Cav/LightInf auto-foraging?

[NeverMan]

I attacked an area that had a depot garrison and a city garrison. Obviously I wanted to attack the city afterward but I couldn't. It appears that attacking a depot garrison made my cavalry and light infantry unit auto-forage (they were at normal supply before the battle)!!!???

I had other corps there (INF) that did not suffer from the same problem AND I had plenty of depots and money.

Is this in the rules or is this a bug?

[Jimmer]

It's neither. More of a design flaw (in the computer version).

A corps will always auto-forage at the end of land movement if it has enough movement left to auto-forage.

The solution is to use up its movement, if possible by wasted moving.

A long-term fix would be to add a check box to every corps telling it to use depot supply this turn, even if eligible for auto-foraging.

[bresh]

Well rule is if you use unused movement points to forage, by any corps in the area, you cant siege.
Its an EIA rule, case you wonder, i dont recall witch, but you could try check a online rulebook.
Remember to move corps into City(Siege mode) before you end your move-turn, and before using autoforage/forage the corps.

Regards
Bresh

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: bresh

Well rule is if you use unused movement points to forage, by any corps in the area, you cant siege.
Its an EIA rule, case you wonder, i dont recall witch, but you could try check a online rulebook.
Remember to move corps into City(Siege mode) before you end your move-turn, and before using autoforage/forage the corps.

Regards
Bresh

1. Yes, I know THAT rule but I DIDN'T CHOOSE TO FORAGE, it just foraged FOR ME WITHOUT ASKING!
2. I couldn't move INTO THE CITY because the garrisoned depot was blocking that move.

Marshall, I'm not sure why or how this HORRIBLE design decision got into the game or why it's still there, CAN WE PLEASE FIX THIS!!??

[bresh]

Neverman no point using Caps, thats just to annoy people.

I only answear based on the info you post, you left out those details till your reply.
You should have accepted to destroy the depot, then you should have been able to move the corps into the city.
I can not see from your post if you at any point during your move chose the autoforage buttom, thus by accident autoforage the units before moving them into city(siege mode).

Regards
Bresh

[MarshallEllis]

Neverman:

Did you eat the depot and supply?
Did you press Autoforage?
IF it can autoforage at the end of the land phase then it will UNLESS it is about to be ina a battle???
Let me know...

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Neverman:

Did you eat the depot and supply?
Did you press Autoforage?
IF it can autoforage at the end of the land phase then it will UNLESS it is about to be ina a battle???
Let me know...

1. It was a garrisoned depot, as I stated in the OP.
2. I didn't use the auto-forage button.
3. I did not use the autoforage button and it was a garrisoned depot.
4. The computer never asked me to "eat" the depot.

It was not the end of the land phase. During the land phase I tried to move into the city (after the battle with the garrisoned depot) and it would not let me (it would not even let my corps who paid for normal supply in the same stack move into the city to attack).

[MarshallEllis]

Hmmmm? Can you send me your game then tell me how to dupe? I would like to see this...IF you want?

[Jimmer]

I cannot believe you have never seen this before. I have seen it literally hundreds of times. It has always worked this way.

If you don't want to forage using movement points, then make sure you cannot at the time you enter the battle. The corps should use its last movement point to enter the territory in question (although, this is sometimes difficult to accomplish). If you use the auto-forage button OR if you let the system use it for you, then this situation will happen.

The situation is less common for corps that only move 3 spaces than for French corps and cavalry corps. When one enters battle with a 3-movement corps, one has 2 movement left (at most). The forage value of the area being entered would have to be 5 or higher in order for this corps to auto-forage. However, if the corps has 5 movement left, then the area can be as low as a 3 area and still allow auto-foraging.

Marshall, this is one of those bookkeeping issues that really shouldn't exist. But, I understand why it does in the code. However, there may be a simple fix: Create a check box on every corps that says "do not forage this corps this turn". If this were honored by the game, then this problem would evaporate.

[bresh]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

I cannot believe you have never seen this before. I have seen it literally hundreds of times. It has always worked this way.

