HQ/SU Bug

[Michael T]

Can someone please have a look at my server game against Pelton. MichaelT v PeltonX.


When I opened my previous turn 86 (first Feb 1943 turn) I noticed I had around 15 Army HQ's displaced around 10 hexes to the rear. I don't know why this happened. As it was not that big a deal I just played the turn thru and decided to wait and see what happend this turn.

This turn, 87 I now find that I have had around ~200 Sapper Reg that were assigned to Rifle/Cav/Arm/Mech Corp revert back to their parent HQ!

This means I will lose over 200AP reassigning them. Also I can't reassign them all back in one go as I don't have the AP avaiable to do it in one go so this means my combat power is significantly affected untill I can reassign them. And will it happen again?

Is it possible to fix this or grant me some AP to reassign them back to the Corps?

I have loaded this turn up twice without saving. I did not want to save the file.

I am running the latest beta patch.

[Joel Billings]

Is there any explanation for why the HQ's were displaced? Were they in positions where they could have ended up next to Axis units? Were the HQ's displaced the ones that sucked up the Sapper Rgts? The Army HQ's want to have 3 engineer units attached to them and will move units automatically (rule 7.6.3.3). Not sure if something about the displacement could have caused the mass movement of Sappers.

[Michael T]

No reason why the HQ's should have displaced. They were all safe, 4 to 5 hexes from the front. And it occured along the entire length of the front. But not every HQ, maybe ~30%

Both displaced and non displaced HQ's seem to have taken back the Sappers.

As for the HQ's wanting 3 Reg. Well I have had no such problems previously. All HQ's are locked. I have spent a lot of time and AP getting these Sappers where I want them. So I have been paying pretty close attention to them. There have been no issues at all until last turn. Some HQ's now have 9 or more Sappers returned. Some Corps were assigned to Stavka and Moscow MD. The sappers assigned have also returned. But as you can see not every Corp has suffered this problem.

It has only occured since the last beta patch. Also the first Feb turn in 1943 is a big turn for upgrades. Not sure if that is pertinent or not.

[elmo3]

I downloaded turn 86 and 87 and will look at the files tomorrow if time permits. Not sure anything can be done for your game though. I can restore it to turn 86 if that is OK with you and Pelton but you may have the same problem again.

[Michael T]

Well I am happy to go back to T86 IF you find a problem and a fix is possible. But if nothing can be done I see no point in going back to T86.

However if I just go on from T87 as is are you saying that SU assignment to Corp is a grey area?

I guess best to just wait and see what you make of it first. And then decide what to do. But a 200 AP hit is pretty severe. If a bug is found and a fix done can not you just add an agreed extra amount of AP to my total?

I know this game pretty well. I am fairly sure that there is a bug here. I see no reason why around 200 assigned Sappers would suddenly all return to the parent HQ.

Bottom line is that if you guys say nothing is wrong then I will just suck it up and go on. But I doubt I will be reassigning any SU units anymore.

Lets see what you find first.

Thanks for your attention to it.

[elmo3]

It certainly sounds like a bug, but I'm just not sure how quickly a fix will come even if we confirm that. No idea if there is a way to give you 200 AP either. Pavel might know but he had a death in his family and is offline for an undetermined amount of time.

[Michael T]

Sorry to hear about Pavel's loss.

I am happy to wait and see what transpires. This thing with the sappers going back to the HQ is a rather large problem for me. My opponent is well entrenched. I need all those sappers assigned to Corp to dislodge him. So if a bug is found I think it certainly prudent to wait until a fix is put out. Of course I will be in contact with Pelton. He has work issues ATM so the turns have been slowish anyhow.

If it turns out to be RAW and it my own fault somehow then no issue and I will play on. But I think there is a bug.

I will wait for now.

If I get the time I will run some of my own tests on a test game. Might help.

[Michael T]

I guess the first question would be - What situations will cause SU assigned to Combat Units to revert back to a HQ?

I know breaking down the Combat unit does this, but I did not do that.
If the HQ was not locked this could happen. But all my HQ's are locked.

Anyone know of anything else?

[gingerbread]

Any easy discernible pattern to which corps kept their SU and which did not?

BTW, if it occurred during logistics phase, it is Pelton's .exe version that is relevant (listed in event log).

[Michael T]

Well I would have to look at T86 again, but IIRC all of either North or North Western Front HQ's were displaced (the yellow guys) along with all the HQ's I still had attached to Stavka, Plus lots of others that I can't remember. By displaced I mean they were not where I last left them in T85. They had somehow been moved around 5 to 10 hexes east. But they had 50MP available. So I just moved them back. None were displaced in T86. It seems that only HQ's that had Corp's were displaced. I have no Corp units in the Western Front or Crimea Fronts and none of those HQ's were displaced.

It seems all sappers attached to those Corp displaced were returned to the Army HQ's. But there are HQ's that were not displaced that have also had sappers returned. I would really need to see T86 again as I only noticed the sapper problem in T87. It may well have begun in T86. It is suffice to say that out of 272 sapper Regs in my OOB that 90% would have been assigned to a Corp in T85. Now in T87 the vast majority have been returned to the Army HQ's.

