Campaign question

[Yaro97]

What causes a 'unit destruction' in the strategic map?
I had thought it was if there were no CVs left (but some groups dont come with CVs..) or if there was total destruction (but I lost one without taking heavy losses)

The situation:
I had made an overextending attack on the RU v JP campaign (VDV and Marines vs. lower airport, AI spammed the hell out of everything it had, Tanks + Helis + arty. Couldnt even call in planes because they had Hawks.) I decided to retreat and have the Minsk swing around so I can have naval support. I lost ~500 points before retreating, pretty devastating but nowhere near the 4K needed. The units retreat to a friendly tile, and I end the turn (no points to call in reinforcements) The AI then moves their AG jets and a single other unit into the tile and my units self destruct. No combat at all even though I had a good chance against the attackers.

They had decen morale during the fight (~8/sec with +1 from map iirc) and lost 2 morale from retreating. Does being attacked again add some morale penalty to cause them to be destroyed?
(found 'wtf' screenshot, morale was at 7 after retreating)

[antimike1976]

If I understand your problem and if I remember correctly, battlegroups that Rout or Retreat will be destroyed if they are attacked before they finish Routing/Retreating AND do not have covering forces.

If you had Retreated your forces to a zone and then placed another of your battlegroups in the zone to cover them, you'd have had to fight it out with that cover force. The Retreating forces wouldn't be used in the battle and would be Destroyed if you lost the Covering battle. The force you use for Cover must have Command Units or you'll lose the battle since the Retreating/Routing Command units won't be available.

If you Retreat a battlegroup, be prepared to have it stuck in the retreat zone for at least a Turn and be prepared to defend it.

When you Rout the AI in the campaign do you ever overrun them with a battlegroup that doesn't fight and the AI battlegroups are destroyed?

Morale doesn't affect battles in the Strategic Layer, just the tactical.

I hope that helps clear it up. If I'm wrong, please let me know -- I don't want to send you faulty advice.

[antimike1976]

Sorry I didn't answer your initial question in my first post.

"What causes a 'unit destruction' in the strategic map?"

From what I can tell there are a few ways to cause unit destruction on the strategic map.

1) Overrunning Routing/Retreating battlegroups. This happens when a battlegroup moves into a zone occupied solely by enemy retreating/routing battlegroups.

2) Cutting off routes of Retreat and winning a tactical Total Victory. If, before a battle, you encircle the enemy battlegroup (change all the ingress/egress arrows on the strategic zone to your force's control) OR if you wrest control of all deployment zones from the AI on the tactical map and then force them to Surrender/Retreat or earn a tactical Total Victory, the AI battlegroups will die. I've seen AI battlegroups retreat and live on maps where they don't control a deployment zone and I didn't control all deployment zones. I figure in that case that they just move a command unit to an uncontested deployment zone and bug out.

This is also the way to deal with those rat bastard AI battlegroups with no command units that always bail from combat. Cut off the routes of retreat and they're dead.

3) Damaging the Battlegroup enough that it dies after a tactical battle. I don't know the calculations involved here, so this is speculation. Obviously, if you destroy every unit in a battlegroup during a tactical battle, the battlegroup will die. In other cases you can beat the hell out of a battlegroup and it may die. I've seen battlegroups with nothing but supply trucks survive.

1 and 2 are the surefire ways to deplete the AI fast during the campaigns.

Again, let me know if that doesn't sound right to you!

[Yaro97]

Thanks for the clarification! Not knowing what caused that loss was pretty annoying, now that I know I can hopefully find a way to prevent such a mistake. I had beaten the campaign before but the workings and management are pretty vague.

[antimike1976]

No problem :)

I've never hunted for the game's official manual, so I don't know if there's explanations of the Strategic Layer. I've come to understand a lot of it from playing a bunch of the campaigns (I love 'em!).

It helps to know about Cohesion, Initiative, and Morale. I wrote up some stuff on those for someone that was having trouble with one of the campaigns (I only have a few other postings, hah).

Basically, Cohesion determines how much requisition (money) you'll get during a tactical battle. Initiative is how far/often a battlegroup can move/act in a turn. Morale determines how much damage the battlegroup can take before changing the outcome of a battle (low morale fights bottom out at 500 points for a Loss/Win).

Good hunting!