Retreat, defeat & capture¶

Not every battle in a 1.13 campaign ends in victory, and not every lost battle ends with a row of tombstones. This page covers everything between "we won" and "new game": how to run away with your skin intact, what a defeat actually costs you, how mercs can be captured instead of killed, how to get them back, and how to rebuild after a disaster. Everything below is verified against the current GitHub source and Ja2_Options.INI.

Retreating from a loaded tactical battle¶

To pull out of a fight you are physically in, move your mercs to the edge of the map and click the exit arrow. The exit dialog lets a single merc or the whole squad traverse to the adjacent sector. Once the last fighting merc leaves a sector that still contains enemies, the game treats it as a retreat.

The consequences (from Strategic Town Loyalty.cpp and Morale.cpp):

Morale: −5 to everyone who fled (the MORALE_RAN_AWAY event), but only if the enemy was actually alerted to you and the odds weren't hopeless. The free pass for being overwhelmed scales with difficulty: the enemy force must be stronger than 3× your remaining strength on Novice, up to more than 6× on Insane, before the game waives the penalty. Personalities matter: aggressive mercs take the hit twice, pacifists are excused, and cowards actually gain +5 for running. A covert merc who is still in disguise takes no morale hit at all — the game assumes it was a reconnaissance mission. See morale for how these events work.
One merc slipping away is fine. The penalty only triggers when the last mercs leave; a single soldier retreating while the rest fight on costs nothing.
Abandoning militia is expensive. If any militia are left behind in the sector, every town takes a loyalty hit of up to 7.5 points (tapering with distance from the sector) — the same base penalty as losing a battle, "no matter how many of them are being abandoned". Don't train militia you aren't willing to back up.
Someone gets blamed. With dynamic opinions enabled, a retreat the enemy noticed makes the team blame the most capable leader present — see merc opinions for the details.
The retreat is recorded permanently in each merc's personnel records ("battles retreated").

Retreating without loading the sector¶

The pre-battle interface¶

When enemies attack a sector you hold (or intercept a travelling squad), the pre-battle box offers three buttons: autoresolve (A), enter sector (E) and retreat (R). Retreat sends every involved group back the way it came and always applies the −5 "ran away" morale event. You cannot retreat when you are ambushed, when creatures/bloodcats/zombies/bandits attack, when you initiated a concealed insertion, or once the battle is already in progress. If militia are present they do not retreat with you — they fight the battle alone in autoresolve.

Retreating inside autoresolve¶

The autoresolve screen has a retreat button that orders everyone out; you can also click an individual merc's portrait to retreat only him. Retreating fighters stop shooting but stay on screen for roughly two more enemy attack cycles — they can still be hit and killed while running. The robot only retreats together with its controller. With ALLOW_MILITIA_STRATEGIC_COMMAND = TRUE (off by default, [Militia Strategic Movement Settings]) your militia can be ordered to retreat too.

An autoresolve retreat costs five minutes of game time, hands the sector to the enemy, applies the morale/loyalty consequences above — and is written into the campaign battle log as a defeat.

What counts as a "defeat": DEFEAT_MODE¶

A battle is lost when no capable player merc is left in the sector — everyone is dead, unconscious or gone (healthy militia keep the battle alive without you). Whether a lost battle is also a defeat is configurable since the GitHub era (a sevenfm addition). From [Tactical Gameplay Settings] in Ja2_Options.INI:

; Determine when the lost battle is considered defeat
; (which results in MORALE_HEARD_BATTLE_LOST and GLOBAL_LOYALTY_BATTLE_LOST penalties,
; also playing MUSIC_TACTICAL_DEATH and writing defeat record in the game log)
DEFEAT_MODE = 0

Mode	A lost battle counts as defeat when…
`0`	always (default)
`1`	the enemy team was alerted to your presence
`2`	at least one retreating merc was not covert
`3`	at least one merc was killed in the battle
`4`	all mercs were killed in the battle

Verified in Tactical/Overhead.cpp, a defeat triggers exactly four things that a "clean" lost battle skips:

a team-wide −2 morale event (MORALE_HEARD_BATTLE_LOST),
a loyalty penalty in every town, 7.5 points at the epicenter and tapering with distance (GLOBAL_LOYALTY_BATTLE_LOST),
the defeat music, and
a defeat entry in the campaign's battle log.

