Well, they can't retreat if they do not have an owned system that is connected as a way out, but I think retreat needs more of a nerf or possibly a rebalance.

I am getting fleet retreating a lot in my game too.



DarkMeph

Uncle_Joe wrote:
The retreating issue seems to have been cleared up with the latest patch.



Thank you!



I think it will still be a problem in MP games where people just retreat and move back with impunity but at least vs the AI it's not happening anymore.

What are you talking about. I have a game i started yesterday with the newest version and the AI still keeps spamming retreat.

It's made worse by the fact that the ai just keeps spamming really weak fleets, but i can't do anything against those, because i can just attack 1 time per turn. And the damned ai keeps retreating everytime. Arrrrrrgh!

The retreating issue seems to have been cleared up with the latest patch.



Thank you!



I think it will still be a problem in MP games where people just retreat and move back with impunity but at least vs the AI it's not happening anymore.

lnxnet wrote:
Hi,

But, I noticed the following behaviour:

- Saved the game

- Reload latest save

- Enemy fleets started to engage mine and they were not fleeing all the time



Anyone as seen this ?

Yes - have seen this as well. After loading those fleets suddenly decided to fight instead fleeing - and they got all mobbed up. Very strange...

I second using Long Range Kinetics.

ShuShu62 wrote:
I thought the solution was just to slaughter all the retreating ships with LR kinetic glass cannons. In my experience, the slaughtered ships don't return.

While that may or may not be a 'solution', I think that's just indicative of an additional problem.



But yeah, I haven't been able to play ES since I posted this originally. I reloaded my game last week and after 2 turns of retreat 'battle' after retreat 'battle' I just quit out. I can't imagine how anyone could find that situation acceptable.



An 'anti-retreat card' is fine but then it's just straight-jacketing you into needing to pick that card over and over again. I still prefer not counting a first-card retreat as a 'battle' and the attacking fleet is free to continue to attack. That doesn't completely remove the problem either but it would certainly make things more decisive.

I thought the solution was just to slaughter all the retreating ships with LR kinetic glass cannons. In my experience, the slaughtered ships don't return.

Ail wrote:
Well, I was one of the people who played the build before it went live.

Couple that with the circumstance that I also am the one who made the No-Retreat-Mod you mentioned and you pretty much get the idea...



I think I'll make a different mod, that might also become a suggestion to be included in the live-game:



Instead of removing retreat (which heavily weakens the Sheredyn-Racial) I think a better Idea would be to make it counterable.

Ideally by a seperate card that does nothing else so you won't counter it with a normal combat-action.

I'm having the same problem as the OP and this suggestion about a card that can counter retreat is from my seat a good idea.



After having about 25 turns of constant retreat combats sent a complaint on the forums, I also found when re-loading the game suddenly the enemy fleets grew some balls and starting attacking like a cornered animal. Instead of the usual stalemates or retreats they started winning battles and heavily at that. 25 turns and I lost 3 ships in one fleet during that time due to the retreat or passive nature of the enemy, re-load the game and I lose 8 ships from the same fleet and 6 from another in the first two engagements. It's not like they've refit to counter my ships, it's the same fleets as before but different personality.



I can liken the above characteristic with that of Master of Orion 2 gameplay which was hilarious when saved. If you saved a game and then fought the AI not knowing if you'd win, then reload the game after the combat and try the same again, the entire enemy fleet has been refit in that instant and counters yours because the AI memory seemed to adjust to the previous fight even though it was re-loaded.

Monthar wrote:
The problem with the AI retreating so much is it can move that same fleet right back to where it retreated from immediately if it has enough moves left. I think a good solution would be to make the retreat cards use up all but 1 movement point. That way the retreating fleet only gets to move just enough to be out of the system they retreated from, but not enough to even reach the next system. Yes, they can send it right back the next turn if it has enough movement points to finish reaching the nearest system and make it all the way back. However, this means if you can kill or force all the AI's fleets to retreat from a system, you can at least then move your fleets out of the system, or colonize the planet you have been trying to colonize there.

