These left over problems from UGG are what drive me mad...

[fallendown]

The routing problem that was never fixed in UGG is still present in this game. It is absolutely maddening. ENEMY TROOPS ROUT TOWARDS THEIR OWN TROOPS!!!!! How hard of a concept is this to understand? In the following pic's, an enemy brigade has once again routed behind my lines.. So I have to detach a brigade from my attack to keep attacking this brigade. What's worse is when they rout they're not getting exhausted, I have to constantly force my troops to sprint to keep up with them. Not only that, but the friendly units of mine freak out because they have an enemy unit behind them. 

[fallendown]

Secondly, in the pic below you'll see what I've been saying in many other posts. Skirmishers are not the Green Berets of the Civil War era. They don't operate behind enemy lines. 

[fallendown]

What's worse is just like UGG I'll end up never playing this game after 2 months because the DEV's don't seem interested in fixing the important problems. As it is I quit this battle because I was so fed up with the stupidity. 

Edited December 2, 2016 by fallendown

[Lincolns Mullet]

Give 'em some time, it's still early access.  Brigades do rout towards their lines, mostly.  There must be specific circumstances that causes a brigade to rout behind enemy lines.  If someone could replicate those circumstances in a saved game, or if you've seen it happen enough times find out what the unique situation was that caused the bug that would go a long way to solving the problem.

I'd like to know what conditions the code is checking for that causes brigades to rout towards friendly lines. When a brigade routs does it take into account surrounding enemy units in relation to their position, and the direction of friendly lines?  Do they have "set" markers on the map where they are directed to rout towards no matter where they currently stand, but if enemy troops are between them and the marker, disrupt their routing path and force them to run in opposite direction?

It seems routing brigades tend to find the best route in most circumstances, and the devs also don't want them routing "through" enemy brigades simply to make a bee line for friendly territory.  So there must be some autonomous routing decisions going on that changes the routing brigades direction depending on nearby threats.

A simple diagram where E are enemy units, FL are friendly territory, R is the routing brigade.

E--R--E----FL

In this case the routing brigade is stuck between two enemy brigades and would have to go around one before heading back towards friendly lines.  But in their attempt to go around the blocking enemy unit, let's say they approach yet another enemy unit that is blocking them.  Does the routing brigade dynamically change direction again to find a better way out?  Maybe the routing brigades are using the same avoidance logic that generals and supply wagons use, but when there's multiple nearby enemy units this can cause the routing brigade to run in odd directions (just like the supply wagon does sometimes).  That would make sense as to why both can make strange decisions.

[Zwerty99]

There should be a mechanic where they surrender in that case. For example, in the Hornets Nest real life, a couple thousand US men were captured after running out of supplies, etc. I don't know if that would happen in this game, more likely troops would try running through enemy and get slaughtered. Also, do supplies have an effect on morale (they should)? If an isolated brigade is behind enemy lines AND out of supply it should be a no brainer. 

[Meagre Heart]

I'm on the opposite side of the coin; I'm not a great player, and it's usually my own brigade trying to escape and running through enemy lines instead of towards my own units. It's frustrating, but I wish there was a better indicator to show that if that unit breaks, they are going to behave desperately. Maybe an indicator showing my brigade is overextended?

In reality, I could imagine a brigade that is simply running away because it can't see a friendly force nearby. If they're panicked they're not going to do what anyone wants, really. It's tough to think of how to change the mechanic in a way that doesn't also allow for an exploit. If a brigade gets overrun (retreats accidentally into a foe) it could simply surrender or disband, but that makes it easy for the player to cheese tough fights.

[TortugaPower]

I just wanted to pipe in as another test point. I am also seeing a lot of units route in an awkward direction.  It doesn't happen all the time, but it definitely happens, and also when using the "Fallback" command they move the wrong way (though it seems less often with this).

It would be good to get this sorted out, considering (as mentioned) that it was an issue prevalent in UG Gettysburg. Cheers.

[Lincolns Mullet]

I noticed in a game tonight an example of how routing might work.  At Shiloh as CSA, I ran cav all the way to Shiloh church. Union infantry just south of it routed my cav and they went sprinting further north into more enemy brigades.  They had plenty of space to the west of their position, or even southwest, to head back towards friendly lines.  In fact they could have ran in any direction other than forward (into the enemy) or directly backwards (into the enemy) and they would've been safe.  Instead they ran in the exact opposite direction of the brigade that caused it to rout.  Maybe the facing of the brigade which causes a unit to rout correlates with the direction the routing brigade retreats?  Imagine your army comes up from the south part of the map, enemy from the north.  Due to flanking during the battle, one of your units is now facing south to fire on an enemy brigade.  The enemy brigade routs away from your south-facing unit, which sends it deeper into your territory.  I'd say in general that's a fairly rare circumstance?  It seems most maps your units have their backs or flanks facing the part of the map they started on/came from, and are not often facing the area of the map they started on to attack an enemy unit,  Just a theory.

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

Routing is definitely still buggy like it was in UGG but it is not nearly so bad as it was.  My complaint is the 'fall back' command, often times the unit will traverse or just generally fall back in an unexpected and unwelcome direction.  "fall back" needs to make a unit retreat towards the safety of its own lines more than to a new, exposed area.  

also in general it is very difficult to re position units without them exposing a flank to the enemy which is very frustrating.. 

[A. P. Hill]

10 hours ago, Lincolns Mullet said:

I noticed in a game tonight an example of how routing might work.  At Shiloh as CSA, I ran cav all the way to Shiloh church. Union infantry just south of it routed my cav and they went sprinting further north into more enemy brigades.  They had plenty of space to the west of their position, or even southwest, to head back towards friendly lines.  In fact they could have ran in any direction other than forward (into the enemy) or directly backwards (into the enemy) and they would've been safe.  Instead they ran in the exact opposite direction of the brigade that caused it to rout.  Maybe the facing of the brigade which causes a unit to rout correlates with the direction the routing brigade retreats?  Imagine your army comes up from the south part of the map, enemy from the north.  Due to flanking during the battle, one of your units is now facing south to fire on an enemy brigade.  The enemy brigade routs away from your south-facing unit, which sends it deeper into your territory.  I'd say in general that's a fairly rare circumstance?  It seems most maps your units have their backs or flanks facing the part of the map they started on/came from, and are not often facing the area of the map they started on to attack an enemy unit,  Just a theory.

This sounds about as plausible a reason for this phenomenon as I can think.  The math/mechanics are ... run 180 degrees from the enemy.   If a unit gets turned, then running into more enemy units may be the result.

[vren55]

Agreed. Granted, I feel that the fall back weirdly/rout to the enemy is only just as bad as UG:G, but it's annoying. I was lucky enough that the particular brigade that broke SOMEHOW survived routing right through enemy lines. But I would really prefer if that doesn't happen when my army is literally right behind them.