I am curious what the goal is when it comes to encounters and ways to break them. Is it not going to be possible to run from an encounter and break the pursuit? There are a couple of reasons I ask about this, and as it seems more design than bug (maybe?) I put it separate here.
One–I was at the arena area and watched as two soldiers–one in plate with longsword, and another with sword and board started to square off. The shield guy turned away and started walking out of the arena, but the plate guy came up behind him and started wailing on him. This lead to the trainer and those soldiers surrounding him attacking the plate guy, and eventually killing him at the far edge of camp. Being a bit too smart for my own good, I decided I could run over and loot some plate armor by timing it where no one else was close by, and I almost got away with it, but was spotted and then here they come. I saw them coming soon enough to get a jump-start and turned to my heels, whistling for my horse occasionally to keep it close, then quickly mounting the horse when I was over half way back to Talmberg. Figuring they would give up the pursuit if I went all the way back into Talmberg was incorrect, and being cornered, I turned old glue bucket back toward them and ran full-speed through them, unscathed! Old glue bucket did so well, he earned the new name of Fred!
Back west I went, with the soldiers still in pursuit, but Fred quickly left them far behind. As the trainer still had a flag on the map, I could monitor their progress, so I cut south of the encampment, and headed toward Samopesh. When the soldiers got close to their encampment, they seem to have given up the chase, and did not follow past their encampment toward Samopesh. However, the game still kept me in combat, so I headed back to a bed, thinking maybe I could get some much needed rest, but being in combat would not allow me to sleep. So, thinks I, maybe a bit of combat might be enough to break the encounter, so I headed back to Talmberg and found the Cuman north of town, killed him, but the combat status remained. Time to reload the saved game!
Will this kind of unbelievable pursuit, including the soldiers knowing where I went even when I was half the entire map away from them, be in the game, or is this just an anomaly or a bug? Surely this could not be the plan?
Now for the filp-side. Once when I was fighting the Cuman north of Talmberg, when I got the best of him, he turned and ran like a dang jack rabbit, running so fast I quickly lost him, and I could never find him, even though I combed the entire area for a long time. (I do tend to be stubborn!) He was able to break combat fast enough, and if he died, surely I would have found him? I know running away is realistic, but could a gravely-wounded man so thoroughly outrun one who is still practically full health? How far will an NPC run if running away from combat?
Anyone know how this is supposed to work–what is the plan for these situations?