Why Routing units no longer fight back?

[jamreal18]

I already posted it in official forum but I know many members here are banned there. Thats why I also post it here.

In patch 9 patch note:

• Routing units no longer turn around/play matched combat animations as they are being killed.

Why did CA remove this animation? I love it. Its more realistic than getting slaughtered without resistance.

[Hazzard]

I think routing units would be more focused on actually running than standing and fighting. At that point they've chosen to run, they probably wouldn't notice someone running up behind them and slashing them in the back.

[Eriseo]

I already posted it in official forum but I know many members here are banned there. Thats why I also post it here.

In patch 9 patch note:

• Routing units no longer turn around/play matched combat animations as they are being killed.

Why did CA remove this animation? I love it. Its more realistic than getting slaughtered without resistance.

Because it made chasing down the routing units slow and pointless even for the fastest cavalry.

[m_1512]

Because they are routing and no longer care to fight. Sounds silly, but that's the best I could think of to explain this. Realistically though, at that point, the unit's focus should be focused on surviving, and not fighting or running.

[Man o' War]

It's fairly well documented how routing armies throughout history have been chased down and annihalated.

Generally speaking, when a soldier decides to flee for his life, he will throw off all cumbersome items like armour and weaponry.

I get where you're coming from though, sometimes in S2 you'd get people who wouldn't submit to death willingly and even though routing would still try to defend themselves.

[jamreal18]

Its fun to watch some routing units desperately fighting for their lives.
They want to live, of course they will fight until the end when the enemy catches them. Its more fun if sometimes some units accidentally killed their pursuer....

I also love it when some units held their pursuer in order for their comrades to run and escape. Its more dramatic and epic.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Because it made chasing down the routing units slow and pointless even for the fastest cavalry.

This, people hated it. I did a least

[jamreal18]

Because it made chasing down the routing units slow and pointless even for the fastest cavalry.

From what I know, you are no longer required to chase fleeing enemy when their banner disappears.

[Friar Chris]

Because in certain circumstances, you could actually lose a hell of a lot of pursuing light cavalry to decent quality enemies stopping, turning round, and using their combat 'duel' animations.

Which was dumb, a broken army is meant to be there, ripe for the picking. If you want men to survive when you can't win and to have a chance to fend off pursuing cavalry, you need to organise an orderly retreat long before your men have broken and routed.

[Niftyeye]

Bit of a shame because I quite enjoyed watching the shattered remnants of a unit getting picked off one by one in the epic fighting animations, but oh well.

I just wish the Dev's gave people the CHOICE to have them in or not, once again mods to the rescue I would assume.

[alQamar]

I already posted it in official forum but I know many members here are banned there. Thats why I also post it here.

In patch 9 patch note:

• Routing units no longer turn around/play matched combat animations as they are being killed.

Why did CA remove this animation? I love it. Its more realistic than getting slaughtered without resistance.

They removed it with patch 9 because of good reasons. e.g. in Rome 1 you could use cav to raid the routing guys. Now cav and other units got stuck in senseless animations as from the stats the routed will always loose the fight. So it was nice to watch perhaps but also binded troops unneccesarily and lead to glitches and skating units or units loosing formation.. You should avoid to think only about single players . I know TWC is a domain for those but in multiplayer those thing only caused obscure situations. Making it optional would not be an option as the engine is limited. It seems they cannot handle multiplayer and singleplayer differently. This is indeed unfortunate for both parties.

[Man o' War]

From what I know, you are no longer required to chase fleeing enemy when their banner disappears.

That's interesting.

Does that mean you've wiped them all out to a man (without actually having to do so)?
I can't deny that it was sometimes irksome to have to re-fight the stragglers once they had left the field, especially if they take to the magic boats.

I know there was a peculiar thing in Napoleon whereby if you "continued" and chased down the routing army any left would form a smaller army after the battle.
But... If you continued to chase the routing army for a moment or two and then hit "quit battle", then the routing army would be pretty much destroyed without the need for the chase.

[Friar Chris]

I don't think the banner thing is true at all. All the banner disappearing means is that they can't rally in the battle you're currently in, not that the unit will be disbanded.

The difference is between routing, with the white unit banner, during which can be rallied by e.g. a General unit... And a unit that is entirely broken - when the banner disappears and they can't be rallied, they're done for the fight. That doesn't indicate that they're disbanding or all counted as dead, just that they won't fight again in that battle - it is important to still chase them down with cavalry if you don't want the enemy to have survivors!

[daniu]

I'm pretty sure I never saw any chasers being killed during rundown in R2 and assume playing the animation at all was the issue although there wasn't any actual fighting.

BTW the terms for the two routing states are "Broken" (can return) and "Shattered" (no banner).

[alQamar]

I don't think the banner thing is true at all. All the banner disappearing means is that they can't rally in the battle you're currently in, not that the unit will be disbanded.

The difference is between routing, with the white unit banner, during which can be rallied by e.g. a General unit... And a unit that is entirely broken - when the banner disappears and they can't be rallied, they're done for the fight. That doesn't indicate that they're disbanding or all counted as dead, just that they won't fight again in that battle - it is important to still chase them down with cavalry if you don't want the enemy to have survivors!

Agreed.

[Man o' War]

Good point Chris.

There is a clear distinction between "routing" and "shattered". The banners are lost if the unit is shattered and unable to fight again in the same battle.

[Octavius Vatco]

I already posted it in official forum but I know many members here are banned there. Thats why I also post it here.

In patch 9 patch note:

• Routing units no longer turn around/play matched combat animations as they are being killed.

Why did CA remove this animation? I love it. Its more realistic than getting slaughtered without resistance.

They are still doing that despite patch 9

[antred]

I definitely like it better this way, although I do think that at least occasionally a couple of the routing guys should stand and put up some sort of a fight. Running down routing units is now a guaranteed 100% casualty-free process for the pursuer. In NTW, pursuing cavalry would usually still lose a trooper or 2 when running down fleeing units.

Which reminds me of another cool feature that NTW had ... when charging a cavalry unit into a melee blob, the charge would damage ALL units in its path, even friendly ones, which is more realistic IMO.

[prithupaul]

I already posted it in official forum but I know many members here are banned there. Thats why I also post it here.

In patch 9 patch note:

• Routing units no longer turn around/play matched combat animations as they are being killed.

Why did CA remove this animation? I love it. Its more realistic than getting slaughtered without resistance.

That animation was just eye candy. It did not do any actual damage to the attackers, instead it made chasing fleeing enemies a slow and messy process. It prevented cavalry from "riding down" or trampling the broken enemies.

As a trade off, I much prefer what patch 9 has done. I remember in some previous Total War game, the tooltip said something like "oblivious to the world" on shattered units. Assume the same is happening.

But I have noticed something strange. In siege defences, I am not getting the option to continue the battle after all the enemy units are broken. The game forces me to end the battle. Dunno if this is a bug or is so by design.

[Altimis]

@OP

I think CA mean removed annoying unnecessary fighting animation that prevent them from begin killed

In previous patch, all hunting routing almost can't kill anything because there too many animations fighting back that prevent them from begin killed