Arrive at same time battle bug?

[Celticid]

Hi there.
I think it was a bug what happened here. Ok, ill explain.

First photo and explanation:
Grant and Critteden moved to the province where they are 2 turns ago. I let them rest for 1 turn before order them to move ARRIVING AT THE SAME TIME to Clarksville. As you can see on the image, Grant force is almost at 100% rested and ready to attack, but Critedden is at 80%. I set both forces with the order "arrive at the same time" and then moved then to Clarsville. Before i click on "end turn" i could see that Both forces would arrive at day 4.

Ok, and this is what happened.

When i clicked on end turn, and as im the host of this MP game, i could see how forces was moving. The confederates moved all his force to Clarksville, so i was expecting a big battle.
I saw how Grant and Critedden forces entered at the same time on the province, but only Critedden force fought the enemy, as you can see on the next image. All the Union forces that you see on the image was the forces involved on the battle. So the result was a big defeat, 10000 deaths and 8000 prisioners, including 3 big batteries and supplies.

The curious thing is that the photo shows 44000 foot Union soldiers on battle, but no one of the divisions under Grant suffered 1 casuality. they dont even are show on the list of units involved on battle. So, they are on numbers of battle stats, but was not on the battlefield.

Was this a bug?
Im playing with 1.01 version of the game (the official out there)

Thanks

[Jim-NC]

Hello and welcome to the forums. No, this is not a bug (unfortunately for you).


There are several things that can/did happen to your forces. For example, an army stack will not initiate combat if there is another unit in the region. Also, 1 "group" gets to start combat, and is chosen for most of the casualties (there is a discussion about this works/can be modified in the beta forums). Depending on something called "frontage", some or all of your units didn't get to fight in the battle. It is possible (not very likely, but possible in game terms) that your army did not support the corps doing the fighting (as both went into the region defensive, it's possible only the corps flipped to offensive)

So the wrap up is, that Grant's army wouldn't start the fight as it is an army, but Crittenden's corps would. Depending on frontage, only the corps may have fought, or maybe not (due to that reason). The corps was probably destroyed by the enemy before the army could come to the rescue (as the corps only had 1 division). In looking at the screen, it appears that the corps fought the entire rebel army (all 30 units).

Hope this helps explain it for you.

[Ace]

To sum it up, Grant was an army stack. Army stacks tend to avoid combat. Never put combat units into army stack after Corps are available. Only in Corps stack. Army stack should be a lone 3 star general. IMO, this feature of the AGE engine needs a change. Army stacks should behave like normal stacks, it is creating a confusion this way. You lost a big battle because you did not know an engine feature. It should not be so, and it should be changed. By the way, if I was playing this PBEM, I would ask my opponent to rerun the turn, with you putting all your forces to subordinate corps. It would be only fair. Knowing game mechanics should not make one player a better field general .

[Celticid]

Hello and welcome to the forums. No, this is not a bug (unfortunately for you).
There are several things that can/did happen to your forces. For example, an army stack will not initiate combat if there is another unit in the region.

thanks for answering.

Does this have any sense? An Army dosent initiate a combat if there is another unit?

Yes, i think they should check that rule. From my point of view, the Army is the highest in rank, so they should initiate the combat.

Anyway, i can accept that: they dont initiate the combat, and the armies allow the corps to do that. But, once the combat is initiated the armies should support the combat with all the elements they have. We can call them "reinforces"...

But yes, once i know that, i should change the composition of my armies:now i use the corps, but the armies carry the supplies and the batteries. After this dissaster i would not like the cannons not joining the battle, right?

[Jim-NC]

The army not starting combat is a game design. It will start if alone, but not if any other unit is in the region.

There is a chance that the army won't join a combat (there is a check for each unit that can reach the battle ?ever turn I think?, and if the check fails, the unit doesn't help, but can check again). The issue for you is that I believe the corps was destroyed in the first round, and thus the army never had a chance to join.

You can leave artillery in the HQ stack, and if your corps lasts long enough, the army will join them, but remember it's not automatic, nor guarenteed. You may want to disperse your artillery, and have some extra in each corps.

[Captain_Orso]

This is how the seek engagement/do-not seek engagement rule works:

If there are two friendly corp stacks entering an enemy occupied region, both corp stacks will check to see if they find any enemy stacks and initiate combat with them. They might each find a different stack, both find one, or neither of them find any enemy stacks.

If an army stack and a corp stack enter an enemy occupied region ONLY the CORP stack will attempt to find an enemy stack. The army stack will not. This does not mean that the army stack will not try to support the corp stack in battle, but this will depend on the difference in size of the corp stack and the enemy stack it is engaging and how the battle is going. If the corp finds a lone division and is doing fine fighting it, the army will not join in on the battle.

If a lone army stack is entering an enemy occupied region, it will act just like any other stack.

An army stack is NOT an army, it represents the army commander, his staff and his control over reserve formations, represented by staking them with the army commander. For game purposes the "army" is the army-stack and all corp-stacks which belong to the army. One might also consider other forces in the area as belonging to the army, but the army commander has no game-ruled influence on them. For example if Meade is commanding the AoP and is in Manassas, Reynolds commands a corp belonging to the AoP and is in Culpeper. Meade give a certain amount of strategic, offensive and defensive bonus to Reynold's corp, just by it belonging to his army and being within Meade's command radius. If there is also a division in Culpeper not in Reynold's stack the division does not enjoy and benefits from Meade's command bonuses, although we can assume that the division is under Meade's command. If there is combat in the region the division will fall under Reynold's command and thus benefit from Reynold's command qualities, which, in turn, benefit from Meade's. But this is only during combat.

In your case Celticid, from my understanding of what happened, you hit some really, really bad luck. Crittenden engaged Johnston alone because he was the first on the scene, as Grant is trailing Crittenden, not trying to engage first. Crittenden found and engaged Johnston and in a very bloody first day of battle took horrendous losses before Grant could come to his aid. By the time Grant could arrive with his reserves, the battle was already over and there was no reason to try to engage Johnston again with the reserves with Crittenden being in such bad condition.

It may be that most of your losses are from being perused after being routed. Crittenden has only a division and some extra artillery, but I don't see any cavalry in the division or outside of it in the corp. I don't see it in Johnston's stack either, but past the division and leaders in the battle display could be a whole lot of goodies.

[Celticid]

Thanks for that explanation Captain_Orson, now i understand much better how this system works