Hi all,

I understand that for a attacker can send in more then 8 units into a area.

My question is when the attacker wins the battle and remaining units are more then 8, the excess units would have to retreat, so are these units routed ? Coz in the rule book its states all retreating units are routed.

I m just asking this coz in this case the victorious player is retreating because he has overstack his attacking units. I tend to think that the excess victorious should be in the routed status.

This makes sense as it would be a strategic decision when a attacking player commits too many units into an area and when he wins some of his unit would become vulnerable to he next player coz they would be lying in a routed status.

This is great game I am looking forward to my next session

Any opinion on this ?

Yes, all excess units must retreat, and, as you say, thus must be routed. It's a balancing mechanism to being allowed to overstack - the extra units can come in and fight, but won't be around to fight again. This is partly because they will retreat to an area that is likely not activated, and if they didn't rout, they would be able to move again that year with no restriction.

So yes, they rout. Be careful, because that may make them easy targets. (The attacking units that did NOT retreat are not routed, of course).

I don't recall seeing a rule that allows units in combat to retreat when they exceed the 8 unit limit. where are you seeing this?

z22 said:

Not units in combat; the OP's question was about after combat, if the attacker overstacked and still had more than 8 units in the hex when all was said and done.

Found it. It's on page 18 under movement restrictions:

"The only time a player can exceed this number is when he is starting
a battle in an enemy or neutral area, in which case he may bring any
number of units into the battle. If he wins the battle, any excess
units must retreat to a single area (see “Retreats” on page 22)."

Good question, I would have missed this.

Ok, retreat is a pretty clear. But what happens, if extra retrating units have two possibilities to retreat - one friendly area with 8 units and an empty area without units. Must retreating units retreat to friendly area (and be destroyed) or can retreat to empty area (and be "only" routed but alive)?

That is an interesting question, but I don't see it happening in a game. If it does, it's a result of very very poor planning. I don't think the intent is to keep you from retreating to an area you just mobilized out of, but that is how the rules read. You should submit that.

That's a good question. By the book, I would say you have to retreat to the already-full friendly area, and kill off units. The rules say you MUST retreat to a friendly area, and only have the option of retreating to an empty area if there are no friendly areas to retreat to.

The rules then say "after retreating, if the number of units in area exceeds eight, then the owner must destroy units..." IE, it doesn't sound like overstacking an area during a retreat is valid cause for not retreating there.

This could possibly be posed to Corey, though; perhaps it wasn't intended to be forced to retreat to areas that you'd be forced to overstack. But then again, that could just be part of the tactical planning of the game - always leave a valid area to retreat to if you must.

I think in that example, you just couldn't retreat to the 8 unit friendly area (you aren't allowed to overstack unless attacking) so you would have to retreat to the empty area. However, you can reach the same dilemma with a 7 unit friendly area and an empty area.

broken said:

Normally, I'd agree, but then the rule at the bottom of page 22 about "after retreating, destroy excess units" would be pointless.

I think it's a good question for Corey.

I think you're right about that, actually. But again, this wouldn't ever happen unless you planned very very poorly.

sigmazero13 said:

Thanks for the clarification.

sigmazero13 said:

i would really like to know the answer to this

For what it's worth, I got an answer from Corey. His response was that you have to retreat to a Friendly area if possible, even if it would cause you to overstack. If you overstack, excess units must be destroyed.

IE, the only way you can choose to go to an empty area instead is if there are NO friendly areas next to the battle area. A full friendly area would still be "retreatable to", even though you'd end up having to kill units.

As said in this thread, though, such would result in some pretty poor offensive planning.