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Hello,
I was wondering how much of the goblins need to be killed when they are ambushing for them all to retreat - half, 3/4 of them, random ?
Also, do caged goblins count as dead goblins to reach the number needed to make them retreat ?
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I'm not sure, but I fight goblins a lot so I may be of some help.
I think that if around half (or just a lot) of them die within a small period of time, they will route, so if they run into a trapped corridor and see the first 10 goblins get mauled, they will probably route.
However, I think that if they die over time (pro-longed combat or sparse traps) they will stay longer, since they see it as just normal casualties.
But these are just estimates based on experience.
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Caged goblins do count as "kills"; I've routed goblins solely by capturing them.
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Not long ago (a week or so) i had my first goblin ambush. Luckily for me (cause my defenses sucked and i'm still highly unskilled when it comes to anything [m]ilitary related) a human caravan took most of them out on the edge of the map. I think less then half goblins remained (2 swordgoblins and 5 or so crossbow goblins) and they decided to sneak closer towards my entrance. Somehow i managed to get atleast one legendary miner drafted and somewhere around my entrance thinking he would get slaughtered, but he managed to take the two sword goblins out while dodging incomming missiles (he himself didn't receive a scratch) after that the crossbow goblins decided to flee (one got catched up though, hihi). Anyways, if i have to conclude anything about that one ambush then its that they seem to "take steps at a time" and depending on the situaton they will route with only minor loses or with heavy loses.
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Also, it seems to be that each unit considers only members of its own unit. A few times I've had multiple-unit attacks where one unit gets chopped up, flees, and then the next unit comes in, etc. until every unit has taken its fill.
Then again, they did tend to be out of line of sight of each other when the killing started. So maybe it has something to do with seeing a certain number of allies die? But that would tend to make huge seiges useless, so something tells me that's not the case.
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From what I can tell, the death of the unit leader plays a huge role in when a goblin squad routs. Most of my ambushes and sieges are driven off when the unit leaders are caged, since they're usually the first ones into the traps.
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Agreed with Schmoe. Usually, if you manage to kill the leader, everyone runs immediately. It's hard to tell who's the leader in ambushes and small parties though.
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The leader in ambushes usually (maybe always) has a different weapon from the rest of the squad and is usually more skilled (often weaponmasters especially later on).
So look for the weaponmaster using a different weapon from everyone around him and aim for him first :p
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I think that each goblin death reduces moral, with the leader having the most points. I remeber having a leader die in a ten weapon trap followed by a capture and another trap kill before they retreated.