I saw the HQ displacment thing in my T86.

I only noticed the sapper problem in T87. But I think it may have began in T86 upon reflection.

I believe these two turns were the first ones I received from Pelton after the installation of 1.06.25

[elmo3]

I took a first look at the files. Don't see the HQ's out of place because the backup save is from the start of Axis turn 87, and since you moved them back up in turn 86 they aren't out of place. Nothing I can do about that problem.

And I was incorrect above about the downloaded files. We can't go back to turn 86 since the backup save is from the Axis start of turn 87 and the current save is the start of your turn 87. Will look at the sapper issue next.

[elmo3]

Please put your game on hold while Gary takes a look at the issue. However without a save that repeats the problem it will be very difficult for him to make a fix. In the future if you see something that looks like a clear bug then stop the game so we can try to reproduce it from the files.

[Michael T]

Yes I should have stopped and reported at T86. But was just hoping the HQ thing was an aberation. If I had realized that the sappers were returning I would have stopped immeadiately.

I blame the addiction factor of WITE....

Anyway I will do as you ask.

Thanks

[Joel Billings]

I spoke with Gary about this. He said it sounds like somehow the AI incorrectly took hold of your HQ's and moved them back and took out the support units at that time. Why the AI would move Army HQ's 10 hexes in the rear (and we assume more than 5 hexes from units reporting to them) is a total mystery as he can't think why this would ever be done by the AI). It could also be due to some very bad corruption of some unknown kind. However, without a save, Gary has no idea how to find this. He spent 20-30 minutes looking at code he thought might cause it, but it's a needle in a very large haystack without a save. Basically if you ever see something obviously wrong where the computer has moved some of your units, you need to stop immediately (don't save if on the multiplayer) and report the problem. If you do this, we have a chance to back up through the prior player-turn save and see if we can identify where the problem is happening. We're very sorry about the bug, but really can't do anything about it until we get more information (additional reports of the same kind of bug) and most importantly a save (or ability to backup a turn on the server before you've moved on).

As for giving APs, that's something that Gary's not in a position to do. Pavel was able to jump through a few hoops and fix some things with special exes in the past, but Pavel is unavailable and his to do list is getting very long while he is away so I'm afraid you're going to have to chalk this one up to fortunes of war. Again, I'm really sorry that you had this problem. If you, or anyone else, ever sees anything like it again, please stop and let us know ASAP and we'll jump on it.

[Michael T]

Poof, 200 AP gone [X(] and 3 to 4 turns of diminished offensive clout [:(] Ouch.

Thanks for looking at it. Appreciate your efforts muchly. I will see what happens over the next few turns.

[Michael T]

Just FYI I have a screenie of my game from T85. The Northwest Front Army HQ's (4 of them) are circled in Green. The Front HQ and Air Army HQ are circled in Yellow. The Blue circles show the approximate locations of the Army HQ's in my T86. I think the only attack Pelton did in his T86 was to retreat the exposed Tank Corp. There is no RAW reason that I know of for the HQ's to move where they did. I have never noticed any behaviour like this before.

[Michael T]

I have re opened my turn and done a thorough count of returned sappers. Including battalions and regs its over 290. Virtually all my Corp have lost their support units.

I propose this.

I have around 50 Tk X laying around in the rear doing nothing without the AP or Truck pool to convert them to Corp. If I make them static and a few other units static I can muster close to 200AP. I can reassign most of my Sappers in one go. This means I can keep attacking. Which is my main concern.

If and when Pavel returns perhaps he can give me enough AP to mobilize all my static units or just mobilze them again for me. I don't have any static units on the map right now. If Pavel can't help me then my bad luck but its the lessor of two evils.

So my sappers will be reassigned to Corp again. I will watch them very closely and if the problem re surfaces I will hold up the game again.

Of course any reimbursement of AP or remobilizing of my static units would have to come with Peltons blessing. I hope he would see that it is only fair.

So lets see what happens now.

[Joel Billings]

Gary did tell me that the only way he could see the AI moving the HQ's back is if it was expecting to do a major pull back. Not sure why all of a sudden it would decide it should do that in your case, and then only move the HQ's and not the units. Of course, stranger things have happened so you never know. I almost hope that the Sappers return to the HQ's so that we can get a save and hopefully figure out why it happened.

[Michael T]

Well, we may have the reason for the Sapper returns. All my HQ's should be locked as I said. Would you beleive they are all, inc Front HQ's set to Zero (0), NOT locked!!!

So it would appear that after the displacment of some of my HQ's they were all reset to Zero from the locked setting. This makes sense now in so much for the Sapper returns as per th rules you cited above. And I bet the few Corp that kept their Sappers were under HQ's that already had 3 Sappers assigned to them. So I am confident that my Sappers will now remain with the Corp as long as the HQ's remain locked.

Is it possible that the latest beta has reset all HQ's to zero that were locked?

I am going to try and test this tomorrow.

[elmo3]

I passed this on to Gary and Joel. Obviously if you, or anyone else, can repeat this in a save file for one of your games it will greatly help in tracking it down.