I'm not the only one annoyed by the actual siege and city assault mechanics of EL, as of v 1.1.1 S3, but persisting for quite some time. I've seen the following issues shown through the forum:



1) Retreat exploit: city conquer stalled by retreating a single unit army;

2) Retreat used as a "free" pass for weak armies;

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/5-general/thread/2444-can-we-get-any-feedback-on-whether-this-is-an-exploit

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/5-general/thread/2654-retreat-mechanics-broken-especially-when-combined-with-a-siege



And sieges have their share of issues:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/5-general/thread/2456-wait-a-minute-i-can-t-fight-in-a-siege



The solution I propose is this:



PART I: retreat when out of sieges;



I.1) A retreat cost 1 action point to the retreating army, and it gains: 1/2 of their full movement points, and -3 to their vision for that turn. The unit must select a tile to move to. If the unit have no action points, it can't retreat. At the end of the combat, the unit will try to move automatically to the selected tile, if it survives retreat, by using movement pathfinding alone, and lose all remaining movement points. If it can't reach the tile, or bumps into impassable terrain, it stops there.

The retreat tile must be:

• different than the one it is currently standing;
• must be a tile where the unit can stay until the end of turn;
• It can be an unexplored tile... However the unit will not receive any exploration benefits, since they will have only limited vision for the rest of their turn. So the unit can flee, yes, into Auriga Incognita, and deal with the consequences...
• The army must be able to walk at least 1 tile in the retreat tile direction. If it is blocked from all sides by other armies or natural impassable terrain, it can't retreat.
  
  

I.2) After the retreat the army loses all movement points, even if there are spare movements when they reach their destination.



2) A retreat is roleplayed as a normal combat. If the defending army chooses to retreat:

2.1) The retreating army units have -50% attack, -50% defense, -50% damage. Status "Retreating".



2.2) Both attacking and defending sides may choose which reinforcements will participate into the battle. The retreating side reinforcements will battle normally, with no new bonuses/onuses.

2.3) The main attacking army have a +30% attack, +30% defense pursuit bonuses (extra morale due to be pursuing those cowards).

2.4) If any unit in the retreating army is alive yet by the start of turn 4, they are removed from the combat board and the retreat is successful, and the surviving units from the army may run from combat. The combat may still continue with the reinforcement armies still at the board.





PART II: SIEGES:

II.1: For combat purposes:

• the siege fence tiles are considered all an individual tile: if you attack any of the city fence tiles, you are attacking the whole fence, hence the whole siege.
• Likewise the city tiles are considered all an individual tile: if you attack any of the city tiles, you are attacking the whole city, hence the whole of the armies inside that city.
  
  

II.2: The besieger may choose which armies will participate combat during a city assault. All besieger armies at the city fence will be placed at the board, if space allows it. The placement order will be defined by the reinforcement order.

II.3: The besieged may choose *one* city army to retreat. Every other will participate actively in combat, except the garrison, that will be actively available in combat, and always as the main army. If there is no defending army at the end of combat, the city is taken.



II.4: The fortification bonuses and damage when fortification is lost will apply to all armies within the city tiles, not only the garrison.



II.5: Reinforcements from outside the city fence will be available both for the besieger and the besieged, if the combat board encompasses them, but only after the city and fence armies are placed at the board.

They´re interesting ideas that deserve careful thought. The retreating mechanic absolutely needs working.



IIRC, units stuck on city tiles during a siege already take damage along with the garrison inside, but I may very well be wrong.

I love the fixes for siege combat, treating all city tiles and all siege fence tiles as the same tile for the purposes of engaging in combat. I believe that would fix the exploits and quirks of siege that have been discussed at length.



I don't understand your suggestions for non-siege retreats. "I.1)" introduces rules for retreating as a move on the main map, and "2)" introduces rules for retreating as a combat on the combat map, with reinforcements allowed to join to help protect the retreaters and even having the option to continue the fight. Are these two separate proposals? Or do they work together somehow?



I think the "retreat as special combat" sounds cool. If you try to pick off my settler/scout near my big army with your small army, you have a shot at destroying my unit, while I have a shot at protecting it. You have the advantage, getting to deploy your full army while my troops trickle in as reinforcements, but after six rounds I may have you outnumbered and be able to retaliate.



I like your creative idea of a vision-limited half-move retreat, but it's a bit complicated, and I think a simpler mechanic would work. In particular, I like ChongLi's proposal for a forced one-hex retreat:

/#/endless-legend/forum/5-general/thread/2654-retreat-mechanics-broken-especially-when-combined-with-a-siege

ChongLI wrote:
After having read through all of the suggestions I have a proposal of my own (4 parts):



[LIST=1]

Armies that choose to retreat automatically move one hex in the opposite direction of their attacker if possible, taking no damage while doing so. Otherwise they move to another hex which is not adjacent to an enemy army. If either of these moves is impossible, the retreat fails and the army is destroyed. If the army is not adjacent to any enemy armies (because it is reinforcing another army), it need not move at all in order to successfully retreat.

Armies on the retreat are allowed to go to -1MP. This emergency movement point costs all of the units in the army half their HP, making it an option of last resort.

