There are all kinds of ways--tactical and magical--to prevent enemies from fleeing.  If some or all of these mechanisms are useable, smart commanders can preserve an army in spite of defeat; savvy commanders can wage effective battles of annihilation.  Keep in mind that most ancient battles were rather one-sided: the casualties during the general melee were generally low; it was when one side or the other broke that the real killing began.

Ways to kill fleeing enemies:

• Surrounding them
• Having lots of fast units (light cavalry, light bear cavalry)
• Pushing them against bad terrain (hills, cliffs, swamps)
• Illusion spells
• Confusion spells
• Sending fresh pursuers against exhausted runners

Ways to run away

• Leaving rearguard behind in noble sacrifce for The Cause
• Illusion spells
• Confusion spells
• Cavalry raids on flanks with hit-and-run (especially mounted archers)
• Fast units
• Fresh units not exhausted with long melee with superior opponents
• Having a friendly fortress or guarded camp directly behind you (see "Roman Legion")

Some things that have to be avoided or have heavy penalties.

The ability to flee in turn one of combat (i.e. a superior force has forced battle with an inferior force, the inferior force starts the battle at the edge of the tactical map and simply leaves) this was alos a cheesy way of scouting out lairs and such in MoM. If combat is engaged, both armies should start closer to each other than they are to the means of escape. That way fast units on the non fleeing side can at least over take the slow units from those fleeing and inflict some damage. Or it will force the fleeing side to sacrifice some units to delay the pursuers. Or something.

Well, it is logical to use a fast unit to scout enemy troops, run in and out on 1st or 2nd "turn".  Perhaps a fog of war effect on tactical maps?  That might slow down some of that MoM cheese.  (at the same time, I expect dungeons to be very different from MoM and more like X-com)

@paradoxnt:   yeah, that was annoying.  It makes sense when your defending a castle or something like that, but when it was just open field somewhere it was kinda dumb.  (are you sure you couldn't run when it wasn't a castle or something)

Yeah, it made gameplay sense in AoW to disallow defenders from fleeing, but really sucked from a logic point of view.

Telling ya, the MoM retreating '% chance of instant death for EACH unit that retreats/modified by the speed of each retreating unit versus the fastest enemy unit speed' is the way to go.  Fast to process and makes perfect sense!

Horrible. Dismal. Heretical. Only as an option, if that. The only way I would be even accepting of a 'feature' like that is if it were part of some grander scheme, like multi-day battles and such. Otherwise, yuck.

Multi-day battles should get it's own thread in Elemental Ideas.  I'll give pigeonpigeon first right of refusal.

..........or we could just use the old Master of Magic auto-resolve retreat system where fleeing units have a % chance of being killed while running/modified by each fleeing units speed versus the fastest enemy unit speed. 

We could even throw in a 'how far your units are from enemy units when you pressed the retreat button = % modifier on chances of unit dying while fleeing'.

......please explain why the AI/enemy human players should oblige you one what units you get to salvage and what units you lose???

There is a difference between a retreat and a fighting withdrawl.

Retreat:  Your units attempt to break contact with the enemy and flee to safety/out of range.  Usually you would break rank to increase unit speed (otherwise there is no way you would ever outrun the enemy).  The enemy should have a high chance of running down your slower units during a retreat.

Fighting Withdrawl:  You keep rank but attempt to move away from the enemy force.  Fighting continues, but you are trying to minimize damage to your units until the 'combat timer' runs out or you reach some superior/safe position.

Yeah. That's really the one reason that makes me want a more involved retreat system than a MoM-like one. I want to be able to do things like leave a portion of my army to their deaths in order to delay the enemy enough so that the rest can escape. And if you're totally outmatched in numbers and/or quality it's not like you're going to be able to leave a small group behind to cover everyone else's escape - you'd have to be really choosy about who you want to save. And then there's the tradeoff that you might be able to save more troops by leaving your better ones to die - or you can save your better troops at the cost of losing higher numbers.

Taking Total War as an example.

You're scramming for the border after discovering that the enemy has a few more troops than you thought, and send some junkers out to get in the way.  They go oh shit we're all gonna die and break before engaging because all the modifiers to their morale put them negative without even recieving casualties.

Shouldn't be too hard to do.  The hardest part is designing a system where you can't just run away all the time.  TW has people basically towards the edges of a massive map, and running away is only a problem when you're scramming with infantry against light cavalry.  That doesn't work out very well when you're not defending territories.  They changed it up a little when they abandoned the territory control system, but it's still very easy to retreat.

I honestly have no idea how to do it well.  I'm not even sure it's possible without complicating the hell out of things.  The only ideas I come up with revolve around either a retreat delay or having battles take place at the center of an encompassing battlefield where retreat is at the edges.  The second, less faked one, requires some method of making the persuants faster than the retreating army.  If it were done wrong, you'd be able to exploit the hell out of it with ranged cavalry armies.

You see, the problem is that if they try to make fighting withdrawls/retreats/routs where the guy running away gets to pick which of his units live and die (while the game forces the enemy commander to fully cooperate with whatever the fleeing commander decides) = complicated and lame!

'Sire, the enemy battle mages are making a break for it.  However, the enemy infantry is trying to cover their retreat'.  'Very well, send our cavalry out to flank the infantry and ride down the fleeing mages, they are too slow to escape.  If the enemy infantry is foolish enough to move out of their defensive position in order to cover their mages, unleash arrow and spell barages onto their ranks until they either A die or B dig in again.'...........................

Oh wait!  That's right, the enemy commander has to do your bidding.  So it would go something like this.  'Sire, the enemy battle mages are making a break for it.  However, the enemy infantry is trying to cover their retreat'.  'Well, our opponent has told us that we aren't allowed to run down his mages.  In exchange for letting his precious mages go free, he is overing up all his infantry to appease our thirst for carnage.  The enemy infantry seem quite fine with this trade.  Well, it isn't like we have a choice or anything, so let's go butcher some infantry!'

The MoM methode makes sense, is workable and instant!

No. That would be horrible. I, for one, was referring to how retreats are handled in Total War. I could choose to have my mages retreat and to have my heavy infantry cover their retreat - but the enemy commander could ride his cavalry around my heavy infantry and try to run down my mages before they get away. Doing so may or may not be worthwhile - it might mean more losses for the victor (fewer troops left to fight the heavy infantry) and the cavalry might not even catch the mages.

There is already a thread about multi-day battles hidden somewhere in the depths of the forums. They were discussed months ago - I'd try to find it but it's 4:30 am and I don't have the energy. I suggest someone pull a landisaurus and resurrect it, as the topic seems to have drawn fresh interest.

This is just a minor nitpick but 50% movement points for every 90º turn is way too high. It shouldn't take a whole movement point to about face.