Running towards the enemy

[rocketman]

One aspect of the AI that I have a hard time accepting is that routed/panicked/broken units have a tendence to run/sneak towards the enemy, instead of away. It happens far too often. I realise that soldier under stress will do irrational things, but getting closer to the source of danger seems wrong all together. In a recent scenario, I had some units behind a ridge. As they advanced they came under heavy fire and routed/panicked. Instead of going backwards a few meters and hide behind the ridge, they started running in the open towards the enemy. Needless to say, they got slaughtered.

Is this just a flaw in the AI that I have to accept or did soldiers in WWII really behave this way? Is there any way to counter this behavior other than having a HQ nearby?

[bitchen frizzy]

They're running toward the nearest cover. If the nearest cover happens to be in the direction of the enemy, then routed units will run toward the enemy.

Sometimes this results in behavior that makes sense, and sometimes it results in absurdity.

It's a flaw you have to accept.

[rocketman]

So, no consideration is taken to LOS, units will seek coverage rather than getting out of LOS...

[bitchen frizzy]

Actually, units try to do both, but coverage has a higher priority than LOS, and it's coded as "first cover, then LOS".

[JasonC]

In my experience, they are so bad at finding out of LOS positions that they only succeed in doing so by the "random walk" method. Meaning, they move toward cover. If they take fire of any kind while in a worse morale state than pinned, they add a new waypoint and move again. Panicked or higher will crawl, worse than that they run. If they reach an out of LOS position they stop taking fire. They won't stop running until they also have some sort of ground cover, but if they do the lack of fire is what tells them not to move again, not any internal brain.

Sides and map orientation also make a difference. Germans are more likely to run west in CMBB, Russians east. Or toward an "owned" side. When the side ownerships are the reverse of normal, you can get wacky rout routines. Easily the biggest problem, though, is not making short movements to out of LOS positions that are in open ground, because they don't know which open ground is safe.

You can try to handle it by picking routes that have instrinsic cover, not just dead ground. But dead ground without it tends to be a more unexpected route - which usually matters more (at least vs. humans).