Board Game Arena

It does not appear that 5.9 is implemented in the BGA version of the game. Do I have that right?

Yes, it is.
Please check BGG and BGA forum about that.

I thought that is what I was doing. Link please? Thanks.

SailingGuy wrote: ↑24 February 2023, 14:05 I thought that is what I was doing. Link please? Thanks.

Here is a discussion on BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/286273 ... treat-rule

Per rules as written you can retreat to a hex that is equidistant or closer to any of your colonies. "Any" here means that you can pick any colony, not just the closest. In practice ships can retreat forward most of the time. Best practice is to always build both decoys and use them as blockers. Miners, MSP, Mines, Scouts and Minesweepers are usually used as well. Since the attacker chooses the order of battles it is possible to move a unit in a hex with enemies just to block retreat from another hex. Raiders can move through and block retreat as well and sometimes you want to retreat a big high class ship early in the battle to block (or to stop the enemy from blocking) retreat as well.

This is the most often misunderstood rule in SE4X, somebody reports it as a bug every week or so. Jim Krohn (the game designer) stated that the rule is such to promote more aggressive play instead of turtling.