Question: When do transports unload?

[DaemoneIsos]

PBEM is a great learning ground; I am encountering interesting situations I have not faced playing against the computer for two years.

Today I (Union) was craftily prepared to hold Paducah (I thought) by transporting my 7 regiments from Cairo using a river transport unit (rather than the abstract river transport capacity). I loaded my units onto the fleet, including a gunboat as well. They left Cairo without delay, and arrived in Paducah on day 4 (with a confirmation message). I expected them to unload fairly promptly. Apparently they did not:

On day 10, the CSA assaulted, destroying my local militia. The battle report did not show any other unit in the town, naval or army. On day 11, I got a message that my fleet arrived in Great Confluent (where the Paducah harbor exits.) My fleet and its 7 regiments are untouched.

Is this normal? Have I learned the hard lesson that troops don't unload from fleets until the end of the turn cycle?

Advice and insight welcomed.

Thanks,
-D

[Captain_Orso]

You have to move the transports into the harbor for the transported units to automatically dis-embark. Unfortunately, you cannot give the transported orders for once they have dis-embarked until the next turn regardless of how short the trip is. You can however set their posture in the turn in which they are transported.

If you wish to immediately move them upon arrival in the harbor you will need to us your available river transport capacity to move them to the target harbor. There is however a rather long dis-embarkation time from my experience.

I wonder in some cases what this delay for a unit to dis-embark from the generic river transports is. The other day I used river transport to move a leader up the river to a region, where in hind sight I'm not certain there was an harbor, but I think there was, and the leader took something like 5 or 6 days to dis-embark and move on Must have been drunk and hung-over from partying on the river trip.

Also I've noticed that the game engine keeps track of how many units (elements?) are embarked from, transported over, and dis-embarked to a river/land regions, which seem to have some sort of capacity limits.

I had a division comprised of about 10 cavalry regiments a few regions up-river from St. Louis and wanted to transport them to St. Louis. So I gave them river transport orders and just dragged them onto St. Louis. The calculated days was immense for such a short trip. So I removed a single regiment from the division, gave it river transport orders and dragged it onto St. Louis. Suddenly the calculated time for the move dropped to a few of days. So I did this with all the regiments, leaving the last regiment in the division, so that the division didn't get disbanded. A funny thing happened. After the first few regiments received their orders, the following regiments started taking different routes to St. Louis, which started taking longer to reach. All in all, they were quicker moving singly than as a large unit. But it illustrated for me, that the regions have some sort of capacity limit for transportation.

[enf91]

Was it an actual division or an ad-hoc collection of regiments? Did you check the command penalty? If you had 10 regiments with no particular organization and no leader, you would have had a 35% command penalty, while the individual regiments would have had only a 5% one.

[W.Barksdale]

When units are formed in a division they now will move at the speed of the slowest element. Often I find that some units are very low on cohesion within a division and so this really slows down the move rate of the parent unit. Also as enf91 suggest, CP penalties will really lower move rates too. Separating them individually will often help speed things up. Just be sure they aren't attacked on route :P

There is no region capacity limit for transportation.

[W.Barksdale]

Is this normal? Have I learned the hard lesson that troops don't unload from fleets until the end of the turn cycle?

Hmm as far as I know they will unload as soon as they pulled into the harbour. What was the strength of the opposing forces during the battle? Were the 7 regiments and the fleet appearing on the battle report?

Because they were initially stacked with the riverfleet they may have retreated with it once your KY militia was destroyed. Although, I can't say for sure without the above information.

[Captain_Orso]

Was it an actual division or an ad-hoc collection of regiments? Did you check the command penalty? If you had 10 regiments with no particular organization and no leader, you would have had a 35% command penalty, while the individual regiments would have had only a 5% one.

Hmmm, now that you mention it, I'm not so certain anymore if they were in a real division. I tried going back that far in my saves, bit they end just before the monumental occasion. But right after when it must have happened I found them in Kearney's division. Sooo ....

Why the heck doesn't the engine save all the turns? I've got enough room on my disk. Why not just number the turns from 1 to x? Why why why? What ever.

But the real point is how their individual moves were plotted. The first regiments taking the quickest path. After about 4 or five regiments had taken that same path, the paths for the following regiments stared to vary a little and take a day or two longer. It didn't matter at the time because I only wanted them to reach St. Louis together and the quickest unit needed like 5 or six days and the slowest about 9 or ten days.

[DaemoneIsos]

Were the 7 regiments and the fleet appearing on the battle report?

Because they were initially stacked with the riverfleet they may have retreated with it once your KY militia was destroyed. Although, I can't say for sure without the above information.

WB: They did not appear on the battle report, and like you, I interpret that they stayed with the fleet and never unloaded. The naval units in the fleet also did not show up on the battle report; that was not unexpected. I never see naval units on a land battle report unless they are trapped in the harbor.

Every time I have transported land units on naval units, the land units are disembarked as their own stack at the end of the turn. The conclusion I am coming to is that the disembarkation does not occur until the end of day 15, regardless of when they arrived.

