Armies retreat to regions with 0% MC? Or too difficult to destroy entire stacks?

[W.Barksdale]

In my current PBEM I managed to concentrate 22 divisions plus a TON of cavalry and artillery support against my opponents 5 divisions. Not only did the enemy hardly take any hits but they managed to avoid battle almost entirely the next turn by retreating to an adjacent region with 0% military control. When I brought all my force to bear they only had control of one region, Norfolk. It was an overwhelming 5+ to 1 advantage in power not to mention how much cavalry I had in my army and cavalry corps stacks and yet I did NOTHING of worth as they were just able to retreat to non-controlled regions and avoid battle. Is this WAD?

[John Sedgwick]

I believe it is WAD, yes. It is very difficult to destroy entire stacks, which is as it should be - it's hard to pull off a kesselschlacht without panzers, but it is by no means impossible - I've pulled it off a number of times against the AI and a couple times against human opponents, but it takes time, and 100% military control is not enough - you also need forces in each adjacent region to achieve complete destruction of the encircled force; even a single cavalry regiment should suffice to cut off their retreat.

As for the lack of casualties on your opponent's side, sounds like they just got lucky since your abundance of cavalry would normally make such a retreat painfully difficult.

[W.Barksdale]

From what I can tell forces in adjacent regions will not stop retreat. It is still possible with an entire corps adjacent let alone a single cavalry regiment.

I can understand making destruction of entire stacks difficult, but I threw 22 divisions into the attack which gave a MASSIVE advantage over five divisions. They should have all been destroyed or captured. It was 100k+ men vs 20k. Anyway....

[John Sedgwick]

I should probably add, this is based on my experience with encirclements in AACW - perhaps they made it harder in CW2, but I would expect the same general principles apply. Forces in adjacent regions will not always prevent retreat, but if total destruction is your aim, it is necessary to have at least a cavalry regiment in every escape route. And in my AACW experience, I usually didn't achieve total annihilation until the enemy army was exhausted and running out of supply.

Again, sounds like you were just really unlucky =\

[Captain_Orso]

I believe it will greatly depend on which patch level you are playing. Either with RC8 or 9 ZOC has been reintroduced to the retreat-rules. With such a massive force the ZOC you exert in the region should prevent retreat into a low-MC region.

[W.Barksdale]

It was RC8. Maybe I've just been unlucky but it's happened a couple times in this game. My opponent is has consistently and skilfully avoided annihilation almost every trap I set for him. In any case, even for me playing the engine for 7-8 years, still learn something every game.

[Captain_Orso]

If you had debugging turned on during the turn of the battle and have saved the battle report, you should be able to find a fairly complete list of how the battle engine guided the retreat; how it evaluated each region any why it choose the region it choose.

BTW, the game has a kind of built-in self-preservation automation. Generally the game will not allow a force to stand still and be so completely overwhelmed that it would be destroyed outright. Generally a retreat will be automatically executed before that happens.

If you are going to install the RC9 PB patch you should read Pocus' notes first: Public Beta Patch 1.05 RC9 (February 27th update)

[W.Barksdale]

Thank you Captain_Orso I don't usually turn it on but once this game is concluded I will do some tests with debugging enabled.

[W.Barksdale]

I've just had an enemy stack retreat across the Cumberland river! Major rivers do not prohibit retreat??? I don't get the logic!!!!

[DrPostman]

I've just had an enemy stack retreat across the Cumberland river! Major rivers do not prohibit retreat??? I don't get the logic!!!!

It might also depend on the weather and conditions. If a unit has sailors
with them that might mean that they have boats or can find them easily.
Just guessing with that latter. Usually units shouldn't be able to retreat over
a major river.

[Captain_Orso]

I've just had an enemy stack retreat across the Cumberland river! Major rivers do not prohibit retreat??? I don't get the logic!!!!

From the game mechanics, it depends completely on whether the enemy force in your region finds your force and attacks before you get across the river. If they do, then your force is always still considered to be in the region of the retreat--the same as if no river were present--and is penalized as if it were performing an invasion.

Retreat does not mean that the enemy is hot on your heals, in constant contact, always prepared to mount an assault and just waiting for the retreating force to make a short pause for them to pounce upon them. The military history of the Civil War is full of situations in which two armies have battled and are faced off against each other at nightfall, and in the morning one of the forces has abandoned the field and is nowhere to be found. Once recognized the remaining force start his cavalry out to search for the retreating army, but the following army has already hours of marching to make up. And every hour they march, the retreating army is also marching.

So, no, major rivers do not prohibit retreat. They make it dangerous.

BTW if you had an enemy army up against a major river, the logical thing for you to do would be to patrol the river with gunboats to attempt to block the army from crossing. The game will give you a 23% chance per gunboat of preventing the crossing, up to a maximum of 90%.

Sailors and Marines would make no difference in this situation. They only have the ability to make an invasion more viable. To assist in crossing a river you need pontooniers, engineers with pontoon bridging.