Chasing down routers -- not very effective

[Evan]

Is anyone else annoyed with having to chase down routers? In the previous games, it wasn't all that difficult, you just send your light cavalry out and they mop it up, but when you try to do it in ETW, the cavalry gets all strung out and doesn't really seem to attack any of the fleeing enemy troops. This is without mentioning how fast the routers run; almost as quickly as the cavalry does! This makes it so that quite a few enemy units escape during the battle, and unless you kill everyone, the army lives to fight another day, regardless of how few men it has left. There have been a few times where I've had to chase an enemy army across an entire region because I wasn't able to mop up the routers.

[Warboss]

unlike in other TW games, routing enemies seem to fan out a lot and the cavalry you send after them tries to stay in the middle of all of them, regardless of whether or not there are actually men there.

[Yojimbo]

unlike in other TW games, routing enemies seem to fan out a lot and the cavalry you send after them tries to stay in the middle of all of them, regardless of whether or not there are actually men there.

Which is better as routed men wouldn't stay in formation they spread out in a panicked fligth just like they do in game. Looks alot better i think.

[SuperKyle]

I don't know if it's just me, but when units start to rout my guys quit chasing them. =\

Also, the horses chasing routers, generally ineffective also, seems close to vanilla rome total war pathfinding than mtw2.

[Cruel Sculpture]

I don't know if it's just me, but when units start to rout my guys quit chasing them. =\

Take off Guard Mode. Whilst that's on your guys won't chase.

[kikosemmek]

I have two ways of dealing with this.

First, I notice that there's a good chance the enemy army is eliminated from the campaign map if I just select "End Battle." It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens often enough. This is in contrast to me opting to continue the battle so that I can hunt down the survivors- some of them are bound to escape, and I've always had the enemy army remain on the campaign map. And you know how you just love it when 10 guys decide to sack 3 of your towns because you couldn't finish them off in the previous turn.

Second, I saw that the best way to hunt down routing units is not to tell my chasers to attack, but to tell them to intercept (move order) with a wide front. When adjacent to enemy soldiers, your men will automatically engage them in melee, and routing enemies virtually die on contact. So, basically, if the enemy is running, they're typically in a strung out mass. I'll just widen my cavalry and send them along the same path, knowing that they're faster.

[ssmarine]

Use carbineers or light dragoons to chase routers they shoot as they pursue and their horses are fast as hell. This allows them to kill routers quicker than any other units.

Chasing routers in MTW2 and RTW was actually arcadish and kind of ridiculous. You could literally wipe out an entire routing army with a generals bodyguard and have him go up 2 or 3 xp every battle. Im glad they made it more realistic.

[Sigfried]

Use carbineers or light dragoons to chase routers they shoot as they pursue and their horses are fast as hell. This allows them to kill routers quicker than any other units.

Chasing routers in MTW2 and RTW was actually arcadish and kind of ridiculous. You could literally wipe out an entire routing army with a generals bodyguard and have him go up 2 or 3 xp every battle. Im glad they made it more realistic.

exactly.. i always use carbineers to chase them.. they are faster than normal cavalry and also can run for longer before getting tired.. another thing i noticed on this game is that most cavalry units get exhausted so damn fast and start running slow.. well carbineers were the solution for me, they are fast and can run for long time

[Vor]

For the most part I don't bother to kill routers for the stated reasons. The only time I do is when the enemy has really annoyed me.

[django333]

I was annoyed at this too but after thinking about it a bit I think it's better. The routing unit breaks formation and runs in different directions. It's more realistic. And if you think about it, chasing down routers in M2TW was too easy. You could kill hundreds of troops without having to worry at all about the cavalry running them down.

[lesterthenerd]

For the most part I don't bother to kill routers for the stated reasons. The only time I do is when the enemy has really annoyed me.

well you should since u ur units can get veterancy quicker.

[AlfonsoVIII]

There are a lot more obstacles like fences to jump so the fluid charge of cavalry is stopped. It seems to me that routing units run faster than in previous games and the horsemen really do not know how to attack that well.

[Ebusitanus]

Most of the actual killing done in a battle was precisely when the enemy broke and fled and you had your guys killing them in scores.

[Pizza de Oveja]

Woh! I cant believe they didnt deal with that!...short of the first version of med II where the cavalry units couldnt enter castles crapy router chasing was the most anoying thing ever in a TW game!
Well that and those god forsaken french...oh the french!

[sillyfrenchman]

Most of the actual killing done in a battle was precisely when the enemy broke and fled and you had your guys killing them in scores.

So true. Some of the greatest battles in history ended like this.

[Thamis]

You don't actually *have* to chase them down. The game automatically kills a few of them off if their side lost. You can just end battle if you wish.

[antares24]

You don't actually *have* to chase them down. The game automatically kills a few of them off if their side lost. You can just end battle if you wish.

didn't know that, thanks for the info thamis

however, the more merciless among us would like to chase our routing enemies effectively, i remember this was an issue in Med2, could you Devs look at this and solve it in one of the upcoming patches?

[Battletoads]

Does it actually give you experience chasing them down?

[Evan]

You don't actually *have* to chase them down. The game automatically kills a few of them off if their side lost. You can just end battle if you wish.

Yeah, but like I said before, if you don't kill them all, the ones that escape will reform and you have to fight them again. It creates the possibility that you'll have to fight the same army over and over again until it is completely destroyed.

[eug1404]

Yeah, but like I said before, if you don't kill them all, the ones that escape will reform and you have to fight them again.

This only happens if you're on the defensive, if you are attacking and click "End Battle" it automatically kills off the entire enemy army. IIRC This is clearly explained in the tutorial.