Strange Result in Amphibious Invasion

[Caccio]

After declaring in an earlier post that this game is the best thing since AACW, I'm beginning to wonder. As Italy in CP 1850 I stormed the beaches of the Dodacanese, one of my objectives. I won the battle decisively, with the Italian flag now flying in the region, only to be told that I had lost every one of my units for "lack of transport". The needed transports were the same that had delivered the troops to shore, and were still standing offshore. Why did this happen?

[SonOfAGhost]

I'll hazard a guess that it's not transport for troops, but lack of transport to supply the troops. (ie you don't have any merchant ships in the local sea trade box) Even so though, you'd think the navy could put a few tins of Spam ashore from their supplies

[Caccio]

A good idea, but after replaying this turn many times and snooping around in the game .exe and data files, I don't believe that supply is the issue. I have a merchant fleet in the Medit seabox, in other places my ground units have never failed to draw supply as needed from a fully-supplied transport, and in any event one of my landing units was a fully-loaded supply wagon. Rather, the game event that triggers the "lack of transport" message calls the string strUnitDrown, which implies that my units were somehow forced off the Dodecanese, a region of hilly land, into the surrounding sea, where they failed to find the transports that had just unloaded them. Weird, because I had won the battle and indeed wiped out the rebel defenders. When I tried to capitalize on my (costly!) success a couple of turns later by landing reinforcements, they encountered no opposition, but were also drowned. WAD?

[yellow ribbon]

since the province has not even an anchorage by games DB, i would ponder more about the message you got, than the possible lack of supply.

without harbor and so on, no supplies get to the interior of a province, isnt it?

is there at least an anchorage in your case? can u build it in the moment u occupied the province?

but i saw that kind of message only once in all the time i played the game. once i unloaded troops manually in Africa, and gave a part of the fleet (not the transports in an own fleet), an order to intercept pirates / enemies.
but in my case, troops where destroyed while they were landing at the shore and you had already a battle in the province and seized it....

[Sir Garnet]

in my game the Dodecanese showed as rebel controlled. Who was the legitimate owner, and did you have permission from them to be there, or were you at war with them?

[Caccio]

Yes, the Dodecanese are rebel-controlled, but I doubt that lack of permission from the "legitimate owner", if there is one, explains my problem. The game mechanics prevent you from even plotting a move into a region that requires a DOW or right-of-passage. In my case, another game mechanic allowed my units to enter the region and fight a battle, then displaced them to the surrounding water where they drowned!

[Caccio]

I watched an entire host phase, and learned that my units survived onland until the end of the 15th day, during which time they continue to gain military control and the rebels lose it. (I confirmed this by reviewing the HostLog after the turn.) Their drowning occurs at the very end of the hosting phase, and there is nothing in the logs or save files to explain why, even when I turn on the option for Error Logging.

I did notice that their cohesion fell to about half, judging from the middle bar on the unit icon. Is there a morale check at the end of the turn that would impel them to charge back into the surf to their doom?

[Sir Garnet]

Yes, the Dodecanese are rebel-controlled, but I doubt that lack of permission from the "legitimate owner", if there is one, explains my problem. The game mechanics prevent you from even plotting a move into a region that requires a DOW or right-of-passage. In my case, another game mechanic allowed my units to enter the region and fight a battle, then displaced them to the surrounding water where they drowned!

I have experienced a number of strange events involving rebel controlled territories in colonial and non-colonial areas, but never on an island, so your research makes you the expert. Let us hope the casualty toll in the name of science is not too costly.

[Caccio]

Well, I suck it up and fight on.

[sagji]

Yes, the Dodecanese are rebel-controlled, but I doubt that lack of permission from the "legitimate owner", if there is one, explains my problem. The game mechanics prevent you from even plotting a move into a region that requires a DOW or right-of-passage. In my case, another game mechanic allowed my units to enter the region and fight a battle, then displaced them to the surrounding water where they drowned!

I think that is exactly the problem.
One of the patches changed it so that you can enter any region controlled with a nation you are at war with. One consequence of this is that you can now enter a province controlled by the rebels even when you can't enter provinces owned by the "legitimate" owner. The problem occurs in the end of turn clean up - having taken control off the rebels it reverts to the owner as you can't have control, this leaves you in a province you lack the rights to enter, and I suspect this in turn results in you being expelled, the code fails to check for transports, so finds nowhere for you to go and destroys you.

You shouldn't be chucked out so forcefully, and it should allow you to re-embark.

I think the solution is to get it to be able to expel you to a transport fleet, or even "river" transport, and to change it that you don't gain military control unless you can keep it, or can enter areas of the nation you would give it to - i.e. the rebels keep their MC unless you are at war with the owner or have passage rights.

[Caccio]

You may very well be right; without any documentation in the logs, I can't offer a better explanation.

[Pocus]

I think Sagji hits the nail here. This is a complex issue, and we won't have all the time we want to fix it, so for now I'm extending the redeploy range from 3 to 8 regions. This should be sufficient to cover 95% of the cases.

[Caccio]

Thanks, Pocus!

[SonOfAGhost]

I haven't had time to play in probably a couple weeks now myself, but from what I was seeing fighting the US alongside (but not allied with the CSA), I don't envy the AGEOD lads trying to sort out all the knock-on effects of entering territories you can't control. A real Gordian knot it seems.

That said, a few people with some very well chosen phrases in this thread
"Charge back into the surf" great image!