Postures

[soundoff]

Firstly things must be improving. I've only kicked the computer three times today because of this game.

I must be missing something extremely obvious and would be grateful if someone could point me in the direction of an answer. The situation is this I have Polk and Winder together with one division. Polk is active for the turn and is commanding. So I give an assault order. To my dismay far from assaulting Polk elects to retreat? Its not that he's been attacked. He just takes it into his head to retreat.

Now it may well be that Polk is thinking to himself that the daft Brit is ordering a suicidal attack. As god though thats my prerogative is it not.

Seriously though what am I overlooking? I can't seem to find any reference to orders being over ridden. I did not look to see whether Winder was active or not but then I thought it was only the stack commanders active or inactive stance that counted for the stack?

Any assistance would be much appreciated.

[arsan]

Yes, sometimes commanders can think by themselves and retreat before combat against your orders. Most of the time it works in your advantage.
If this is the case you will see a message on the log with someting like "Polk has retreated before combat" and on the next turn you will find the stack on an adyacent region with pasive (green) posture.
Was your case like this??

For example, yesterday, playing a new campaing i ordered Bonham CSA Corps with two medium strength divisions to assault Harpers Ferry because it was only garrisoned with a couple of USA regiments.
He was 8 day's travel from there. On the turn resolution i saw how on the first days a big union corps entered Harpers Ferry while Bonham was on the way. I was expecting the worst but luckly, when Bonham arrived and was faced with the task of trying to assault a town garrisoned with a much bigger corps than himself, he decided to "retreat before combat" to the area where he was comming from, without firing a shot.
The system is very convenient when you think all the things that can happen and how much a situation may change on a 15 days turn.
Now, it will not happen always so you can't depend on it and order careless attacks left and right hoping your commanders will take care if things turn bad.

And for Winder, you are right, if he is not comandig the stack it doesn't matter if he is active or not.

Regards

[soloswolf]

Ditto what Arsan said.

In addition, if you are patched to date you have the R.O.E. buttons as well. (Rules Of Engagement) They give you further control as to how far your commanders carry their movements.

I won't list all the combos here because the tool-tip for each is fairly straight-forward, but just double check those too.

As an aside on postures... I have noticed this: If you have an inactive leader on def. posture and order him to move to another province, then select that move to be by rail and then change his posture to passive, it takes off the rail move order and you must click it again. It is simple to anticipate, but can be very frustrating if you think they will get somewhere in x amount of time and they don't.

[Pocus]

Switch to Attack at all cost if you wan't your orders to be always followed.

[soundoff]

Many thanks for the prompt and informative reply arsan. Yes the final position was indeed as you thought. I have no problem with my commanders over riding my decisions. Just needed to know that this was indeed what was happening and not that I was missing some vital ingrediant when issuing my orders. Ah well onwards and upwards.