Fire and Flee???

[Cohen]

Why this command make units rout after having fired 3 times?

Flee isn't rout ...even if I win the battle I find my long-ranged equipped troops all around.

Isn't supposed they regroup behind the combat line (usually army camp were behind the battle, cause troops can't march too long to deploy without exausting, historically) ... so if I win the battle why they scatter around making me wasting much time to regroup them?

[Norfleet]

This is a complaint that has been mentioned many times, and is considered to be extremely annoying. So most people don't use this command anymore, because of that scattering problem.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Not being a programmer, but I'd like a command like "Fire and Regroup". As in, fire once or twice, and then they'd move to a previously determined grid area. I mean, I don't think it'd be too problematic to pull up the assignment screen and let you click the location for the move, just like it lets you determine who to target.

If this is implementable (which it may not be, I understand), it would add even more strategy to people like Man, who has some exceptionally nasty ranged troops. Imagine them starting at the front, fire once, and then run away to the middle of their starting area, then start firing again. Against Ulm (who, admittedly, have tower shields), it would help by allowing you to fire from a closer range in the beginning, and, being unarmored, you can outrun them, and then keep firing. Especially if you have troops in the wings to come in (with the misnomer Attack Rear command) and tie up the enemies to stop them from closing. otoh, it would also let you fire three times (if defaulted to that), and then let you move _closer_, thus alleviating the friendly fire issue in the heat of the melee, and then let the Longbowmen help clean up after the rout.

Just an idea.

Wyatt

[Gandalf Parker]

I dont agree that no one uses Fire and Flee.
It seems to be meant to emulate the harrassing tactics which make light units useful. An army of light cavalry can keep 3 or 4 larger armys tied up by doing fire-and-flee. An army of slingers can be useful with the tactic even causing the routing of important enemy units such as elephants.

Of course I wouldnt mind a fire and pull-back instead. I have used fire-and-flee to use cheap units to draw the enemy front line into a gauntlet of hvy infantry on hold command. It is irritating to have to gather the flees from another province each time. Having a fire and pull-back would I think better emulate historical field tactics.

Another option Id like would be for "guard commander" units to be more willing to shoot anything in range. Then I could have them guard a forward commander that can be set to do 1-4 actions (hold, attack, hold or cast, hold or fire) and then "stay behind troops". That would create a fire-and-pullback that I could decide 1-4 rounds of firing for.

[Chazar]

...and has Illwinter concluded on this issue meanwhile?

[Mokurai]

My recommendation to the devs would be that Fire and Flee works as it does now, with the ordered units routing from the battlefield.

However, they wait in that state until the battle as a whole is resolved. If the owner of the F&F units wins, the F&F units stay in that province.

Alternately, since the F&F units are at least in theory retiring in good order, perhaps instead of randomly sorting them into neighboring provinces, the whole group should rout to the same province.