Artillery Support Bug?

[Telumar]

I wonder if anyone, except me and my e-mail opponent, observed this.

When i order a mere bombardment with an artillery unit it should consume 10% supply per combat round, right?

Now, the following happened:

I ordered a ground attack at minimal losses against one hex and a bombardment at minimize losses against an other hex. The artillery unit that has been ordered a mere bombardment appeared in the ground combat's combat report as attacking. The ground combat lastet one combat round. As did the mere bombardment. But the artillery unit that had been ordered the mere bombardment mission lost 20% supply. Looks odd. So i repeated this procedure with toaw_log on and removed all artillery support from the ground attack - and toaw_log tells me:

The ground attack was indeed supported by the artillery unit (which shouldn't be). It happens only with cooperative units. Non-cooperative artillery doesn't support the ground battle.

I'd say this is a bug.

[Nebukadnezar]

Yes, it was observed at another forum (but I forgot to report it here):

http://www.si-games.com/forums/showpost ... tcount=103


(One example for this behaviour of artillery is marked red in both combat reports)

[Oberst_Klink]

Just curious, which version? The latest Alfa 3.4.191 or the original Beta? Whatever it is... now I have to check it out, too

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

I wonder if anyone, except me and my e-mail opponent, observed this.

When i order a mere bombardment with an artillery unit it should consume 10% supply per combat round, right?

Now, the following happened:

I ordered a ground attack at minimal losses against one hex and a bombardment at minimize losses against an other hex. The artillery unit that has been ordered a mere bombardment appeared in the ground combat's combat report as attacking. The ground combat lastet one combat round. As did the mere bombardment. But the artillery unit that had been ordered the mere bombardment mission lost 20% supply. Looks odd. So i repeated this procedure with toaw_log on and removed all artillery support from the ground attack - and toaw_log tells me:

The ground attack was indeed supported by the artillery unit (which shouldn't be). It happens only with cooperative units. Non-cooperative artillery doesn't support the ground battle.

I'd say this is a bug.

Sounds to me like it was cooperative. Or there was a disengagement attack generated by the defender's retreat.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Nebukadnezar

Yes, it was observed at another forum (but I forgot to report it here):

http://www.si-games.com/forums/showpost ... tcount=103


(One example for this behaviour of artillery is marked red in both combat reports)

Ich grüsse Euch!

Oh oh..you're right. I totally forgot about this. I've been believing Pionier forwarded it to Ralph, but obviously he didn't.

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

Just curious, which version? The latest Alfa 3.4.191 or the original Beta? Whatever it is... now I have to check it out, too

Tested it in both, the initial Beta 3.4.173 and the latest Alpha 3.4.191

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: Telumar

I wonder if anyone, except me and my e-mail opponent, observed this.

When i order a mere bombardment with an artillery unit it should consume 10% supply per combat round, right?

Now, the following happened:

I ordered a ground attack at minimal losses against one hex and a bombardment at minimize losses against an other hex. The artillery unit that has been ordered a mere bombardment appeared in the ground combat's combat report as attacking. The ground combat lastet one combat round. As did the mere bombardment. But the artillery unit that had been ordered the mere bombardment mission lost 20% supply. Looks odd. So i repeated this procedure with toaw_log on and removed all artillery support from the ground attack - and toaw_log tells me:

The ground attack was indeed supported by the artillery unit (which shouldn't be). It happens only with cooperative units. Non-cooperative artillery doesn't support the ground battle.

I'd say this is a bug.

Sounds to me like it was cooperative. Or there was a disengagement attack generated by the defender's retreat.

Of course it was cooperative. And there was no disengagement attack whatsoever. You miss the point.

I wrote "So i repeated this procedure with toaw_log on and removed all artillery support from the ground attack". I did a deliberate test with just those two attacks, no other artillery, air whatsoever involved. Artillery that has been ordered to a mere bombardment against hex A participates directly in a battle in hex B with cooperative units (not "xy supports".., no the combat report states "xy attacks.."). According to toaw_log it really participated in that attack (i know this because there was no artillery support to that attack and toaw_log states "132 kg/min weight of long range fire...") and it lost 20% supply instead of 10%. And it was one combat round.