Losing the sector itself is not negotiable — if enemies remain, they take control either way. But with DEFEAT_MODE = 2, for example, a covert team that infiltrates, gets discovered and exfiltrates in disguise records no defeat at all; with mode 1 a stealth squad that was never noticed can slip away penalty-free.

Captured, not killed¶

Sometimes a lost battle ends with your mercs in an enemy prison rather than a grave. This is the vanilla POW sequence — greatly extended in 1.13 with a second prison stage, INI-moddable locations, surrender dialogs and an intel trail.

Not in Ja2_Options.INI

There is no master switch for your mercs being captured. The ; Prisoner system keys in the INI govern capturing enemies (see prisoners of war); the only player-side key is PLAYER_CAN_ASK_TO_SURRENDER (TRUE by default, [Strategic Gameplay Settings]). Prison locations live in Data-1.13\Mod_Settings.ini instead.

How mercs get captured¶

All roads lead to the same routine (EnemyCapturesPlayerSoldier in Strategic/Queen Command.cpp). Verified triggers in the current source:

Losing a tactical battle with 2–3 mercs down but alive. When the battle is lost and between two and three "real" mercs are unconscious rather than dead, enemies remain in the sector and a prison stage is still available, the downed mercs are captured ("Your unconscious team members have been captured!"). In any other losing scenario — one merc down, or four or more — unconscious mercs are simply executed. There is no in-game day restriction on this path in the current source.
Losing in autoresolve. Capture is attempted only from day 4 onward, and only if 2–3 mercs are left alive, all of them at 60% health or below, conscious enemies at least double your numbers, no EPCs, robot or allied civilians are involved, and you haven't already rejected a surrender offer. If someone is still conscious there is a small (2%) chance per check of a surrender prompt; if everyone is unconscious, a 25% chance of automatic capture.
The enemy offers surrender in tactical. A healthy, visible enemy soldier may shout an offer when you field fewer than four mercs in the sector, the enemy outnumbers you at least 3:1, and no militia or creatures are present. Accept the message box and your living mercs are captured.
You offer your own surrender. With PLAYER_CAN_ASK_TO_SURRENDER = TRUE, the talk-to-an-enemy dialog (the same one used for demanding surrender) includes offering your surrender. The enemy refuses if militia are fighting alongside you, if they already offered and you refused, or if no prison capacity is left — "The enemy refuses to take you as prisoners - they prefer you dead!"

Each capture event takes at most three mercs. Anyone left over after a surrender gets a 75% chance to escape to an adjacent sector (above ground only); otherwise "it's a fight to the death". EPCs and the robot are never taken prisoner — they are killed. Mercs in vehicles, on Mini Event adventures or on Rebel Command missions cannot be captured.

Where they go, and what they lose¶

The sequence has three stages, in order (sectors are the Mod_Settings.ini defaults — mods can move all of them):

First capture: the Alma prison ([Alma], INITIAL_POW_SECTOR I13). The vanilla "held in Alma" rescue quest.
Second capture: the Tixa prison ([Tixa], PRISON_SECTOR J9). New in 1.13 (added by shadooow) — vanilla went straight to stage three.
Third capture: interrogation in Meduna ([Meanwhile], INTERROGATE_POW_SECTOR N7). A cutscene plays, and these mercs are held for escape: nobody is coming, so they must free themselves and fight or sneak out of the sector.

A stage is skipped while you control its prison sector — and re-arms if you lose the sector again.

Captured mercs are stripped of all equipment, which is dumped — hidden — at a fixed spot in the same sector, so search the prison area carefully during the rescue. The merc himself is dumped in a cell at roughly half his maximum health (never below 35 HP, ±10 wobble); the lost health counts as instantly-healable injury, any bleeding is stopped, and energy is halved.

Life as a POW¶

The whole team takes a −5 morale hit per captured merc, and your employer reputation suffers — the damage scales with the captive's experience level.
The assignment column shows POW and the location shows ??. Since the GitHub era you can buy the location of an imprisoned merc with intel on the R.I.S. website — see money & economy.
POWs heal very slowly — the code deliberately applies the worst recovery rate "to simulate stress, torture, poor conditions for healing".
Contracts keep ticking and cannot be renewed while a merc is a POW. If the contract runs out — or you fire a captive — the merc is flagged internally as fired as a POW: he never appears on A.I.M. or M.E.R.C. again, and you forfeit his medical deposit. Rescue first, then worry about paperwork.
POWs cannot buy or extend life insurance, but an existing policy stays valid (see hiring & contracts).

