looks like a bug

[Manfred]

Hi everyone, I'm playing the WaW gold version with FoW activated and I've encountered something that sounds like a bug :
I have a japanese sub in the bay of Bengal and WA have a lone militia INSIDE the sea without any transport fleet ! notice that my sub cannot attack this militia altough the screen shows that both units are in the same area.

[Paul Vebber]

More of a display issue than a bug - I've encountered that and found that if the Ai has a unit that can't complete a transport chain, the AI wil sometimes leave it on the transport. This is very dangerous and human players typically avoid it. If you sink the transport (which surmise you did?) the passenger in the transport doesn't display as "sunk" until the end of the turn. In my experience it does get sunk, and there is no need to waste time "machine-gunning the helpless surviors" in the water...they drown...

The "80% probaility to take area" in the combat estimate, when there is no combat possible is more of a bug.

Note that you can have cases where say you move a light fleet into an area with a sub - and it doesn't let you have combat - in that case it is due to the fleet not having any possibility of doing damage to the sub (ie defense of 9 can't be rolled on 1d6)...that one burned me the other day ... wasted an extended movement [:o]

[Manfred]

in fact the move of this sub was one of my first move, I did not attack a transport fleet in this sea area during the turn[&:]

[Paul Vebber]

This is against the AI, right?

In that case, its not the fact you can't attack it that is the bug, but how it got there hanging out without a transport in the first place...Do you have a save file at that point you can send me (paulv@matrixgames.com)?

[Becket]

Did the game get released?

[Paul Vebber]

I believe Manfred is a reviewer, not on the beta team. Is this correct Manfred?

[Pocus]

Hi,

I got 2 issues too. First an english tactical stationned at the end of his turn in my german territory (I have to attack it during my turn to push it back to England). I think that planes can only patrol (stay) above the seas?

Second, the IA dont take into account the milicia spontaneously generated when checking opportunities. It was blatant to me when a lone Jap infantry wanted to attack a Chinese empty province... which was not empty when 4 milicia popped up as the emergency levy rule.

last (yes third point, but thats not an issue), how the AI manage to move supply trucks into his convoys? Each time I attach a supply to a convoy, the convoy cant move, so is it a special feature to ease IA management?

In case you wonder, Manfred (sorry Manfred to speak for you, but people will also wonder how I got the game [:D]) is indeed a reviewer for the french (paper) mag Pc4war. I'm in charge of the review for the french mag Vae Victis (the two mags are independants from each others, but we are both pbem players, so know each others).

[Paul Vebber]

In a nutshell - yes 7.1.9 in the manual says you can do CAP over a sea area or enemy held area.

Might indeed be an issue with the Ai not paying attention to "pop-up militia".

You don't "load supplies on a ship and move the ship" (not generally - I have had occasions to do that to ensure supplies for a fleet sent out in teh middle of enemy held seas- but it is an exception) you make a "sea line of communications" by putting 1 or more transports in a "chain" of contiguous areas. Supply and regular units will use strategic movement to 'flow' along the chain, using the appropriate trasnsport capacity from each. Once you use any of a transports capacity, it gets "locked" to hat chain and can't move the rest of the turn. You just select the unit(s) and right click on the destination area and they will move. If they don't you need to scroll the map along the route and see where teh bottleneck is - often there will be a "Crossroads" where a previous move intersected your chain and used its capacity, or you missed a link (I do this sometimes when areas are "diagonal" - that doesnt count - the areas have to share a full side). I try to keep reserves of transports in "busy" locales to fill in gaps.

You can move supply or units to specifc areas to use a particular route - but you use the same proceedure, just manully moveing the transported supply or unit along tehdesired portion section by section (or area by area). It is conveinent to use "stack movement" when doing this so you don't have to do this for every individual unit.

[Becket]

Same here.

Pocus:

The air unit's behavior is correct. See manual 7.1.9.

You are correct: the combat analyzer does not factor in militia. Edit: oops, you meant the AI. I thought that had been fixed. I haven't seen the AI send one infantry into a Chinese province in a while.

Someone else will need to respond regarding attaching supply to a transport then moving the transport.

