1.05 RC8 Ships and troops losing most of their cohesion in 1 turn when transported.

[DrPostman]

I noticed that this happened the previous turn so rather than continue to NOLA
I put in at one of the forts in the Florida Keys. They had to rest for 2 turns to
get their cohesion back, then I went on to attack New Orleans (NOLA). They
won the battle but totally lost almost every drop of cohesion. That's never
happened before. Any ideas?
Save: [ATTACH]33029[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]33030[/ATTACH]

[Captain_Orso]

Honestly, I've rarely seen such cohesion loss after a 1 turn journey on transports.

Some things I've noticed:

Every ocean and coastal region the fleet sailed through (looking at the move plot from the previous turn before your force arrived in NOLA) was "rain" including the Lower Mississippi River in front of NOLA, although on land on both sides of the river the weather is clear . Poor weather means cohesion loss.

The last Movement message (29/29) says that Farragut's fleet "suffered 22 hit(s) from foul weather and/or exhaustion".

Battle messages says "Fort Jackson bombarded us and our D. Farragut's Fleet took 43 hits. We returned fire, dealing 8 hits to them.". Taking bombardment causes cohesion loss to the targets, even transported troops.

Your force then debarked into NOLA, which itself will cause cohesion loss.

The NOLA battle report doesn't show what cohesion your forces had before or after the battle, so that doesn't help much, but just being in battle, even elements which did not directly fight, can cause a net cohesion loss for involved troops.
--
Other things of note not directly related to cohesion loss:

Your invasion forces doesn't have a single supply unit, which is sub-optimal for drawing supplies from Farragut's fleet.

Put 1 or two of your divisions into PP so that they recover as quickly as possible, leaving the other 2 or three in DP to besiege NOLA and defend against attack from elsewhere.

I actually only ever invade NOLA at Fort Pike, take it quickly to have a supply base and then march on NOLA, one region to the west. I don't like running the forts nor attacking them first. I guess I'm just a conservative attacker.

Good luck.

[DrPostman]

I rolled back a turn and sent 2 full supply units to the Keys where they are waiting, at full
cohesion. Usually running the forts takes some damage but I always end up taking NOLA
on the first or second turn, and never with cohesion loss like that. I don't know why I didn't
send them with supplies at first. I'll have to fire the quartermaster in Philly.

[DrPostman]

Sent them with supplies and fair weather and got the same result, and
went after Ft Pike this time. Something is off here.
Game save:[ATTACH]33034[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]33036[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]33035[/ATTACH]

[DrPostman]

Noticed a message about a traffic penalty in the Gulf and Koney Island. Could that
have been the cause of such massive cohesion loss? This is the second time I've
seen traffic penalties in the ocean, but so far not on land. I think there is a bug
with it. The ocean is pretty damned big for traffic jams.

[Captain_Orso]

"Traffic penalty"?!? ... I-ummmm...I-ehhh....I don't know ...

Honestly, I haven't noticed it, but Pocus would have to say. Originally TP was only cohesion loss. I may have talked him into only causing a delay--the number of days to enter a region--if affected by TP, but I don't know if it was actually implemented. I would have taken a lot of work to do properly.

But having it affect fleets in open waters would just not make sense.

I think some time ago, I begged Pocus to subdue the liberal use of movement messages saying, "XX Fleet took a hit due to Wear-n-Tear™ in Some-Oceanic-Region". If you had 3 or 4 fleets sailing about you could easily get 30, 40 or more such messages per turn.

If the messages have been subdued, then they were subdued very thoroughly--i can't remember the last time I got one. It might be that your fleet is taking a large number of health and and cohesion hits--have you noted that some of your ships have taken a number of health hits?--while sailing through those rain regions and the hits are simply not being reported.

There was the one report which I mentioned about 22 hits, but really anything, beyond what I'd noted in my first post, would be pure speculation.

I would say the moral of the story is, "Sailing through poor weather with make you sick, sea?... err, see?"

[W.Barksdale]

I can confirm this issue several times in my current pbem. First case was rebel fleet coming out of Richmond to James River. Second case rebel fleet coming out of Mobile to Mobile Bay and onto Falmouth Beach. Both times lost almost all cohesion whether it was fair weather or raining.

[DrPostman]

Did you have the traffic penalty effect turned on? It appears to be happening quite a
lot in my game, but I've turned it off now and will report back if it stops.

[W.Barksdale]

I believe traffic penalty was set to low.

[Merlin]

Traffic is primarily for EAW AFAIK, and I don't see why it should be used at all in this game, at least until it becomes a full-fledged option for EAW. Then we can work on porting it to CW2. Don't use traffic; if EAW experience carries, and at this early point I'm fairly certain it does, units will get wrecked by it, both on land and water.

If you insist on testing it, know that anything larger than a corps + 2 divisions in the same region will suffer great cohesion loss when moving from the same region, fleets over 12 elements will suffer cohesion loss period, and amphibious invasions, including coastal fort landings, will be severely penalized, likely to the point at which they lose all cohesion. Traffic needs work, and I'd strongly suggest getting the opinions of the devs before reporting on its use in CW2.

[DrPostman]

Yep, it probably shouldn't be in CW2

[Pocus]

Traffic penalty in water regions was a bug. Wait for next RC... this week.

[DrPostman]

Traffic penalty in water regions was a bug. Wait for next RC... this week.

Thanks, but are you sure it should be in CW2 at all?

[Merlin]

Thanks, but are you sure it should be in CW2 at all?

It will help with having 200,000+ men in a single region, but requires optimization separate from EAW. Unless I'm mistaken, it's just a placeholder mechanic in CW2 at the moment.

[DrPostman]

It will help with having 200,000+ men in a single region, but requires optimization separate from EAW. Unless I'm mistaken, it's just a placeholder mechanic in CW2 at the moment.

I really regret turning it on now. It doesn't seem like it wants to turn off. That, or I'm
very unlucky moving ship around.