in the hex and NOT retreat. Instead the unit who
was forced to retreat should get 0-3 extra step losses (random). This simulates that the unit has
his back towards the wall and decided to remain and be shot at instead of retreating across the
river into the Lion's den.

With such a simple solution you can avoid units retreating across rivers towards the enemy. Units not
exerting ZOC across rivers means the attackers can move more freely along his side of the river. That
is a good thing since CeaW only has major rivers on the map.

I managed to take Paris by surprise because I forced Happycat's defenders on the other side of the Seine
river to retreat across the river and be destroyed by German corps units. The hex behind the river was
vacated and I could slip an armor unit in there to attack Paris without the river penalties. Losing Paris
a turn early was not the worst problem. The worst problem was the British units inside France who suddenly
were out of supply and couldn't rail to a port in time to get out. Happycat thought his double defense line
would prevent me from getting any units against Paris, but forgot about the weird retreat rule. Since it
has such a devastating effect upon the game we decided to redo my move and I did NOT exploit this chance
by vacating a hex behind the river since the poor unit had to retreat across the river to the wrong side.

I did the same when I captured the Suez canal. I bombarded the key hex on the other side of the canal
so it got low efficiency. Then I attacked it and it was forced to retreat and had to retreat across the canal
since it was double defense line preventing it from retreating away from the Germans. Then other German
units destroyed the poor unit who retreated across the canal. Now the other side of the canal was vacated
so a German armor moved to the other side and attacked a unit without river penalties. After the turn
was over I had managed to destroy several British corps units and the line was broken. His double defense
line did him no good since some hexes at the other side of the canal were still British at the start of the attack.

[Happycat]

As always, Stauffenberg's analysis is right on target.

Hopefully Iain or Johan will jump in here with some of their thoughts...

[firepowerjohan]

There is already a priority of retreat similar to the suggestion but not as complicated. Units retreat to hexes out of enemy ZOC if they can. But the problem here is, sometimes there is only one hex to retreat to and then you can force a retret across river anyway.

[Happycat]

There is already a priority of retreat similar to the suggestion but not as complicated. Units retreat to hexes out of enemy ZOC if they can. But the problem here is, sometimes there is only one hex to retreat to and then you can force a retret across river anyway.

Yes, I assumed there was some kind of prioritizing of which hexes a unit might retreat to. But it could still be helpful to toggle off retreat altogeter on a unit by unit basis. I don't know how much trouble this would be to implement, but it would certainly be a big improvement to an already great game.

As in the "Suez" incident that Stauffenberg referred to, it was not very realistic or reasonable that a battered armor unit which has just retreated across the Suez canal would somehow board its barges again and retreat into the enemy side of the canal. I know some things have to be abstract in a game of this scale, but this one is a little too abstract for my tastes.

Hopefully your programming gurus can look at whether implementing a player selectable retreat/no retreat switch is possible for units. And as Staffenberg says, if a player chooses "no retreat", it should cost extra losses when the unit is attacked.

[firepowerjohan]

Ah, but the programming gury is me I am the only one producing the code for the Commander series
A toggle option could also become tedious, not sure if it is worth it.

[Happycat]

Ah, but the programming gury is me I am the only one producing the code for the Commander series
A toggle option could also become tedious, not sure if it is worth it.

You're right, it could become tedious---toggling may not be the way to go. Instead, perhaps the units always default to "retreat" and there would simply be a radio button or box to select for "no retreat" in those special circumstances where that would be desirable.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I think this can be done simpler by doing the following.

1. Units should retreat as default (no need for a toggle) if the combat result says the unit should retreat
2. If the only retreat path in across a river into enemy ZOC then the unit will NOT retreat and instead take 0-3
steps of extra damage (other max value can be used).

This should be automatically done by the computer. No need for no retreat toggles etc. This will solve the problem
about units retreating across rivers into the enemy side of the river. Retreats across a river into only friendly
territory (no enemy ZOC) will still be allowed.

If it's too much programming giving extra damage to a unit who will remain in a hex instead of retreating into
enemy ZOC across a river, then it's possible to not give the unit extra damage. It will still be an improvement.

All the computer needs to do in this alternative method is to simply flag adjacent hexes to the defender who are across
a river and in enemy ZOC as not eligible for retreats. This means the defender will hold as if it had no retreat
path at all. That will also solve the problem about defenders retreating towards the attacker across rivers.