Performing encirclements

[Sveynn]

I'm new to this game (which is awesome btw) and was wondering about the ways in which an army can be cut off and destroyed.

I know that an army can be destroyed when assaulted in a city, but the manual suggests that you can also deny retreat from field battles by reducing enemy MC to less than 6% in all adjacent regions.


Assuming I read the manual correctly, my questions are:

1) Does this rule apply to all retreats or just routed units (i.e. can enemies still make voluntary retreats from battle into regions they have insufficient control over)?

2) Does this rule still exist? (I heard that it was removed/nerfed in ACW and was wondering if they did the same to this game)

[Stoertebeker]

1) Does this rule apply to all retreats or just routed units (i.e. can enemies still make voluntary retreats from battle into regions they have insufficient control over)?

I believe that the opposite is true: Units may not retreat in order into a neighbouring province without a minimum of MC. But routing is always possible.

[Durk]

I'm new to this game (which is awesome btw) and was wondering about the ways in which an army can be cut off and destroyed.

I know that an army can be destroyed when assaulted in a city, but the manual suggests that you can also deny retreat from field battles by reducing enemy MC to less than 6% in all adjacent regions.


Assuming I read the manual correctly, my questions are:

1) Does this rule apply to all retreats or just routed units (i.e. can enemies still make voluntary retreats from battle into regions they have insufficient control over)?

2) Does this rule still exist? (I heard that it was removed/nerfed in ACW and was wondering if they did the same to this game)

It is very rare that the army cannot retreat into the area from which they entered the battle. Only a very fast moving force, like a cossack force, could not change the MC.
So, in practice, armies will not be lost due to lack of an area in which to retreat. You can contrive to make this happen, however, by presenting your own forces in all of the surrounding areas. Tough to achieve, but if in sufficient force, can be done.
More likely, your army will retreat into an inconvenient place.

[Hohenlohe]

It is very rare that the army cannot retreat into the area from which they entered the battle. Only a very fast moving force, like a cossack force, could not change the MC.
So, in practice, armies will not be lost due to lack of an area in which to retreat. You can contrive to make this happen, however, by presenting your own forces in all of the surrounding areas. Tough to achieve, but if in sufficient force, can be done.
More likely, your army will retreat into an inconvenient place.

That is true and in games like AACW or RUS it could be easily done with the right leaders and the appropriate forces.

In those games you just need two good corps with good leaders additional to your main force and you will need up to three pure cavalry divisions with eventually full elements consisting cavalry and horse batteries.
With some good cavalry leaders you can flank the approaching enemy and after a successful battle the enemy will retreat in a region where you forces will either await him or approach him just in time. Thus the enemy is already beaten in terms of cohesion as your forces went to battle.

I got such an effect very soon in a PBEM game in RUS and was totally shocked because my southern main force was depleted.

To get that effect in ROP would be a problem on the first view, but I think you can get it either as Prussia or as Austria. Especially the Austrian coalition should have enough cavalry forces and leaders available to act in that way.

The only thing you should consider is that if you went to battle against the Prussian king as an Austrian leader like Daun then you should do so only in defensive mode with a stance which will allow you an earlier withdraw.

Sofar my opinion...

greetings

Hohenlohe

[hgilmer]

I think Narwhal achieved an encirclement in his AAR that is on Paradox forums. I know he had one where he almost achieved an encirclement which would have been badass and would have decimated the French part of the Austrian alliance.

In another part, he was able to cut off Swedish forces. Baris was almost able to pull off a brilliant evacuation via Bateux a la Dunkirk, but they weren't able to load before Narwhal was able to almost utterly destroy the Swedish army.

[Stoertebeker]

I think Narwhal achieved an encirclement in his AAR that is on Paradox forums. I know he had one where he almost achieved an encirclement which would have been badass and would have decimated the French part of the Austrian alliance.

In another part, he was able to cut off Swedish forces. Baris was almost able to pull off a brilliant evacuation via Bateux a la Dunkirk, but they weren't able to load before Narwhal was able to almost utterly destroy the Swedish army.

