Panicked units & their routing direction?

[Palantir]

Just how "critical" is it that your units rout in an "orderly" fashion?

Is it required that you know exactly what direction panicked units will retreat and that they DO so?

Most scenarios have one "friendly" map edge per-side, meaning that panicked units will flow that direction. Throw in two friendly edges per-side (equaling advancing off map friendly formations) and it's a whole new ball game for terrified units. Meaning, who knows what they will do or where they will go- just as in real life.

CM is notorious for making bad decisions concerning routing units: why run to that house 15 meters away to the west when they can flee 70 meters south over open terrain back towards a friendly map edge.

[KG_Jag]

You make a valid point. I don't have anythng hard to support the following point, but I believe that the problem was even more pronounced in CMBO than in the two latter versions of CM.

[KG_Cloghaun]

I've never noticed any rhyme or reason as to which direction a routed unit takes. I would say they will most of the time flee to the rear area of their previous advance, but they usually have no regard for their own safety & will run across an open area & expose themselves to enemy fire. I suppose that's part of the whole point of being in a "routed" state of mind. A "run for your lives" mentality.

I wonder if the experience level of a unit influences the decisions a routed unit would make?

[Palantir]

Seems a slight A.I. function can create chaos in a game.

Apparently when a QB imports a designed map it automatically creates 1 friendly map edge per side (E/W) no matter what the designer desginated for it. Some tests ran by Doodlebug have confirmed this.

Thus we have units not only routing in chaos but running to rally in directions the designers never intended.

That really limits & screws up some good map designing.