[ogar]

I'll add on what I found -
besides stumbling onto this while playing Telumar using 3.4.191, I also tested a round using 3.4.173 and a different scenario (because 173 supports toawlog). In each test, the 'problem' artillery unit is assigned a directed fire bombardment on a hex; other units are assigned ground assaults, other artillery bombardments.
The 'problem' unit does its assigned bombardment. It also joins in as attacker to any attack within its range where a co-operating unit is involved. (The first instance I saw this had 4 such attacks plus its bombardment.)

The planned bombardment may not be the first combat resolved in a round; when I did my second test on this, I found that the 'problem' unit attacked along with a ground assault, and then the next combat was the directed bombardment, and the last combat of the round was the counter-example - a ground assault in range but with non-cooperating units. The 'problem' unit did not participate with the non-cooperating units; so that piece is working.

It acts as though during the attack resolution routine, the artillery unit is 'assigned' attack mode -- and goes after any attack within range and cooperation. To me, this seems a lot like when an air unit 'flips' from a directed air bombardment into 'combat support mode' either at the end of a player's turn or when a player cancels the planned attack.

Just my guess here, but maybe the default mode of the unit is not being saved during the combat, and the unit defaults into the most recent mode (sorry for the pseudo-pseudo-code).

I have not gone back to 3.2 to see if I could find this effect.

HTH
and in the meantime, be wewy wewy careful when you set up bombardments...

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Of course it was cooperative. And there was no disengagement attack whatsoever. You miss the point.

I wrote "So i repeated this procedure with toaw_log on and removed all artillery support from the ground attack". I did a deliberate test with just those two attacks, no other artillery, air whatsoever involved. Artillery that has been ordered to a mere bombardment against hex A participates directly in a battle in hex B with cooperative units (not "xy supports".., no the combat report states "xy attacks.."). According to toaw_log it really participated in that attack (i know this because there was no artillery support to that attack and toaw_log states "132 kg/min weight of long range fire...") and it lost 20% supply instead of 10%. And it was one combat round.

Yes, that occurred to me after I posted. However, I've tried to recreate this with a test scenario and I haven't been able to do so. Bombarding artillery doesn't support (or directly attack) nearby, in-range, assaults. And they lose 10% supply, not 20%. So, at least, the above isn't the general case. Something weird has to trigger it. But what?

[Telumar]

Ah.. i know now why you couldn't reproduce it.

In my test run i could reproduce it. With the attached test scenario (remove the .txt ending) do the following:


First Combat Round:

Set the artillery unit to Tactical Reserve.
Use "Inf 1", the unit in the hex above the artillery unit, to attack the unit adjacent to it.
Resolve combat.


Second Combat Round:

Order "Inf 1" to again attack the unit adjacent to it
Order the Artillery unit to bombard the other infantry unit.
Watch the bug in its "glory"...


=> The bug only occurs when the artillery unit in question has been set to a supporting deployment before.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

=> The bug only occurs when the artillery unit in question has been set to a supporting deployment before.

I can reproduce it in my test scenario if the above is true - in some cases. The assault must occur before the bombardment, and that only seems to be possible if the assault is at minimize losses. I'll check some more.

Regardless, this gives an easy workaround: put the bombarding artillery in mobile mode before assigning it to bombard. So it probably can wait to be addressed by a code fix till 3.5.

[Telumar]

that only seems to be possible if the assault is at minimize losses

Sorry Bob, loss settings seem to play no role.