Yeah, that would be a good solution.

What the AI really needs is memory. It needs to have some kind of storage for what it knows of the enemies potential combat capability instead of just what it can see (which is usually nothing).

thuvian wrote:
I'm guessing Ail just set the probability of the AI taking the retreat option to 0%, but that doesn't address why it does it in the first place.

Nope, I removed the retreat-card entirely for both the player and the AI. Would've been kinda unfair to only restrict the AI.



In my opinion the problem is the "resending" after the retreat, not the retreat itself.



This was fixed for Invasion-ships because I reported that explicitely. I'm not even sure if "fixing" it for the other ships aswell would be so good afterall. But I think we had this discussion earlier in this thread already.

So my previous post described when the AI decides to retreat. This post describes the mechanics I found that describes when it attacks.



Registry.xml



#attack a star system



1.5



0.8

!-- Based on EnnemyPower, the attack can ask until "1.2 * EnnemyPower" as reinforcement. -->

1.2







0.7



2







100



1.5



0.8





What needs to be decided if the AI is too brave and then retreats when it sees it is outnumbered. In which case we need to make it bring more units to the fight -or- if the AI is a chicken, in which case we need to make it less likely to retreat.

The problem with the AI retreating so much is it can move that same fleet right back to where it retreated from immediately if it has enough moves left. I think a good solution would be to make the retreat cards use up all but 1 movement point. That way the retreating fleet only gets to move just enough to be out of the system they retreated from, but not enough to even reach the next system. Yes, they can send it right back the next turn if it has enough movement points to finish reaching the nearest system and make it all the way back. However, this means if you can kill or force all the AI's fleets to retreat from a system, you can at least then move your fleets out of the system, or colonize the planet you have been trying to colonize there.

So, well...it's nice that the AI's can retreat now but don't you think it's just a weeeeee bit too damned easy to constantly do?



I mean I have AI fleets CONSTANTLY moving to my systems and I can never engage them...they just retreat. Now that's not really a problem per se for the fiction, but the result is that I have to resolve pointless battle after pointless battle EVERY FREAKING TURN. They move half a dozen fleets to my world, retreat them all, move them back and rinse/repeat every turn.



Why are they bothering to move there if they are just going to retreat? Are they gaining something from it? Nothing that I can see...just causing pointless micromanagement/hassle.



I hate to ask questions like this but honestly do people actually PLAY these builds before they go live? Do they not see it and think that it might be a problem?



Is it the end of the world? No. But why add in Waypoints to reduce micromanagement and then allow/encourage the AI to constantly move and retreat causing 10x the annoying micro?



I see that there is a mod that removes the retreat ability but my concern there is that the AI will just be sending those fleets to their deaths since they can't retreat. And that in turn means that the AIs will likely be considerably weaker. But I fear that soon it will become a choice between using that mod and not playing out of sheer frustration of having to generate 6+ battles of AI retreating nearly EVERY TURN.



As a suggestion/possible solution, retreating should be more difficult (ie, more cost) BUT the AIs need to stop the constant moving into systems where they are totally outgunned first.

Would be nice to have a Warp Interdictor module, trade some space for the ability block retreat

Hey look, someone with some free time who can look at the AI retreat code.

So, some of of this is a guess, but we'll see what we can do.





From Personality.xml



[CODE]



1



1



1



1



1



1



1





1

1

1

1





1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

[/CODE]



From Registry.xml. Each personality (i.e., race for the most part) modifies (or completely replaces) what comes from AIPersonality.

[CODE]



3

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1



1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

[/CODE]





Positive Values make it more likely, Negative Values make it less likely. For some properties is probably multiplies the actual fleet values times the weighting. So if you have 50 BattlePower of Missiles and the AI has opponentWeaponMissile = 1, then 1 * 50 = .50 (maybe? It may not linearly scale). If it were just a boolean operation (TRUE or FALSE), then there are thresholds somewhere (hardcoded?).



