Whack-A-Mole

[samba_liten]

Am I doing something wrong? I keep seeing the BEF march straight through my lines without fighting a battle, Russian armies being defeated in East Prussia and teleporting to another province, where I defeat them again, only to have them teleport to a third province. In Galicia I have Russian armies actually gaining strength while completely isolated behind Austrian lines. Help! I want to like this game so much, but this kind of thing is killing it for me

[Altaris]

Are they retreating? You should see a message saying the force retreated before combat if this is the case. It's unusual to see that many retreats happen though, unless the enemy is extremely outnumbered.

[samba_liten]

Haven't had time to sit down and post exactly what is happening and why it bothers me yet... Here's my best attempt.

The retreats I'm talking about are after battle retreats. I think. I find it very hard to follow what is going on in a battle, which, I have to say is as it should be, considering the historical situation. However, the defeated army sometimes pops out of the battle location to the province they entered from. Sometimes they go to another province, and sometimes they stay where they are. I don't understand how or why they determine which option to go with, which makes it hard to plan a campaign. Sometimes the enemy even retreats through my army and ends up behind my lines, where, on one occasion, they proceeded to gather reinforcements and supplies!

In my last attempt at playing the central powers, I had a fairly successful go at a forward defense as Austria. The Russians were attacking Lvov over and over again, and I was holding the line, having railed in 2nd army from the Balkan front to help. Each time I won a battle, what I described above would happen. I must have fought 8-10 battles of Lvov, before, finally, the Austrians lost one. My armies immediately teleported out to various surrounding provinces, which felt rather unfair, as the Russians had been able to keep attacking with the same (or parts there of) units over and over, never having been completely teleported out of the province.

Another thing I don't get is the morale reductions after a battle. Perhaps i screwed up in the settings somewhere, because my own armies seem to suffer far greater cohesion losses than the enemy. Alternatively, I might just be a crappy general.

Anyway, I hope I've been clear enough for someone to try and enlighten me about what's going on. Now, off to install the beta patch (love the limited rail capacity idea!), check the settings and try another games as the Central Powers! (I just invaded Germany and crossed the Rhine in my Entente game. For some reason I don't seem to run into as many issues when I play as France et al.)

Oh, final note, I'm pretty sure this is all mostly caused by my own poor understanding of game mechanics, so feel free to call me a newb and tell me where to find information that will help explain what I'm seeing!