Another combat bug

[moni kerr]

We have had another odd combat result in our game.

During late Nov. A. S. Johnston entered Williamsburg, VA on day 13 to attack B. F. Butler, but no battle was fought. In early Dec there was a battle on day 1 which lasted one round and resulted in a CSA victory. The Union force failed to retreat after day 1 hour 1 , yet the battle did not continue.

If the CSA won, shouldn't Butler retreat? After all, he tried to retreat and failed. Johnston was on all out attack. Why did the battle not continue? And why, with a pwr difference of 2:1 for the CSA is the USA MC still at 100%?

[Pocus]

When a battle ends, the retreating force can't be attacked in the same region during the remaining days of the turn. It must have succeeded in retreating on round 2 though.

[James D Burns]

Butler was in his forts and not retreating at turn start. Also the CSA gained no military control at all, it is still 100% union. Shouldn't the CSA have gained MC if Butler was retreating? The fact they outnumber Butler 2-1 they should have gained MC even if Butler wasn't retreating I would think.

Jim

[moni kerr]

Yes that's the issue, Butler tries to retreat but fails. And the battle just ends after 1 round with a Confederate victory, with a Union force still entrenched and not retreated.

Why does the battle end after 1 round if the Union failed to retreat?

[Ace]

I downloaded the turn file, and this is definetly odd. The Butler force should have retrated or at least change to passive posture loosing MC in the process. Could you post hst file from the previous turn so I can try to replicate it,and view combat and turn logs.

[James D Burns]

Here is my current save folder for the game with the three backup folders as well.

Jim

[Ace]

Let me say first, Pocus is the best person to explain this, I 'll only speak from my experience, not from the actual knowledge of the combat system.


Firstly, I have run the turn after your weird battle, on the hst file from your #1 post. This time, it declared Union victory, Butler remained in his trenches, but Johnston remained in the region, in offensive posture. I think this oddity comes from Johnston and Butler being in the same region at the beginning of the turn, with Union control at 100%. It is not common thing in default settings, but it can happen at large battle delay settings. It is more common that stacks are sharing a region if there is a siege going on. Let me get back to "old" combat mechanics in AACW1. When there was a siege going on, if one side would have an unsuccessful assault, they would be ejected (retreated) from the region in the process, not entirely realistic thing. The most realistic after unsuccessful assault would be to continue with the siege like Grant at Vicksburg. In CW2, this has changed and after unsuccessful assault, the attacker remains in the region. I am not sure that is the reason, but it could be that is why Johnston remained in the region after the attack, or the engine simply concluded that regardless of the defeat he is still stronger and should not retreat.

After that, I used your last post save game, reloaded the previous turn and tried it. This time, in first battle on day 1 it declared Union victory, but another battle happened on day 5 and Johnston expelled Butler from the region. It has worked as it should. The way I see it, the problem in your game is that I believe it was Union victory, not CSA victory on day 1. That is why Butler never retreated. And since Johnston was still stronger, he was looking for another battle, which never came because of some unlucky engagement rolls for Johnston (it would help if he had more cav in the stack) and long delay settings.

So, the battle report should have retreat icon, which would show on the side of generals and units which retreated after the battle, it would be easier to explain some battles that way.

[Pocus]

Jim, thats Late December. Do you have Early Sept. ?

[James D Burns]

Here's Late September with backups, so you should be able to go back a turn to early Sept.

Jim

[James D Burns]

Let me say first, Pocus is the best person to explain this, I 'll only speak from my experience, not from the actual knowledge of the combat system.


Firstly, I have run the turn after your weird battle, on the hst file from your #1 post. This time, it declared Union victory, Butler remained in his trenches, but Johnston remained in the region, in offensive posture. I think this oddity comes from Johnston and Butler being in the same region at the beginning of the turn, with Union control at 100%. It is not common thing in default settings, but it can happen at large battle delay settings. It is more common that stacks are sharing a region if there is a siege going on. Let me get back to "old" combat mechanics in AACW1. When there was a siege going on, if one side would have an unsuccessful assault, they would be ejected (retreated) from the region in the process, not entirely realistic thing. The most realistic after unsuccessful assault would be to continue with the siege like Grant at Vicksburg. In CW2, this has changed and after unsuccessful assault, the attacker remains in the region. I am not sure that is the reason, but it could be that is why Johnston remained in the region after the attack, or the engine simply concluded that regardless of the defeat he is still stronger and should not retreat.

After that, I used your last post save game, reloaded the previous turn and tried it. This time, in first battle on day 1 it declared Union victory, but another battle happened on day 5 and Johnston expelled Butler from the region. It has worked as it should. The way I see it, the problem in your game is that I believe it was Union victory, not CSA victory on day 1. That is why Butler never retreated. And since Johnston was still stronger, he was looking for another battle, which never came because of some unlucky engagement rolls for Johnston (it would help if he had more cav in the stack) and long delay settings.

So, the battle report should have retreat icon, which would show on the side of generals and units which retreated after the battle, it would be easier to explain some battles that way.

Thanks for the in depth explanation Ace. So assuming what you are saying is correct, even though Butler attempted to retreat and failed on turn 1 round 1, he stopped retreating and the actual battle results (which show as Union defeat at the top of the battle page) then over-rode the attempted retreat? I would think once a commander attempts to retreat, the engine should stick with that decision and declare that side the loser no matter the outcome of the fighting. But barring that, the game needs more definitive text explanations in the event lists of what happens displayed so players can figure out what is going on.

Granted this is a rare battle outcome (I’ve never seen anything like this before), but the lack of results text is the main cause of our confusion. We ended up exchanging a flurry of emails back and forth simply trying to guess what was going on, which resulted in a feeling of consternation.

So questions I still have are:

Why was the battle reported on the battle screen and in the event lists as a Union defeat if in fact it was a CSA defeat?

The only thing I can think of is it was a Union defeat because Butler chose to retreat before the fighting, then the CSA lost the fighting, but the reports all reported the Union defeat because of the original decision to retreat? If so it is an extremely weird result and this needs to be changed/addressed somehow.

Is it really possible that the long delay setting can prevent a second battle from occurring over a 14 day period? If so I think the maximum time a battle can be delayed needs to be tweaked down to about 7 days.

If Johnston was seeking a second battle, why no military control gain for the 14 days he was in offensive posture, after all he has a far larger force than Butler does?

Jim

[Ace]

Why was the battle reported on the battle screen and in the event lists as a Union defeat if in fact it was a CSA defeat?

I think Pocus will tell us what actually happened.

The only thing I can think of is it was a Union defeat because Butler chose to retreat before the fighting, then the CSA lost the fighting, but the reports all reported the Union defeat because of the original decision to retreat? If so it is an extremely weird result and this needs to be changed/addressed somehow.

In AACW1 battle report there was a retreat icon which would show who retreated and how many times they tried to retreat. It would be good to find room in the battle report window for it, just for better understanding of situations like these.

Is it really possible that the long delay setting can prevent a second battle from occurring over a 14 day period? If so I think the maximum time a battle can be delayed needs to be tweaked down to about 7 days.

I am sure the delay is not set to 14 days, but on short delay you get 14 rolls whether there will be combat. On long delay you would get fewer.

If Johnston was seeking a second battle, why no military control gain for the 14 days he was in offensive posture, after all he has a far larger force than Butler does?

Do not know, all these information are hidden in turn log files and battle logs, but they are difficult to read.



For your current PBEM, I would suggest, you rewind one turn, change battle delay to small, and see what you get.

[Joe Wheeler]

I cant wait to see how this ends.