If you don't want to forage using movement points, then make sure you cannot at the time you enter the battle. The corps should use its last movement point to enter the territory in question (although, this is sometimes difficult to accomplish). If you use the auto-forage button OR if you let the system use it for you, then this situation will happen.

The situation is less common for corps that only move 3 spaces than for French corps and cavalry corps. When one enters battle with a 3-movement corps, one has 2 movement left (at most). The forage value of the area being entered would have to be 5 or higher in order for this corps to auto-forage. However, if the corps has 5 movement left, then the area can be as low as a 3 area and still allow auto-foraging.

Marshall, this is one of those bookkeeping issues that really shouldn't exist. But, I understand why it does in the code. However, there may be a simple fix: Create a check box on every corps that says "do not forage this corps this turn". If this were honored by the game, then this problem would evaporate.

The checkbox should probaly say pay supply, and then during end phase step forage only if no valid depot avaible.
As far as i understand this issue, the problem is the game rolled a forage as the endphase using unused movement point ?
I never encountered that the end-phase used unspend movement points for forage(useally it only happens if out of supply, and those times i dont see MP's used for it).

Regards
Bresh

[MarshallEllis]

I'll look into this for a future change...

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

The corps should use its last movement point to enter the territory in question (although, this is sometimes difficult to accomplish).

This is just ridiculous, sorry, it just is.

You should only forage IF you either 1) hit the button for that corps or 2) at the end of the phase you can't pay for supply to that corps.

This just needs to be fixed and SOON...

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

The corps should use its last movement point to enter the territory in question (although, this is sometimes difficult to accomplish).

This is just ridiculous, sorry, it just is.

You should only forage IF you either 1) hit the button for that corps or 2) at the end of the phase you can't pay for supply to that corps.

This just needs to be fixed and SOON...

I had to chuckle about this: I just today read an article (in a series) about logical fallacies, and this statement (bolded) is a perfect example of the fallacy of the "question-begging epithet". Life's little coincidences are indeed truly amazing at times. (The fallacy caught my attention because I do it all the time -- I really have to correct that in myself.)

It's hardly a high priority, though. While you are correct that it should be fixed (or, worked around, perhaps per my suggested change), I posted a thread way back at 1.01 about it, and few have complained loudly since.

Marshall, if you implement a "check-box" kind of feature as the fix for this, it would be REALLY nice if a player could select an ARMY in an area, in addition to just a corps. Something like right-clicking the area targetted by your attack and being able to check all of the sub-boxes with just one more click.

However, if you DO implement this, make sure the box gets unchecked at the end of your land movement phase (possibly while checking the value, in fact). It would be potentially VERY damaging to a player's finances if these values were held over from turn to turn.

By the way, for the lurkers: If you move a corps into a field combat which potentially has a siege combat coming after the field battle, and you have a corps you really DO want to forage (but not use movement points), the only way to do it is to select the corps and use the "Forage" button. Be careful: It's right next to the "Auto-forage All" button.

Anyhow, when you do a standard forage, it always asks you whether you want to use unused movement. You MUST say no, or else you will not be allowed to besiege the city with that corps or any other part of that army (until the next month).

This last would not be very common. Realistically, only France or Turkey is likely to ever use it. But, still, it DOES happen.

[NeverMan]

Jimmer,

LOL, yes, the statement (on it's own) is a logical fallacy, no doubt, good job you passed PHIL101.

Anyways, does this make sense to anyone? It doesn't make sense to me considering that if you want to forage you have a button to do so, so unless there exists a button to pay supply normally this is a problem that needs to be corrected. Why forage before the movement phase has ended? That's really what gets me.

This can have major game changing impacts. What if I couldn't get all my corps there due to the "must use all movement points".

[MarshallEllis]

I will look to see is some type of order/checkbox can be applied here since I can see a few possibilities!

1. Some folks may not want this unit to pay for supply (It may be 3 spaces away in winter = 6$).
2. Some folks may want to pay for supply so that it can try an assault!

