RTB change/bug

[joshuamnave]

Under the new version, when cycling through units during the return to base phase, the UI will now cycle through all CP units that are sentried as well as units that actually need to return to base. Sometimes the CP units will display on top of the other naval units, making it hard to find the units that actually need to RTB. This has caused me to inadvertently take several CP units off of sentry during the RTB phase and the game won't let you put them back on sentry status until the following turn.

It will also now allow you to return CP's to base that were not taken off of sentry status in the stay at sea phase, which is a nice bonus, but having to cycle through all of the British and US CP's at the end of each turn to find every allied ship at sea is a major PITA.

[paulderynck]

The behavior you describe is the result of the bug fix where sentry CPs were returning to base and messing up production, and/or if all naval units stayed at sea, you could not end the phase without RTBing at least one CP. It had gone undiscovered until someone provided a save game in which they wanted every one of their naval units to stay at sea.

I've encountered the same issue and have found the following to be helpful.
- if you already know all your CPs you want at sea are already on sentry, stay away from the zero box since any other ships there must and will be up for RTB.
- start with the 1 box for determining whether the ships will remain, any you click on will drop a box, which makes it easier to see the effect of all decisions as you work your way up

Make greater use of the NRD and its filters. You can also issue commands to the ships by clicking on them in the NRD and the unit info panel will show if they are staying or leaving.

The problem of not being able to reset a CP to sentry in the RTB phase will be discussed with Steve.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Zartacla

This has caused me to inadvertently take several CP units off of sentry during the RTB phase and the game won't let you put them back on sentry status until the following turn.

Update: This is not happening in the latest beta, you can toggle them between Return and Stay with left click and putting them back on Sentry with right click.

So next public beta release should fix the issue (and, sorry, I don't know when that will be). Accidentally changing them will remain - due to the bug fix mentioned, but putting them back to sentry will work.

There was a recent discussion that confirmed the design intent always was to allow a player to change his mind in the RTB step as to whether a CP stayed on Sentry or not, even though the code initially performed otherwise in the public release.

[joshuamnave]

I'm happy with the change letting you RTB a sentried convoy even if you forgot to take it off sentry in the stay at sea phase.

Staying away from the zero box in a sea zone with sentried CP's seems like a particularly bad way to defend the convoy lines. That's not a reasonable workaround. The 2 real issues are:
1) cycling through units in the RTB phase should skip sentried CP's. Having them cycle with the rest of the sea units dramatically increases the amount of time and effort involved in what is already a repetitive and mostly static task. Convoy protection is a chore to begin with, this just makes it much more so.
2) surface ships hide under the convoys, so when cycling through units as above, you have to check each stack or sea zone to see if it's just cp's or if there's a ship or two you forgot about. This adds even more time to the process and can cause the inadvertent switch to non sentry mode. The second part will be less of an issue once the fix letting you put cp's on sentry during RTB goes live.

[paulderynck]

You misunderstand. I meant you don't necessarily have to do anything with the units in the zero box in the Stay at Sea phase.

The non-CP units must RTB, if in the zero box.

Then in RTB you use the green arrow to get to whoever is yet to RTB.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zartacla

I'm happy with the change letting you RTB a sentried convoy even if you forgot to take it off sentry in the stay at sea phase.

Staying away from the zero box in a sea zone with sentried CP's seems like a particularly bad way to defend the convoy lines. That's not a reasonable workaround. The 2 real issues are:
1) cycling through units in the RTB phase should skip sentried CP's. Having them cycle with the rest of the sea units dramatically increases the amount of time and effort involved in what is already a repetitive and mostly static task. Convoy protection is a chore to begin with, this just makes it much more so.
2) surface ships hide under the convoys, so when cycling through units as above, you have to check each stack or sea zone to see if it's just cp's or if there's a ship or two you forgot about. This adds even more time to the process and can cause the inadvertent switch to non sentry mode. The second part will be less of an issue once the fix letting you put cp's on sentry during RTB goes live.

Try using the Naval Review Details and the Naval Review Summary in combination to find units that need to return to base.

If you set them up side by side, you can cycle through all the sea areas using the NRS form. The NRD will update as you click on each sea area in the NRS form. Set the filters to Mine + Subs. Because the form only lets you see 8 sea areas at a time, you will probably have to click on Next on the NRS form to go through all the sea areas.

The design for those two forms was made so they could be placed side by side on a 1024 by 768 monitor. But is you have a larger monitor, then you can resize the NRD form, making it taller so you can see more units at once.

Note that the NRS form gives you a count of the number of each unit type in each sea area, so you could easily ignore those which only have convoys.

[BrianSchick]

Same bug. I cannot end the naval return to base phase without returning to base at least one of the CPs I don't want returning.

[gw15]

I concur with Steve. These forms make it easy. In solitaire play I don't seem to have problems as described above. Convoys work fine. What I have a hard time making easy is to decide what convoys to return (not how to return them) if playing the CW. I am always flipping between the production screen to find out what convoys are unused and not needed. Even during naval movement I have to do the same thing to make sure the convoy lines are proper. I remember someone a while back described a neat process to make it easy but I cannot find the post. Anyway, I have found no bugs here.
Paul and I had some during netplay Barb though.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: BrianSchick

Same bug. I cannot end the naval return to base phase without returning to base at least one of the CPs I don't want returning.

If I load the game, there is no problem. The "end phase" button blinks direct after loading this game and I can terminate the return to base phase...

This is in the current testers version, 1.3.3.4, so expect this one to be cleared in the next patch (and no, I don't know when that one comes available...).