Graviteam

Is there an annihilation mode so you can play until you wipe out your enemy rather than on a set timer.  I find the games end too soon. 

No but, you can set 3 hours long.
In the game, as well as in real combat, there is no goal to kill all enemies.

Thanks.  That is fine with me I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a play mode.  Take care

I find setting the game to a 2 or 3 hour setting gives the enemy more time to formulate flanking attacks when you are on the defense. The 30 min. or 1 hour setting only gives then enough time to come at you head on and makes for a very predictable battle.

I know that you mostly play Quick Battles Dane, and for those 3h-long battle is optimal for them, but for operations I found 1h to be the best. Otherwise you risk either the attacking AI units not reaching your positions at all (30 mins) or:
- either side completely obliterated (2h+),
- player units out of ammo or depleted and almost incapable of fighting during next battles to come (2h+).
:)

True, the majority of my gameplay are QBs(About 80-20% in favor of QB).
When I do play campaigns though, I generally set my battles to 1H and limited battle radius since I generally only have 2-4 hours to devote to the game at any given time and would like to finish a complete turn in that sitting.

As most of the veteran players have noticed the 2-3 hour turns can lead to some major ammo expenditure and the AI takes advantage of this to send small recon units to get you to expend ammo and reveal your defenses while it grabs territory for flanking maneuvers before launching the main assault which usually won't manifest itself until the last 30 mins. of a battle.
If your willing to engross yourself in the full 3H battle which includes a lot of dead time and set your covered arcs to about 50- 100 meters so your troops aren't firing up everything they see, then some very exciting battles involving maneuver that don't seem predictable can be had. You're not going to get that from the 30 min. to 1H battles.

One day when I retire I would like to play all my campaign battles in real time 3 hour settings so as to really immerse myself in the game and see how well I can keep my troops from wasting the much needed ammo.

I play only QB also and within 3 hours battle :) Often, I manage to terminate the round after 1 hour, but I don't hesitate to play more in one battle. I make several battles with logical parameters (units losses, terrain) and some random parameters (units reinforcements, weather, time of day). Thereby, I create a campaign with my parameters, very immersive (and I do movies).

To save ammo, I instruct to cease fire from heavy weapons against infantry and vice versa and sometimes I instruct to retreat with ceasing fire (and when I want to retreat quickly from an area).

Currently I have my campaigns set to two hours and sometimes and JUST waiting for it to end.  What happens if I offer a CeaseFire?  I was too afraid to lose if I did.  So I've accelerated the time...which helps some.

Cease fire, if it is accepted, just means the battle ends with whatever both sides control.  The AI usually does not like to take cease fires from you.  More likely to offer them when most of their heavy stuff is wasted. 

I use 2 hour battles as well.  I feel its the best balance.  But ya, sometimes your left holding the bag for some time waiting for the battle to end.  Hopefully not to many units about so time comp works.  Which since I usually play with no limits to battles means often the highest it will go is .9 - 1.2  UGh. 

Me too, I don't like to take the cease fire from AI :) A ceasefire offer means that AI is almost destroyed, so I prefer to annihilate him.

You need to take into consideration the ammo and fatigue disposition of your own troops also when considering to accept a cease fire from the AI. Chasing down a few stragglers when your forces are low on ammo and/or close to becomming fatigued may not be the best course of action and accepting the cease fire is probably the better idea to better conserve your forces for the next battle.

That's true, sometimes I am forced to accept a cease fire. However, a cease fire offer from AI is often the signal that the enemy is almost destroyed, we have only a little additional effort to make to acquire a big terrain.