Regardless, this gives an easy workaround: put the bombarding artillery in mobile mode before assigning it to bombard

Not that easy... If the artillery unit has been dug in on turn 1 and ordered to bombard unit A in turn 2 it also supports a ground attack against unit B as it's been on a supporting deployment at the start of the turn. It even doesn't need to actually fire in defensive support during the enemy turn 1. (On turn 1 this hasn't been the case.)
To avoid the bug, the artillery unit would have to be in mobile deployment at the end of the turn, so that its "status" is "cleared" again at the beginning of the next turn. Then however, the bug will occur as soon as it's been set to a supporting deployment.

Now, i'll see later if this bug also occurs with naval and air units.

So it probably can wait to be addressed by a code fix till 3.5.

I don't know. Better delay the patch until the issue is solved (and all of toaw community will hate me.. lol) Seriously, the decision is on you and Ralph. But i, and i think some more people here, consider it a serious issue.

[ogar]

Curtis,

I think you're drawing an incorrect conclusion from your test.

In both of my tests with different scenarios, the artillery unit was put in mobile mode in the round before being assigned to bombard. In one test (Anzio) the unit stayed in mobile mode the entire turn before the turn it was assigned to bombard. In the other test (Rimini) it was in D mode when I started the turn, and I assigned it to bombard.

Are you using a published scenario or a test base scenario ? I would not rule out the possibility of a designer choice either increasing the possibility of this effect, or decreasing the possibility of this effect occurring.

I do think this needs further attention before 3.4 is finalized as it does strongly impact artillery in recent published scenarios. What other scenarios it impacts, and whether it carries over to air and/or naval units are other questions, waiting for test results.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: ogar


Are you using a published scenario or a test base scenario ? I would not rule out the possibility of a designer choice either increasing the possibility of this effect, or decreasing the possibility of this effect occurring.

Nevertheless, the test scenario attached to my pre-previous post uses the easiest set-up.

Also note that i've done tests with 3.2, too. And there the bug also occurs. Obviously it's been there before, so that we can rule out that any of the engine/combat model/turn order changes in 3.4 caused the bug.

[Telumar]

Did some further testing with air and naval units.

The good news first: Air units are not affected by the bug.

Now for the bad news: Naval units are. Pretty much in the same way like artillery.

For naval units there is no Workaround as proposed by Bob as they are always in a supporting deployment so to speak.

Attached the test scenario. Remove the .txt file extension.

[ogar]

I also did some more testing...

I used Cobra 44 in 3.4.173 with new supply new order rules and 3.2.29 with the old rules.
I encountered the bug in both tests; I saw the attack order in the combat report, in the toawlog and in the supply usage.

I tried Curtis' suggestion of 'mobiling' the unit first, but this scenario starts with most of the units already dug in (any mobile units are out of range). I flipped the chosen artillery unit to mobile, and 'wasted' a round by attacking with a ground unit several hexes away -- out of its range. No support or attack as expected.
When I set the unit to bombard one hex, and set up an attack on another hex within its range - it attacked both hexes, one as the only bombardment, and the other along with the ground units attacking.

Same effects in both the 3.4 and 3.2 versions, so I support Tel's finding that the problem pre-dates any new coding changes.

I'll guess here that it was the new supply rules -- which have made me pay closer attention to how I play -- that make this more apparent, but based on these tests, they are not the cause of the problem.

I also think that given the scope of this problem and its impact under the new rules that this needs fixing before 3.4 is released in a final form. Isnt this why there's a public beta test going on ?

[1_Lzard]

Stefan,

Your telling us that this 'bug' has been around since the beginning?

[Curtis Lemay]

Let's be clear: if we make a code change, we go to the back of the line for the build. With the holidays coming, that probably means next year for the final release.

We don't even seem to have a handle on its cause yet, and it's been around at least since 3.2.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

... and it's been around at least since 3.2.

Check that - I've reproduced it in ACOW. I'm not going to bother with TOAW I, but I wouldn't bet against it.

[Telumar]

Anything from Ralph yet?

[Oberst_Klink]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Anything from Ralph yet?

Thanksgiving across the pond... they'll all gobble down mountains of pumpkin pie, stuffing, veg and of course a Gobbler