But those were encirclements that cut off (or inteded to do so, at least) supply to his opponent. It's not possible to make a whole force surrender to you because they have nowhere to go. It's a pity, though, that forces nearly always flee to where they come from: It's quite easy to set up "Ping-Pong"-battles.

[Durk]

The only time I have seen no place to retreat causing units to be destroyed is when an amphibious assault occurs, and the attacking player loses.
The "Ping-Pong" battle is interesting. I can rarely make this happen, maybe Stoertebeker can set this up.

[Baris]

There were indeed encirclements attemps from Narwhal especially in the early years while sieging Kassel, in which he wanted to surround my French corps with his several corps to destroy my corps completely in a battle. Luckly he wasn't able to control the escape route to the west(That was difficult because he cant move in stealth as area is very visible for me) which has the only road to escape from region quickly. I saw him coming from east with Frederick ,and south with another corps but didn't saw the approaching corps from the north as area was heavily in FOW. That was a lucky instance for me that he didnt catch me with one of his corps.As all my stacks were in the same region. If he did catch me I was mostly surrounded and lose many cohesion after battles and lose more than half of the army even more.

2nd encirclements attempt was for the Swedish sieging Berlin. I think he decided to cut my supply only by restricting my move path only to the south. He didnt even bother to have battle thinking in mind Swedish will be out of supply and disappear ina few turns.

About small cavalry force effectiveness: Well those are silent assasins. invisible,sneaky. Effectively gains MC with 1 or 2 brigades in a blink of an eye , where retreating to the same region where you come from not possible. To be posted in the AAR..

[Stoertebeker]

The only time I have seen no place to retreat causing units to be destroyed is when an amphibious assault occurs, and the attacking player loses.
The "Ping-Pong" battle is interesting. I can rarely make this happen, maybe Stoertebeker can set this up.

Okay, I exaggerated a bit when I said "easy to set up". Looking at this: (Control&Retreat.opt):

ctlContested = 5 // Minimum control gained upon entering a region (if not passive)
ctlAllowRetreat = 0 // Minimum control to have in a region to allow a retreat into it
ctlRetreatAdjCity = 5 // Interest in retreating toward a region with a city (per level)
ctlRetreatAdjFort = 30 // Interest in retreating toward a region with a fort (per level)
ctlRetreatAdjDepot = 25 // Interest in retreating toward a region with a depot (per level)
ctlRetreatLandLink = 10 // Interest in retreating toward a region, value per land link
ctlRetreatPrevSubSpaceCoeffH = 250 // Coefficient applied to the interest if the region is the one where we are coming from
cltRetPenaltyPerNmySU = 4 // retreat penalty (in interest pts) for each nmy SU in retreating region

one knows how it works.
So: if you are going to be attacked and feel like you'd win, you can detach a corps from your army and move it in the province from where the enemy approaches. Then you have a Ping-Pong battle. (one should boost the value for enemy Units in a province to avoid such situations, imo).

[Athens]

Okay, I exaggerated a bit when I said "easy to set up". Looking at this: (Control&Retreat.opt):




one knows how it works.
So: if you are going to be attacked and feel like you'd win, you can detach a corps from your army and move it in the province from where the enemy approaches. Then you have a Ping-Pong battle. (one should boost the value for enemy Units in a province to avoid such situations, imo).

try this:

ctlRetreatPrevSubSpaceCoeffH = 100 // Coefficient applied to the interest if the region is the one where we are coming from

[Stoertebeker]

try this:

ctlRetreatPrevSubSpaceCoeffH = 100 // Coefficient applied to the interest if the region is the one where we are coming from

I like that units retreat where they come from. Actually I'd prefer to tweak this one:

cltRetPenaltyPerNmySU = 4 // retreat penalty (in interest pts) for each nmy SU in retreating region

to maybe 10 or 20, so that retreating armies really try to avoid enemies. On the other side: It should not be too easy to "direct" enemies retreats with Light Cavalry. This has to be tested ... . I'll finish my ongoing game before dedicating time to it.