Bombardment vagaries

[Cromagnonman]

I've noticed a few oddities in the process of defending my coasts from the British navy. Sometimes, a stack will not keep its "bombard passing fleets" button pressed from one turn to the next. It seems to be more common among commanded stacks than leaderless ones. Merging 2 stacks seems to always "unclick" the bombardment button.

Another point that us still giving me headaches is the double adjacency rule. Is a land region doubly adjacent to all water regions that it touches, or only those that are listed as its harbor exits?
I found that an entrenched force in Escambia, FL, was able to consistenly bombard ships travelling to or from Ft Pickens by either approach (Pensacola Bay and the other one), even though Escambia's harbor only exits into P Bay.
After this, I began furiously fortifying Drummond, MD, as it should definitively command the lower Cheapskate Bay and its Atlantic approaches, although Drummond's harbor only touches the Bay. However, I have noticed British ships frequenting the coast without any bombardment (or announced evasion) occuring. It doesn't help that the stack in Drummond refuses to keep "bombard" clicked.

A final note is that bombardment seems to occur rarely at best when the moving fleet is retreating. This seems to be irregardless of double adjacency.

[grimjaw]

I don't know about other patch levels, but here's my experience with 1.15.

For stacks that have a bombard-passing option, only those *without* generals will consistently remain selected between turns. I don't know if this applies to fleet stacks. If a general goes passive, the stack will definitely reset the status of bombard-passing to not selected. I also believe that if a stack's makeup changes due to unit disbandment, if bonus units are added to the stack, or if the status of elements in the stack changes (due to upgrading from militia, etc) without combat, this will also reset the status.

I'm not sure about your other question.

jm

[Jim-NC]

A general must be active to bombard. That is why leaderless stacks continue to have the button pressed each turn (they are always active). The port exit doesn't matter for bombardment purposes. The ship must move between 2 regions adjacent to the land territory (or 2 sides). That is why the forts are diamond shpaed.

[Cromagnonman]

A perhaps interesting note is that the Double Adjacency Rule appears to count for land as well as water regions. Thus, if a fort is adjacent to a river and to a region with a harbor on that river, it will always bombard ships (or land units using river transport) moving between the river and harbor.

But what's weirder is that the fort will also bombard units moving from land to land. I once moved a unit by rail and river from Evansville to Covington TN, via Paducah. As the unit (now on a train) passed from Hickman KY to Gibson TN, it was destroyed by fire from Island #10. I figured that this was because my unit had crossed the Obion River. However, when I went back and rerouted via Henry TN, my unit was still destroyed passing from Gibson to Dyer. It appears that a fort (or entrenched arty) will bombard anything with the river button clicked if it falls under the DAR, even if that unit is not travelling by water at the time.