[Marc von Martial]

ORIGINAL: Paul Vebber

ARRRGH I worte a long reply and it got zapped when someone moved teh thread...someone else will have respond...[:@]

[:o]

No worries I fixed it...probably better less wordy [:o]

[IDrinkBeer]

last (yes third point, but thats not an issue), how the AI manage to move supply trucks into his convoys? Each time I attach a supply to a convoy, the convoy cant move, so is it a special feature to ease IA management?

You can move supplies that are on a transport but it is a two-step ( two turn ) process. Move the supplies on the transport on turn 1 ( transport freezes where it is ). Move the transport on turn two ( note: Do not move any more supplies onto or through the transport before doing this ). Move the supplies off the transport ( Can be done on turn two once you have moved the transport ).

That might be what the AI is doing. You just didn't notice that he loaded up the transport on the previous turn.

[Paul Vebber]

If the AI hits a bottle neck whereit doesn;t have supply capacity that turn it often just "leaves the stuff there" and will continueon the next turn. I have bagged supply and combat units the AI leaves "hanging out" that way many times.

Don't think that should be classified a "bug", it doesn't come up all that often.

[Manfred]

yes, I confirm that I was playing against the AI, and that Pocus and I are reviewers [:)]

[Joel Billings]

We thought we fixed the Japanese AI problem where it would attack with only 1 infantry against an area that would generate militia. If it still happens in the release 1.005 version (is this the version you are playing?), then we'd appreciate getting a save game that duplicates this.

The militia at sea bug was something that I remember hearing of in test, but I thought this was also fixed, although I'm less sure of that because it happened only a few times. We'd love a save for that one too.

[Pocus]

thanks for all your answers. Yes my "problem" regarding units staying on board is explained now. I was wondering how to move supply without leaving a transport at sea, and it seems from your answers that it must stay one turn (the transport) anyway before being able to move... so I guess I will have to bit the bullet and have my german transports sunk in the Baltic [;)]

I'm playing 1.005, and I scraped all autosaves for the game with the Japanese attacking alone (I restarted a game, thats why). Sorry for that.

Just a quicky. I find that there is no point in building industries, because you are always starving in resources, and the factory multiplier always let you have more than your share (even with most of europe under control)... Or perhaps I'm missing something? I would have though that the general increase in factory output seen for all the major countries would have been portraited slightly differently in fact... [&:]

[Paul Vebber]

I've found playing the AI as Germany and Japan that having an extra factroy come on line at th right time can help you reach that magic "70" production number ofr auto victory.

I generally buy 2 or 3 factories as the WA early on to help "power through" the big supply surplus they tend to accumulate beofre they come in. They do end up resource starved for a while until I can gain control of the Sourthern Resource area, But then they come in handy again in the end game.

I'll be interested to see if any one comes up any Soviet strategies involving building factories - my hunch is they can't afford to do it, but if they hold off Barbarossa, and get a strong Lend Lease effort in supply, a coupole extra factories could be a nasty surprize on the Germans in the end game.

[Manfred]

here's a savegame from the turn after the bug.
the militia is still at sea with my jap sub, but 2 other WA land units joined the party and are sitting in the middle of the sea without any transports.

couldn't find how to upload a .sav file, so I converted it to a txt file.

[Joel Billings]

Germany could build a factory and see a benefit in 1942 as they will ususally have a stockpile of resources from 1941 to sometime in 1943 depending on what happens. I wouldn't do it, but there would be some benefit if you were willing to give up the early production.

The US usually has excess resources until the US is at x4 production. So building factories for the WA can be a good idea. Of course you are giving up early production that could be going to needed research and/or supplies, so again, there's a cost for building up your factories.

[Becket]

Paul, one of my favorite strategies (not used in the Gold game because I, uh, forgot about it) is to build a factory in the Urals starting on the first turn. It really helps once it's built (usually coincides with invasion), especially since you typically lose two factories off the bat. It also allows you to move factories to the black sea region to do hatch evil plans.

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: Becket

...It also allows you to move factories to the black sea region to do hatch evil plans.

I heard... er... read that! [:-]