The rescue¶

Send another squad to the prison sector — a message tells you your people are held there. Win the battle, then get your merc out of the cell: a POW is freed the moment a walkable path exists from him to the outside, which in practice means opening (or breaching) the cell door. He rejoins a squad immediately; his gear is still wherever the enemy stashed it. Losing a battle in the prison sector ends that rescue quest as failed, so bring enough force. Sector maps and tactics for the default prisons are in the walkthrough: Alma and Tixa.

Losing everyone: is it game over?¶

There is no game-over screen. Verified in the current source: a team wipe drops you back to the strategic map and the campaign keeps running. As long as you have money you can hire a fresh team from the laptop, land them at the airport and carry on — Arulco does not forget your dead, but it does not end the war either.

Last merc killed: insurance policies pay out, medical deposits for the dead are gone, and every AIM merc becomes warier of working for you as your body count approaches the difficulty-dependent death cap — see hiring & contracts and the morale death-spiral notes in morale.
Last merc captured: the campaign continues with your team behind bars. Their contracts keep expiring, so hire rescuers promptly — a merc whose contract ends in a cell is lost for good.
No mercs and no money: nothing formally ends the game; realistically you load a save. On the Iron Man save modes this is the real game-over.

Surviving disasters¶

Retreat early, not late. A retreat costs −5 morale once; every corpse costs −5 team-wide, −15 to buddies, plus gear, salary and reputation. The battle log looks better with a defeat entry than the personnel file does with a death entry.
Don't abandon militia. The loyalty hit equals a lost battle. Either retreat before militia join the fight, or stay and win it.
Exploit the free passes. Retreating against truly overwhelming odds costs no morale, and neither does exfiltrating in disguise. With DEFEAT_MODE = 1 or 2, a scouting mission that goes bad can end without any strategic penalty at all.
Two downed mercs beat one. Grimly: a lone merc who goes down at the end of a lost battle is executed; two or three get captured and can be rescued. Never send a single merc where the whole plan fails if he falls.
Insure before, not after. POWs can't sign policies, corpses even less so.
Keep an emergency fund. A wiped or captured A-team is recoverable if you can afford a B-team; see money & economy.
Rescue fast. Buy intel on the prison location if you must, and get there before contracts expire. Do not fire a POW to save salary — you lose the merc forever and the medical deposit with him.

Sources¶

Ja2_Options.INI — current GitHub gamedir: DEFEAT_MODE block in [Tactical Gameplay Settings], ; Prisoner system block (incl. PLAYER_CAN_ASK_TO_SURRENDER), [Militia Strategic Movement Settings].
Mod_Settings.ini — current GitHub gamedir: INITIAL_POW_*, PRISON_* and INTERROGATE_POW_* sector/cell/item positions.
Current source at github.com/1dot13/source, verified against master: Tactical/Overhead.cpp (defeat determination, capture on lost battle, surrender capture, POW freeing), Strategic/Queen Command.cpp (EnemyCapturesPlayerSoldier, capture sequence and stages), Strategic/Auto Resolve.cpp (retreat, surrender and capture in autoresolve), Strategic/Strategic Town Loyalty.cpp and Tactical/Morale.cpp (retreat/defeat morale and loyalty values), Strategic/PreBattle Interface.cpp and Strategic/strategicmap.cpp (retreat buttons, traversal retreat), Strategic/Quests.cpp (POW quest states), Strategic/Merc Contract.cpp and Laptop/insurance Contract.cpp (fired-as-POW, insurance rules), Strategic/Assignments.cpp and Strategic/mapscreen.cpp (POW assignment, intel location reveal, no game-over on empty team), TacticalAI/DecideAction.cpp (enemy surrender offers), Tactical/DynamicDialogue.cpp (retreat blame), Ja2/GameSettings.cpp (INI reads and defaults), i18n/_EnglishText.cpp (exact in-game strings).