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Need advice how to withdraw

J. van Limpt

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Dear fellow-gamers, at the moment I'm playing Highway to the Reich, Red Devils over Arnhem and I'm trying to prevent my KG Krafft from being outflanked and cut off by the British paratroopers advancing at the Arnhem Bridge. I give my units the order to withdraw, but they don't always do so with as result that they are cut off and suffer heavy casualties. How can I make sure my units perform a fighting withdrawl, without being overrun?
 

papymaj5

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Orders delay coupled with the the commander's skills will have a major impact with any order. Withdraw order takes preparation time and is more for planning a large movement away from future contact than falling back under pressure, which the local commander currently does without your input. You can try a movement order to get the unit moving but if the unit is under enough pressure, it will react to that over moving... You have to plan withdraws and delays in advance to get the full use out of it.
 

J. van Limpt

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Orders delay coupled with the the commander's skills will have a major impact with any order. Withdraw order takes preparation time and is more for planning a large movement away from future contact than falling back under pressure, which the local commander currently does without your input. You can try a movement order to get the unit moving but if the unit is under enough pressure, it will react to that over moving... You have to plan withdraws and delays in advance to get the full use out of it.

Okay, that is clear, thank you, but how can I make sure the unit withdraws in the right direction and not to a location where it will be cut off by a quickly advancing enemy? What is a good approach to deal with such a situation?
 

papymaj5

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Okay, that is clear, thank you, but how can I make sure the unit withdraws in the right direction and not to a location where it will be cut off by a quickly advancing enemy? What is a good approach to deal with such a situation?
Situational awareness. If you see an enemy Regt to the west and you are sitting on an objective, you can assume the enemy may attack you from the west. Then your withdrawal should be a towards friendly area or someplace more defendable away from the enemy. Look at the manual for specifics in game, look at waypoints. Like I said before, if the enemy is already applying pressure it is probably already too late for a successful withdrawal.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 

Daz

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The withdrawal and delay order have never worked satisfactorily in my opinion.
I think its the retreat recovery mechanic that is to blame.
Units with withdrawal or delay orders should be able to ignore retreat recovery.

I have found that a work around is to give units under pressure individual orders, (move order in a formation other than road column) to pull them back.
Sometimes the only solution is to leave them with a defend in situ order to do their own thing, then pull back what is left of them after last light.
Supporting them with artillery can help save isolated units, but you have to weigh up if its worth using this valuable resource for that task, or to save it to support other more important attacks or defences at the centre of gravity for your plan.

Like papymaj said, giving the order as soon as you see a sizable force, in sectors where you intend to allow units to give ground, will help, depending on the length of the orders delay and the amount of firepower the enemy can bring to bear.
Once your units start to go into retreat recovery, they will become pinned and there is very little you can do about it.

Something I always try to do is defend in depth (have other units behind, where the pressured unit can retreat to safely) and have covered terrain to the rear. This can give them time to recover from the retreat recovery mechanic before getting overrun.
A heavy stomp of artillery on the advancing enemy at this point, can also put the enemy attack into retreat recovery, giving your units even more time to recover from their retreat recovery, for their withdrawal, in return.
 

Bie

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I've only ever used it a handful of times. And of all my attempts it only succeeded once.

The orders delay is a big factor here. By the time I decide to withdraw it was most of the time to late. As with just about everything in this game: you have to be the one with the initiative, even in withdrawing.

My guess the withdrawing order is only usefull when your line is holding, but in danger of collapsing in the future. Or in case you are fighting in a disadvantageous situation and want to get out of it without showing your backside.
 

Kurt

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I have tried it a few times ( delay also ) and find it works partially as long as your not being " steamrollered " by a much more powerful attacker .
 

J. van Limpt

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Thank you all. My experience in the last couple of days with mentioned scenario is that withdrawing is tricky at best. Not only it happens usually too late, but also in a direction which makes little sense and increases the danger of being cut off. Withdrawing before being attacked doesn't seem to be a good solution, because you also want to delay the enemy advance. I also blame orders delay. Perhaps I should turn that off, although that is hardly realistic. Worth a try in this scenario.
 

Kurt

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Did you create waypoints for the withdraw order or just a destination ? I find it helps to tell the AI which route to withdraw through with several waypoints . Remember that withdrawing from contact or delaying an enemy attacker is a difficult and complex skill in real life . Timing is everything , and calm , methodical execution . Withdrawing from an enemy is retreating in an orderly fashion , retreats can quickly become routs if control is lost or the enemy is unstoppable . The Germans became experts at the delay tactic .
 

Daz

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I think one of the first things is to check you have read and understood how to use the Delay, and Withdraw order, as per the manual instructions.
I have included the relevant sections below.
CO2 Delay_Withdraw Extracta.jpg
 

Kaunitz

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I think that retreat recovery is the main culprit here. Units in retreat recovery stay stationary until they have recovered cohesion (up to a certain level; I have not seen any consistency here). When they're under fire, however, they cannot reliably recover cohesion which means that they will be stuck in stationary retreat recovery and not follow any orders.

If the enemy is approaching one of your units that is in retreat recovery, his fire will usually be effective enough to inflict casualties, thereby forcing your unit to conduct an actual retreat-move. If the enemy stays at some distance, however, his fire is not that strong and is less likely to cause casualties and actual retreat-movements. Instead, it will just drain your unit's cohesion, which, in turn, prevents your unit from recovering cohesion and getting out of its "retreat recovery"-status. Thus, your unit is locked in place. It cannot follow orders as it is in retreat-recovery, and it cannot get out of retreat-recovery (reach the required cohesion threshold), because it is being shot at.

