Austrian ships not so useless? bug?

[ndrose]

Playing as France, I put my fleet at Corsica, where my experience had been that it would usually be left alone or blockaded by a weak British force (as indeed happened at the beginning). After a few months, however, a large British fleet blockaded me, which was nice to see.

War broke out with Austria, and to my surprise the Austrian fleet sailed out from Venice and landed Charles with a corps on Corsica.

Then the Brits landed some troops too, and things looked ugly for the fleet. Again, nice to see. It was silly of the AI to send Charles, but otherwise, nice aggression! However, the Brits stayed in the rural area and let the Austrians besiege alone. No problem yet, then, I thought; I have 5i in garrison and the Austrian corps can only contain 1i. I attacked the besiegers and was shocked to find several guards and some cavalry!

Did something change in the transport rules, or is this a bug I should post to Mantis?

Nathan Rose

[Jimmer]

Sounds like a bug. Light ships can't carry cav, and the Austrians only have two ship (i.e. 1 infantry).

[MarshallEllis]

Did Austria just bring her light fleet or did she also bring a transport?
 

[ndrose]

It was the beginning of the game, so Austria had just the light fleet with 2 ships. Unfortunately the savefile I have is from a little later, with the troops already on the island. I didn't save until I noticed there was a problem, which wasn't until I saw that the Austrian force was greater than 1i. But it's early enough in the game that, even if you can't see the bug happening, you should be able at least to verify that it happened, since there's no other way those troops could have gotten to Corsica.

One possible complication is that, looking at the situation, it may appear that the Austrian troops could have been carried by British ships, which are also there, along with British troops. However, the Brits came from the other direction, with the Austrians clearly moving from the Adriatic on their own and in their own turn. I also clicked on the Austrian fleet right after the naval move to see if it was really doing what it looked like it was doing, and saw that indeed there was the little round marker that indicates it's carrying troops; which could only have been that guards corps.

I *think*, also, that the British and Austrians didn't ally until after the naval move; you might be able to determine that from the log.

Note also that the corps couldn't have been added to after transport, for two reasons:

1) They have only invasion supply, not sea supply, since I control the port (and there's no enemy land depot).

2) It's too early in the game for them to have built any guards or cavalry, so whatever they have, they brought with them.

I think that eliminates all the ways it could have happened without being a bug, so I'll go ahead and post to Mantis.

[MarshallEllis]

Man, if you can dup this one then send her to me since this would be a doozy! The AI would have to cheat on a few levels here so please watch this one and I will try to create a few games myself and open some easy amphib opps for Austria.
 

[ndrose]

I posted it to Mantis, but since I didn't notice it until I attacked the besiegers, it had cycled through a month of autosaves; so the naval phase in which the Austrians actually did this was gone. I'll experiment a bit with reconstructing that. The savefile I posted at Mantis does show the Austrian guard corps ensconced on Corsica, so it's clear what happened.

[ndrose]

Note added to Mantis. I was able to replicate this from Jan 05.