Armies which choose not to reinforce a battle automatically retreat instead, using the same mechanics as the above rules with the exception that they take no damage and are not destroyed if retreat is impossible. Instead, they are forced to reinforce if they are unable to retreat.

When an army attacks and its opponent retreats it gets its action point back. This allows a single army to pursue a fleeing settler and force it to retreat multiple times. Whether it successfully destroys the settler or not depends on the relative move speeds of the 2 sides and how far apart they were at the beginning of the sequence.

[/LIST]



What does everyone think? From what I can tell, it solves most of the problems of fast-clicking and scouting. Surrounding an army (or city) with weak units is only temporary because all of the units are forced to retreat and move away (breaking the siege). On the other hand, legitimately wanting to retreat from a siege where the enemy mustered up a superior defending force is still possible. Scouting and sending out lone settlers is also possible as long as they are careful about where they move and plan their retreat path ahead of time. This makes the game more strategic by making vision, move speed and terrain features more important.

But Antistone made a good point:

Antistone wrote:
At first it looks like you can force a combat with me as long as you have more movement points remaining; however, moving next to an enemy army costs extra movement points! If you attack me in open terrain, I can spend 1 movement point to fall back a space, but you have to spend two movement points to follow me and attack again, and then I can repeat the process. This means my one-unit army standing in front of your 8-unit army can reduce your movement by half (more or less, depending on terrain) with exactly zero risk of taking damage unless you have at least double my movement speed. I'm guessing that wasn't your intent.

So I would add one more thing: an army that retreats does not impose this extra movement point burden on enemy armies for the rest of the turn. I think that makes perfect intuitive sense and leads to good gameplay.



Also, I would remove one one other part: "Otherwise they move to another hex which is not adjacent to an enemy army. If either of these moves is impossible, the retreat fails and the army is destroyed." The "not adjacent to an enemy army" rule would mean that a single unit "behind" the retreating army would cause the retreating army to take 100% damage, at no risk to the single unit. Basically, it would perpetuate the "exploit" of splitting an army before attacking, except that the one pinning unit would have to move a couple of extra hexes to get into position. I don't think mid-turn army splits should ever be encouraged because it's very fiddly gameplay and unrealistic as flavor. I also don't think that auto-destroy rule is necessary. Even without it, if you have two or more armies surrounding the retreating army, you'll be able to attack it multiple times in a single turn, which will quickly use up all its movement points, pinning it in place and forcing it to lose 50% HP for each subsequent attack.

I just had another thought about retreating. It seems that retreating serves two very different purposes:



1. Allow settlers to go into dangerous lands without the risk of a devastating setback to my empire's development if the settler gets ambushed by wandering monsters or another empire.



2. Allow weaker armies to flee from more powerful armies with the hope of retreating back to friendly cities or larger armies.



Often discussions about how to fix case 2 get interrupted with discussions of how to fix case 1. If settlers are a special case for the design intent of retreating, why not make settlers a special case in the game rules? As just one idea off the top of my head, settlers could have a special power to retreat to the nearest city when attacked. Obviously an instant retreat back to a city would be overpowered if any units could do it, but for just a settler, I don't think there's much to exploit there.

My opinion is that:

1) If you are taking a small army to adventure into hazardous land, you are accepting the fact that you may lose the unit... The current retreat mechanic is silly: a 6 unit cavalry army would cut a settler into pieces... On the other side, if a 2 unit harmonite tries to attack a settler and it retreats, it really should remain unscathed... after all harmonites are so d* slow... That is why roleplaying is proposed.



I think the ideas proposed are complementary. However, there must be a difference in treatment for sieges. First of all, if an army is invading the city, the garrison doesn't have the option to retreat, and it is always the main army: this fixes the exploit where people place a one unit army at the top of the city and ends up making the city invulnerable for being taken over...



The siege mechanic is not well written. My intent is that, since all tiles at the city fence are considered as one, and all the tiles inside the city are considered as one as well, all units should be placed at the board from turn 1. The retreating army must also be placed at the board and be subjected to the 3 turn retreat rules.



Since this would make unit placement very complicated, I think that deployment should allow us to place and remove pieces at the board, instead of the current "switch places" movement that we have currently.

HiroProtag wrote:
Basically, it would perpetuate the "exploit" of splitting an army before attacking, except that the one pinning unit would have to move a couple of extra hexes to get into position. I don't think mid-turn army splits should ever be encouraged because it's very fiddly gameplay and unrealistic as flavor.

I have to disagree a little here. You´re exposing a single unit army; if you´re invading, that usually means that single unit is now within range of any high movement enemy army. And if an enemy army engages the single unit it can retreat of course, but only if it still has action points left. So I don´t see an exploit, not even an "exploit", but a trade off between benefits.



Lorewise, it does make sense for an army to have detachments for several reasons - scouting, ambushing, baiting, keeping a wide reinforcement capability.

abmpicoli wrote:
My opinion is that:

1) If you are taking a small army to adventure into hazardous land, you are accepting the fact that you may lose the unit... The current retreat mechanic is silly: a 6 unit cavalry army would cut a settler into pieces... On the other side, if a 2 unit harmonite tries to attack a settler and it retreats, it really should remain unscathed... after all harmonites are so d* slow... That is why roleplaying is proposed.

completely agreed