I think that a retreat order that makes a unit ignore it's reteat-recovery would be an interesting thing. It could come at the cost of increased fatigue and immense loss of cohesion (and perhaps also some desertation?)
 
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Daz

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If I remember correctly, the retreat recovery mechanic was put in place to slow the pace of the game, several years ago, specifically for attacking units.
I assume this was to simulate the attack coming under intense fire from defending units, causing them to either pull back a short distance to take care of wounded, allow space for supporting bombardments and rally the men for the next push.
They were also able to retreat in place, to simulate that the cover they were currently in was better than what they had to the rear. I guess this is the same effect as becoming pinned down.

Because there was no exclusions put in place for units with withdraw and delay orders, it had the detrimental effect of making the withdraw and delay order next to useless.
It makes sense to me, that units that have been given prior orders to withdraw via a specific route (after an orders delay), would do so without long pauses for recovering from forced retreats, the reason being that its in their best interest to get away, and they have been given permission to do so, as well as the fact that the planning for said move, has already been done.

I guess there still needs to be a mechanic to allow units with withdraw and delay orders to become pinned in place, until they route, but they need to be able to recover from it far quicker than when attacking, because its in their own self interest to do so.
Faster units like Mech and Armour still need to be able to overrun slower infantry units though, so maybe units attacked by them should have a higher chance of becoming pinned in place.

Units with just defend orders would have to go through the orders delay process before they would be able to withdraw, but units with delay orders should be able to begin a withdraw, without an orders delay, after the initial order delay got through and I would love to see a manual override button to allow the player to decide when this is to take place.
 

Werewolf13

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A number of posters have mentioned that the retreat/recovery mechanic is what is creating an unsuccessful withdrawal. I'm going to have to disagree.

I'm not positive about how that mechanic works but will assume that by the time it kicks in it's too late to perform a successful delay or withdrawal action. CO2 is nothing if not a simulation of Command. And IMO it does that well.

Unfortunately most gamers don't. Historically (and this is true for almost all of human history not just contemporary times) it is rare for units in battle to fight very well after suffering 30% or more casualties. 50% is devastating. Of course there are and have been notable exceptions to that. The Iron Brigade stands out as one that I can think of. The Spartans, maybe, probably. Napoleon's Old Guard is another. Most small elite units can suffer horrendous level casualties and still function effectively. But regulars and even veteran units not so much and conscript level and militias no way (with the rare exception). Even if a unit commander can retain control of the unit and keep it from routing planning a maneuver as complex as a withdrawal or delay action while your unit is under intense pressure and being destroyed would be difficult if nigh unto impossible. In most cases an organized retreat/withdrawal or delay action is not possible. Bugging out as it was called in Korea or just plain running is about all that's left.

CO2's commander ability, cohesion and retreat/recovery mechanics are a simulation of this.

The real problem re: delay and withdrawal commands is neither the way cohesion and it's impact on how units work nor the retreat/recovery mechanic.

The real problem is that in my experience (and I'm guilty of this too) gamers tend to fight units almost to the death before they pull them out of a fight. In most war games one can get away with that.

CO2 is more simulation than game. And it's a darned good sim that won't let you get away with fighting units to the point just before they fall apart and expect them to be able to perform like they're fresh into the fight. Not gonna HAPPEN.

Want your delays and withdrawals to work then stay in the OODA loop. If your delay order or withdraw order isn't working I suggest that the game AI has broken you out of it and you are suffering the consequence.
 
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Kaunitz

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Cohesion recovery is not a result of players fighting their units to death.

Retreat recovery can be a problem with totally fresh units. I have not done and in-depth testing, but I'm pretty sure that I've seen fresh units suffer one round of casualties (red lamp for one tick), then retreat and be locked stationary in retreat recovery for at least 30min, even if the unit was not suppressed by enemy fire. I think retreat recovery depends on cohesion (which is also drained by moving in anything other than road column), not casualties or morale.

I will have a close eye on retreat recovery in my next games.
 

Kaunitz

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Okay, so low cohesion doesn't really seem to cause retreat recoveries. I just had a unit with 100% cohesion which still remained in retreat-recovery mode.

If we go by the name, retreat recovery always follows a retreat. A "retreat" is a rout status which is triggered when a unit fails a morale check (triggered itself when the enemy puts effective fire on your unit - the check might be modified by the actual volume and effectiveness of the enemy's fire). A unit which fails its morale check goes into "retreat" rout status (in severe cases it might even go into "rout" status). The unit may carry out an actual retreat move (and then go into "retreat recovery" after that) or go into stationary "retreat recovery" straight away. The chance for a stationary retreat recovery (rather than a retreat-movement) depends on existing entrenchments and also the stubborness (static unit stat) of the unit. A unit in retreat recovery does not carry out its movement-tasks and might also have a (slightly) lower chance to carry out a fire-action against visible threats.

I'm not sure anymore if cohesion plays a role in retreat recovery at all -simply because low cohesion is not the cause for retreat recoveries. Maybe it's a fixed amount of time that is modified by the leadership of the unit's commander (the manual is suggesting this on p. 143 top). (maybe also the current morale of the unit, maybe also experience and training?)
 
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