Can anyone confirm or correct this interpretation?

Thanks

[enf91]

Why the heck doesn't the engine save all the turns? I've got enough room on my disk. Why not just number the turns from 1 to x? Why why why? What ever.

It actually does. If you look in your "Saves" folder (assuming you're not running Vista or, if you are, if you didn't put it in your "Program Files" folder), you will see a bunch of folders labeled "turn 1" to "turn x". The problem is, I can never remember which is most recent and which is oldest.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Captain_Orso]

Hi Gray,
yeah I know. I just needed to moan about something. I already knew this but was too lazy to write a script to save ALL of the turns of my game , which is too bad, because




















[CENTER][SIZE="5"]I JUST TOOK RICHMOND!!![/size]

ompom: ompom: ompom: ompom: ompom:


ouet:



[/CENTER]
*sniff* I'm so overwhelmed I think I'll go to bed now.
Orso

[enf91]

Oh, OK. I wasn't sure if Backup2 was 2 turns ago or turn 2 of the game.
>>Not one to gloat, are you, Captain?

[gekkoguy82]

All those smileys arranged so skillfully must take great patience and planning!

[Captain_Orso]

That was the formation I used to besiege Richmond for two months. I didn't actually fight them out, they left voluntarily.

I guess you have to hear it to appreciate it. Think of the music playing during the ending credits of Happy Tree Friend on loudspeakers playing 24/7 for 8 weeks.

Thank you Thomas Alva Edison Jr. for the experimental prototype of your phonograph.

[DaemoneIsos]

Please bear with me re-posting; other questions were asked and the thread moved in a different direction. This one got lost.

I would be grateful if there is anyone who can address my remaining question:

Every time I have transported land units on naval units, the land units are disembarked as their own stack at the end of the turn. The conclusion I am coming to is that the disembarkation does not occur until the end of day 15, regardless of when they arrived.

Can anyone confirm or correct this interpretation?

Thanks

And thanks again, -D

[Captain_Orso]

Hi DaemoneIsos,

Sorry if I hijacked your thread .

I set up a test similar to what you explained. I loaded two one regiment brigades (one of them militia the other line infantry) onto a river transport in Cairo and sent them straight into Paducah. That is, I dragged their icon onto the McCracken region.

The path said that they would arrive on day 4.

The execution said that they were delayed in Cairo for two days, but the Mail Box said that they arrived on day five.

When I check the stacks in McCracken, they had unloaded automatically, as you expected. There was of course no battle or enemy zone-of-control in McCracken at the time.

Maybe the enemy-zone-of-control prevented them from unloading. But I'm just guessing.

---

Okay, now you've gotten my curiosity going. So backup one turn.

Now I'm sending a regular CSA cavalry regiment (power 22) into McCracken with defensive posture by train. The will arrive on day 4. So I'm sending the transports up to the Wabash confluence first before they head for Paducah. Calculated arrival on day 8, so the CSA cav should already be there when they arrive.
Results: they still unloaded.

Redo with the cav reg on offensive posture/conservative attack.
Results: they still unloaded.

Redo with the cav reg on offensive posture/sustained attack.
Results: they still unloaded.

If you're sure that you ordered the transports to enter the region of McCracken by dragging them onto the region, them I have no idea why it didn't work. Sorry.

---

Okay, on last try. I set the transports stack to passive posture and ran the turn.
Same results.

I can only guess that if the zone of control is strong enough that it pushed the whole stack out of the harbor. I've had similar things happen to me. Just not with transports.

I've had brigades and stacks literally pushed out of a region by an extremely strong CSA stack. Sometimes I get a report that my unit was engaged in the region, but no battle report was generated. I don't even think that I always got a report the my unit retreated from the battle. And I fairly certain that at least once I got no report at all. In the replay I just saw the CSA-bulldozer sweep through the region moving on into the next and my unit gracefully run for cover to a third region where I found it in passive posture/retreat if engaged. I am absolutely certain that they were not in passive posture before that, because I was so surprised I backed up one turn just to check.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Edit: I may have misunderstood your question as you are asking when exactly after the arrival of transports are the ported units actually considered to be debarked. I've seen no indication of that information. Sorry again.

[Big Ideas]

I think units disembarking from naval transports have to wait for the next turn after their arrival to unload is a factor of the 15 days per turn. This is meant to give the "defender" some time to react before the landing takes place. And maybe give the attacking player some uncertainty in their landings.

[DaemoneIsos]

Hi DaemoneIsos,

I set up a test similar to what you explained.

Thanks, Captain; I think you have a good idea.

To reproduce the conditions, the steps would have to be as follows:

1) There is a native Union locked militia inside McCracken.

2) The Union transport fleet arrives with ground troops, several days before the end of the turn. Message confirms arrival. (Town control is still Union).

3) CSA arrives and assaults the town (not merely offensive, full assault).

Result: does the CSA encounter anything other than the local militia?

Thank you for suggesting this approach: I think it is very doable.

Best, -D