The code from AIParametersBattleCard_Xp1_locales.xml. There is a similar block in AIParametersBattleCard_locales.xml, but I believe that is for the base game and not Disharmony.



BattleTechAction0 is Retreat.

[CODE]

















[/CODE]



So let's take a stab at understanding this.



1. Health

Your fleets health is weighted by 1.5, your opponent's by -3. Our fleet with health 2 (* 1.5 = 3) would equal out against our opponents fleet with health 1 (* -3 = -3). If our fleets are the same size (1 * 1.5 = 1.5) and (1 * -3=-3), we would tend to run away. So the AI is a bit of a chicken.



However, the comments suggest that myHealth doesn't measure Fleet Health, but the amount of damage done thus far in combat, or perhaps the proportion of health remaining? So if you fleet is at half life you want to flee, unless your opponent is at 25% life. This proportion would make more sense.



2. Military Power

Same as Health. The AI is a bit of a chicken.



3. Fleet Size

If the AI has a smaller fleet (in CP) it will tend to run away. It should probably have a BiggerFleet value as well.



4. Stand Ground

DeathBeforeDishonour and ProtectingMySystem both make it less likely to run away. It depends on how the CP multiplication works to see how powerful this is. If you have a fleet with a CP value of 10,000,000,000 and it is straight up multiplication, then these parameters won't matter.



5. opponentWeaponShortRange

If our opponent has lots short range weapons, we stand our ground. This is a good plan, except that evasion disorientation makes this suicide. If combat worked how we think it should, then we should keep this value, but only when we are at long range. At medium range, we want to consider retreating. At short range, retreating is a bit too late.



So what does it mean?

Well, I believe that retreating may not be something that can be represented with a limited probability system like this. For example, if my fleet has lots of long range weapons and my opponent's fleet has lots of short range, I want to fire in the long range phase and then retreat. I don't see how we'll be able to accomplish this using this system.Perhaps getting a property for the current range phase would help.

Has anyone looked at the code to see why the AI is engaging is such spastic behavior? There much be some reason that the AI moves the fleet in. I can guess that once it gets there it does a fleet versus fleet combat strength comparison and then retreats (although that should be confirmed to). I'm guessing Ail just set the probability of the AI taking the retreat option to 0%, but that doesn't address why it does it in the first place.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Therefore effectively stalling any counter-assault. That's no winning strategy, for sure, but no loosing strategy, either.

To destroy such fleets, there's basically two possibilities:

- Build counterfleets with about the same MP which are still sure to win.

or

- use beams or kinetics in guillotine or nosebreaker mode to slowly kill ship by ship before the enemy can retreat. Slow but doable.



And although I do agree that this is somehow bugging, I neither regard retreat as buggy nor as ill-modeled by the AI when to retreat.

No, it's not a good stalling tactic at all. I can just as easily jump to THEIR system and then turn on 'blockade' and then fight the same 6+ pointless battles over there too. It's not stalling me from attack, it's not putting pressure on, it's just wasting REAL time executing multiple pointless battles every turn. And in many cases the odds are close enough that you can't just ignore picking tactics cards (because if it stays, you'll take unnecessary losses for no reason other than convenience). So you're forced to pick multiple tactic (even just clicking the same one each time) and then wait for the two (short) timers repeatedly.



This turns what should be 30s turns many times into 1:30 turns...effectively greatly increasing the game's 'downtime' for no reason.



Again, the AI (no another player should they choose to be this annoying) is gaining nothing from doing this. It's just inflicting micromanagement on the player.



And this is possible simply because the retreat mechanism is too easy and there are no options to ambush an enemy or whatnot. At the VERY least, retreating fleets should have to spend a turn or two 'reorganizing' or somesuch so they can't just keep coming back turn after turn after turn.

Nos actually is right.

Keeping your fleets in your system with weaker fleets prevents you from attacking them.



It's much like in chess, where when you can attack a weak pawn of your opponent he is forced to defend it with a more valuable piece than the attacker uses to threaten it.

This often allows to shut down a rook with a Knight or a Bishop.