Battles end too soon

[Cendar]

So, I got into an almost dead-even match, playing as the Confederates in 1861, with Price's Missouri Home Guard against the Union Army of the West at Carrollton, which played out on the Pea Ridge map. The battle started at 20:00 hours on Day 1, with the Confederates on the south entry point. (As a side note, despite the Union being the only army in motion, they controlled Pratt Store already, with my army apparently expected to attack uphill towards the town.) Not wanting to engage on that ground, I spend that evening and the morning of the first day maneuvering my army to sit prettily on top of Big Mountain. The Union advanced to take the other two victory point locations on Sugar Creek, while I sent some skirmishers into the town to take Pratt's Store back.

Here's where the problem comes in. The Union came back and took Pratt Store by a little after noon on day 2. I was expecting (and should have soon been receiving) reinforcements from the south, another 7k or so men, that were already moving towards Price's position prior to the battle. So I had no incentive to move off Pea Ridge yet, as I was sitting nicely on the Union line of retreat, despite the Union being in current control of all the objectives. (As another side note, why in the world would a map of Pea Ridge not have Big Mountain, Little Mountain, and Elkhorn Tavern as objectives??)

At that point, despite having lost very few casualties (A cavalry brigade had been broken charging the Union artillery to delay its deployment, and some skirmishers killed before they withdrew), and despite having inflicted at least some decent damage on the Union (skirmishers were actually pretty effective before withdrawing), the game decided that I had suffered a Major Defeat and ended the battle.

EDIT: Casualty report - Lyon's Army of the West lost 75 infantry and 5 guns, totaling an estimated 150 men lost. Price lost 52 cavalry, and sundry others, for a total of 58 casualties. Yet this was considered a major defeat.

Not sure whether it's a case of making sure to lower the morale cost of having objectives taken or adding more objectives to maps to make sure this doesn't happen, but something about that needs to change.

[camping_with_muppets]

I agree with you that there should be a decision to end the battle or press the attack and break the enemy army.

[Zipuli]

Objectives themselves have quite little effect. Where did you fight the battle (was it initiated in Arkansas or Missouri)? MSG has low morale outside Missouri which could be the cause of them deciding that they are no longer willing to fight - which forces the battle to end. This needs some rebalancing, sure, but if support in the home state of the troops is low, they will have low morale in battles - except in their home state.

[Cendar]

It was just inside the Missouri border - I hadn't moved them from their starting position. I was moving the Army of the West up to join them there, intending to push towards Springfield.

The problem I think I have here is that I'd only had three units engaged at all - one cavalry brigade and two skirmisher detachments. The rest should not have broken from that, no matter the reason. Even early in the war, units on excellent ground, with at least even numbers, and who had not been engaged, did not break and retreat all the way from Missouri to Little Rock. Even if morale was low, I would imagine the retreat would be after they were ordered to attack (if they decided they didn't want to attack and deserted) but not from sitting in place.

[vcczar]

Chancellorsville always ends early for me. As the Union, I just bull rush the spawn point and win really quickly--major victory!

[G Willikers]

Originally posted by Zipuli:

Objectives themselves have quite little effect. Where did you fight the battle (was it initiated in Arkansas or Missouri)? MSG has low morale outside Missouri which could be the cause of them deciding that they are no longer willing to fight - which forces the battle to end. This needs some rebalancing, sure, but if support in the home state of the troops is low, they will have low morale in battles - except in their home state.

I think a big part of the issue is that the AI has the option to just decide they don't want to fight anymore, regardless of the battlefield situation, which then causes the battle to just straight up end. It'd be a much better result if they have to successfully withdraw from the field by pulling back to the deployment zone or survive until nightfall when they decide this so that cutting off lines of retreat actually has an in game impact.

This should also be true for the player. We should have to extricate our forces in a defeat instead of just hitting a button and everyone's fine. It would put an actual purpose to holding a reserve, identifying important locations and maintaining a secure road to the deployment/reinforcement zone.

That and honestly just get rid of victory points in campaign battles. It creates an artificial importance for those areas and provides an unrealistic means of tracking enemy movements. The ultimate goal is the enemy army, if holding a specific hill or crossroads is vital to that objective then that should suggest itself through gameplay, not an arbitrary marker.

[Artoast]

I definitely agree that the battles end too soon. I can be right in the middle of a full on slog between two lines of infantry and the battle will simply end. I think it should be more like the total war system, where you win either when every enemy unit is routed/broken or the army is withdrawn from the field, either by manually retreating or overnight withdrawal. The AI simply uses the retreat button to escape further damage when they're losing, which usually has the effect of the battle jarringly ending mid-combat.

The same should be true for the player also. A few units routing shouldn't mean that the battle is lost, the game shouldn't make the decision to withdraw for you. You fight to the last man, manually withdraw your forces from the map, or hold 'til nightfall.

[G Willikers]

Originally posted by Artoast:

I definitely agree that the battles end too soon. I can be right in the middle of a full on slog between two lines of infantry and the battle will simply end. I think it should be more like the total war system, where you win either when every enemy unit is routed/broken or the army is withdrawn from the field, either by manually retreating or overnight withdrawal. The AI simply uses the retreat button to escape further damage when they're losing, which usually has the effect of the battle jarringly ending mid-combat.

The same should be true for the player also. A few units routing shouldn't mean that the battle is lost, the game shouldn't make the decision to withdraw for you. You fight to the last man, manually withdraw your forces from the map, or hold 'til nightfall.

Absolutely. Make coherent lines of retreat and unit positioning matter