-InsertName- died retreating into enemy territory!
 

(((This post is fairly long, please read it all; but if not simply scroll down to the sixth section and start there)))

It was a small map MA game of only eight pretenders, including myself. Over many years and through various wars eventually it came down to just two, the Divine Emporor of Ermor (me) and some unknown divinity leading the forces of Man.

At this point in the game my Emporor was for all intents and purposes a SC spellcaster. He was equipped with a robe of invulnerability, a luck pendant, a wraith crown, an antimagic amulet, a ring of wizardry (or somesuch like that), and an amulet of reinvigoration (forgot the name). I had spent most of the game turtling my empire and researching and I managed to complete research on Thaumaturgy, Enchantment, Conjuration, and Construction, while Alteration and Evocation were both about level 6 (enough for basic buff/attack spells).

Unfortunately this approach landed me with about ten provinces under my control for the final conflict, as opposed to Man controlling the entire world; roughly 50-60 provinces. Predictably, Man soon proceeded to steamroll my provinces annihilating 125 defense militia and my priest's undead entourage in every province with a couple massive 1400 man armies. Despite my rapid loss of income and domain, I wasn't daunted. I made no attempt to stop their rampaging armies, that would only waste what few mortal soldiers I had; and end in failure. I pulled every death mage from my provinces back to my capital and began to prepare for the inevitable siege.

Over the half-year it took the armies of Man to secure my lands, I took advantage of the massive number of death mages and undead generals in my capital. I was raising 120+ longdead and souless, 40 wraiths a month, and various misc. such as an iron dragon, tarrasque, abomination, and a smith of tatarus.

By the time the 1200 strong army of Man laid siege to my capital, I had raised an army nearly 1000 strong. As the siege began it was obvious that I would win the battle. My wraiths held the gate while my various users of death magic raised even more undead, filling my fortress full of souless and longdead. As the battle raged on lodged in the fortress gate my wraiths slowly began to hack their way outside the fortress into the enemy army, as my Emporor shadow blasted huge sections of their army repeatedly. After 70 long turns of slowly killing off about a third of their forces, the armies of Man route; and I had only taken about a hundred chaff and a couple dozen wraith casualties. It was obvious to me that I was now in a position to win the game. I had yet to even dent my gem reserves, and all my casters were empowered and prepared to raise massive hordes of undead each and every month.... while my incredibly powerful and nigh invulnerable Emporor spearheaded the massacre..


I end the replay, smiling to myself as I think I may finally win a game... Clicking down the other piddly unimportant messages I notice something. What's this? All my mages, wraith lords, and even my Emporor are dead?! WHY?.. Retreated into enemy territory? Ridiculous. So where does that leave me after all this time and planning put into my game? Dead, with one province under my control, half my standing undead and magical forces dissipated, and only a couple wight mages left to hold my capital. I had failed to notice that my Emporor, wight mages (etc misc. casters) and wraith lords routed shortly before the siege was won..

The point of this hideous tale is simple...

RETREATING INTO ENEMY TERRITORY FROM YOUR STANDING FORTRESS AFTER A SIEGE SHOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.

What moron would run out of the gates of his fortress into enemy territory after annihilating the enemy siege? I don't understand this, and this strange order of events cost me days worth of time; and a stroke (I lie, figurative) due to anger.

Please, someone of importance read this and consider patching some solution. Or perhaps someone with modding experience could help me fix this? If only to change wraith lord and wight moral to 50, anything..

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

Retreating into enemy territory is never possible and should not be no matter how powerful the retreating force is. If they're fleeing, they have lost. What probably happened is that with this grinding battle you got into the turn rule where all units retreat after 50 combat rounds or something and everything left on the battlefield dies after 75 battle rounds or something.

You could have avoided this if you would have sent a few stealthy units under a stealthy commander to attack and take an enemy province around your fort.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

I could have avoided it by taking another province, sure. But my intention was to hold my capital for a short time while building up my forces. It makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever for it to be impossible (almost) to hold a single province fortress with a powerful force... There is no logical reason for all my commanders and my pretender to have died like that. Units in a fortress shouldn't be capable of routing, unless they're stealthy. It's under siege and your enemies control the province, under normal circumstances nobody would be able to escape. And under MY circumstances.. none of my units should have suicided by routing.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

In a break siege, you die if your forces retreat. It's explicitly stated in the manual. (What the manual doesn't say is that if you have a neighboring province to retreat to, it's possible to escape to that province from a failed break siege.)

I think the reasoning may be that it's needed to prevent something like scripting a bunch of mages in the back line to pop off some Swarms or Lammashtas, before running back into the castle.