Both of these should be subject to the player's choice!

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

I will look to see is some type of order/checkbox can be applied here since I can see a few possibilities!

1. Some folks may not want this unit to pay for supply (It may be 3 spaces away in winter = 6$).
2. Some folks may want to pay for supply so that it can try an assault!

Both of these should be subject to the player's choice!

Both of these are already available except for the aforementioned BUG (that's what it is to me).

If they want it to forage then all they have to do is click the "forage button" for that unit (already available). If they want to pay by normal supply.. do nothing!

I don't see the need for order/checkboxes, can someone help me understand this better?

[pzgndr]

I cannot believe you have never seen this before. I have seen it literally hundreds of times. It has always worked this way.

Very true, and after all this time I've gotten used to it and would hardly call it a "crisis" at this point. I agree with Marshall's solution and would prefer having an explicit option to pay for supply or not pay for supply, to prevent cases of auto-foraging restricting seige opportunities. There are still lots of more important issues to resolve.

Neverman no point using Caps, thats just to annoy people.

bresh, caps or no caps, it doesn't make much difference? I find it amusing that such a highly experienced player discovers something like this auto-foraging feature 20 months after release and then crys foul. [;)]

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

I cannot believe you have never seen this before. I have seen it literally hundreds of times. It has always worked this way.

Very true, and after all this time I've gotten used to it and would hardly call it a "crisis" at this point. I agree with Marshall's solution and would prefer having an explicit option to pay for supply or not pay for supply, to prevent cases of auto-foraging restricting seige opportunities. There are still lots of more important issues to resolve.

Neverman no point using Caps, thats just to annoy people.

bresh, caps or no caps, it doesn't make much difference? I find it amusing that such a highly experienced player discovers something like this auto-foraging feature 20 months after release and then crys foul. [;)]

Actually, I've seen it before I had just assumed it got fixed. I remember when Jimmer first discovered this.

Are you going to troll even my bug-finding threads too? Sad life.

The auto-forage end of land phase "feature" should only work on corps not in range of a depot (aka, not in supply). This is a BUG and should be described as such.

Why would the computer auto-forage corps that 1) The player didn't say to auto-forage with the already implemented auto-forage button and 2) are in range of normal supply.

Why it's a bug:

Corps in range of normal supply should be paid for with normal supply at the end of the land phase unless otherwise stated by the player. The way this game is implemented is that ALL corps WITHIN range of a depot (part of a vaild supply chain) should be paid for with normal supply UNLESS otherwise stated by the player. In my case I didn't state that so it's a BUG!

It's that simple right?

I don't understand the need for another bulky mechanism here, the UI is already bad enough why are you trying to make it worse?

It's just bad practice to add code to fix something that can just as easily be fixed by subtracting code.

[pzgndr]

Why it's a bug:

No. A game feature working as designed is NOT a software bug. Sorry.

The as-designed feature is not optimal and should be reconsidered, and Marshall has agreed to work on some type of order/checkbox. This should be sufficient to move on...

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

Jimmer,

LOL, yes, the statement (on it's own) is a logical fallacy, no doubt, good job you passed PHIL101.

Anyways, does this make sense to anyone? It doesn't make sense to me considering that if you want to forage you have a button to do so, so unless there exists a button to pay supply normally this is a problem that needs to be corrected. Why forage before the movement phase has ended? That's really what gets me.

This can have major game changing impacts. What if I couldn't get all my corps there due to the "must use all movement points".

When designing the game, Marshall would have had to make a choice between accuracy (manually deal with each corps) or easy of use (allow the game to auto-forage and pay for supply at the end of movement). He chose the latter.

The worst that can happen with the current model is you will take one extra month to conquer the city. That's not much of an impact unless your assault requires maximum speed.

Marshall, one thing is for sure: The game is getting better! A year ago, we couldn't even entertain fixing this, because game-stopping bugs were so prevalent we couldn't even think up a solution. But, now, we're able to focus in on some relatively minor issues like this.