?Panicky Inf on first contact.

Kevin/Guys

I've been playing a few practice MP games with my mate, Tair,  and have noticed that the inf battalions are running away a lot of the time first contact, often prior to taking casualties. They reform a little way back.

These were French of reasonable Moral, although their leadership wasn't brilliant and the battalions were under strength. The Austrians were without artillery or cavalry.

On the worst instance, there was a strong Brigade of 5-6 Scarey Grenadier battns advancing on the 4 battn brigade. Still, I wasn't expecting virtually the whole brigade to fall back so soon, before the firing or any charging took place. There was no enemy to flank and no skirmishers.

We were playing Sandbox, Austria 1809 Summer (not new skirmish oob)

Is there an issue with the mechanics using sandbox in MP?
I don't often play with just a brigade. Does this often happen if you do not TC your battalions individually?
Do you need to set a stance for the Brigade that you control personally?
Were the French battalions, perhaps, able to count the odds and took the sensible course of action ?.
Are understrength battalions particularly jittery when faced with a battalion much bigger than itself?

I'll continue to test out but would appreciate your insight

Mike

There are normally several reasons btns. will fallback without doing much or any fighting. The first and most common is congestion. SOW games have always had the shortcoming of troops all trying to get to the front line at once. If this was to model the Huns attacking Roman legions it would be spot on. The KS mod changed that and forces one or more units to fallback when they overlap with their own troops. This was implemented quite some time ago, years ago in fact.

The second reason is, yes, they can count. If they are facing vastly superior numbers, their moral temporarily drops which causes them to panic and fallback. Stoic fighting against all odds is mostly a Hollywood invention, (and an NSD one too for that matter). This KS feature is also quite old.

The third reason that comes to mind is flanking. If a btn. notices an enemy unit moving or firing on its flank, it will retreat. This is also an old KS feature.

Finally, there is the cascade effect. If during the battle a unit retreats through or very near another unit. That other unit may also fallback. In this way an entire brigade may disintegrate in less than a minute. However, for this to happen, the sympathetic btns. would also first have dodgy morale. Again, this is an old KS feature.

To answer your specific questions:

Is there an issue with the mechanics using sandbox in MP?

Not that I'm aware of.

I don't often play with just a brigade. Does this often happen if you do not TC your battalions individually?

It does happen, but usually under the context that I stated above. Personally, I rarely TC troops. I enjoy watching the chaos of the battlefield. On the other hand, Digby almost always does. It's a matter of personal taste.

Do you need to set a stance for the Brigade that you control personally?

I do, but it only has a very minor effect on the btns. The fact that a player is also the brigade cmdr. has a much larger effect. It negates a substantial part of the AI.

Were the French battalions, perhaps, able to count the odds and took the sensible course of action ?.
Are understrength battalions particularly jittery when faced with a battalion much bigger than itself?

Answered above.

Thanks Kevin
Perhaps it's a combination of the first 2.
There was no congestion but Tair might have ordered his units forward to a congested point.
Maybe there was a domino effect following.
Still, units in other Brigades seemed quite jittery, perhaps, as I was the Divisional Commander, It was because I had their Brigadier TC'd thus causing a morale drop.