Or maybe, once you leave the castle, some cowards close and lock the doors behind you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

Well I don't like those cowardly gate locking traitors, I had some scared skeletons I suppose; lol... Is there any way to mod the option of routing during a siege out, or some work around solution? I don't have any modding experience with DOM; but my playstyle at the moment is turtling to create an SC spellcaster with Ermor and then use him to lead massive undead legions. But I've failed twice now, due to him routing during a siege on my capital that I actually won.. :-o

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

Buying huge numbers of militia is a common mistake. You could have bought hundreds of soldiers or more forts instead.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

you could probably mod a province that has only one connection to your capital. The AI probably wont teleport there. You can use it as your backyard that routing units from your capital run to.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

I wouldn't know where to begin, but that would definitely help the situation.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

I think the problem here is the time limit routes.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

Not possible to mod that particular game mechanic away.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territory!
 

This is likely to happen when huge armies try to melee in a castle gate, but there's no way at all for you to know that. (your god blasted, but couldn't kill everyone).

An easy built-in save game feature would have really helped here. (though I still dont think it's important overall).

The game mechanic that caused this is that after 50 turns the game figures that this battle is a stalemate and will never end, so attacker (Man) automatically retreats. Then if battle is still going on a bit later, the defender (you) auto-routs too. Perhaps some of Man's units were caught in battle, or paralyzed, or over 100 fatigue from your undeads' chill aura, so they couldn't run.

Guess your mages were force to run, then right afterwards the last of Man was gone, and you still had some units in battle, so you won the fight. (or maybe Man's armies were automatically killed off at turn 70, at some point that happens)

The game's not likely to change... what you have to do if you try this again, is to finish the battle faster. Kill the enemy faster. Archers, or more mages casting damage spells would work. Have some death4 mages stand forward scripted to cast cloud of death perhaps.


If your whole army is poison resistant, and most of the enemy's isn't, then casting Foul Vapours could work (probably from your pretender). Enchantment5, needs a nature gem, nature3 water1. *everyone* has a 10% chance to be poisoned each battleturn... should kill off most humans in a long fight.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

Seems to me the real problem is figuring out why your guys routed. You said you were holding the gate, which means the enemy was trying to storm the castle and you were the defender, so the 50-turn limit was on the enemy, not you. Once 75% of the army is destroyed, the non-mindless and non-berserk units auto-route, so it's possible that you'd raised enough skeletons to outnumber your whole army by a factor of 4 or so and then when they all died, everybody routed.

I see two solutions:

1.) Make sure you always have a back door of some kind to retreat to. If you want, you can do this with remote summoning spells and/or a flying SC on the turn you're expecting attack on your castle. E.g. send your emperor and a handful of Wights on a flying carpet to the next-door province to take it over.

2.) Alternatively, try to stop the rout from occurring in the first place. Either you were unlucky, or you're using amazing amounts of chaff that die, or something. Win the battle quicker. This should be pretty easy if you use, oh, Wind of Death or Rigor Mortis or Darkness or Army of Gold + Flame Storm or Plague or that battlefield-wide Fear spell (Wind of something? D4A1). You've got all this research done, so you might as well use it. Another thing to try would be to use less chaff and stick to e.g. 100 Wight footsoldiers plus mages, which should easily beat 1200 AI chaff troops once you've got your battlefield enchantments up. (And if you're defending a fortress, gem logistics are a piece of cake because you're right on top of a lab, so you have no excuse for not using battlefield enchantments.)

It just seems to me that the current way you're playing, letting yourself get down to a single province and hoping your units won't route, is a lot riskier than it needs to be.

-Max

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

Really? I thought the attacker just died at the 75-turn limit. I didn't think the defender auto-routed.

-Max

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

After I 'won' the battle, I actually had very few casualties. Only about 100 or so chaff and a couple dozen (roughly) wraiths. So it must have been the turn limit that routed my pretender and casters.

I guess I will have to stick with the back door option, or win faster. Mostly I used this strategy for flavor, I really enjoy playing MA Ermor (undead*); and raising vast hordes of the undead from my capital fortress to suddenly overrun the world is just fun :-). Is the turn-route feature moddable?

Thanks for all the replies.

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

But you also said you were summoning tons of undead during the battle, presumably with Raise Skeleton and Raise Dead. I'm 80% sure killed skellies and zombies still count toward the 75% limit, so theoretically if you had 1000 units, then you summoned another 3000 skeletons during the course of the battle, and LA Man killed all those skeletons, your army would auto-rout because 75% casualties had been taken. I don't know how plausible it is that your guys would have summoned 3000 skeletons, though.

The turn route feature is not moddable. Modding is focused on altering unit/nation/spell stats, not changing the basic rules of the game.

You can still go with the vast hordes of undead if you like; just cast Rigor Mortis at the start of the battle and it should all work just fine. Your undead hordes are immune to it, but Man's troops should quickly fatigue into unconsciousness so your troops can slaughter them, and once they hit 200 fatigue they start taking physical damage instead of fatigue (although of course since they're unconscious they also recover 5 fatigue per round too). They should all be dead well before the auto-route limit.

-Max

Re: -InsertName- died retreating into enemy territ
 

Thanks for your help Max, I had never given Rigor Mortis a second glance.