Bug: Force any enemy formation to surrender

[Reyne]

[I play exclusively single-player vs AI, and discovered this bug by accident in the course of doing so. I currently play with the beta patch, and do not know if the bug was present in prior versions.]

To reproduce this bug, use the following steps:

1) Attack an enemy hex with a formation sufficient to force it to retreat.
2) While the battle is still being resolved, immediately press F2 [or a different hotkey] to switch from Move Mode to a different mode that does not allow one to attack.

This will cause the battle to "glitch out" with the consequence that the battle is not resolved, but the hex is still captured by the phasing player.

[A screenshot is attached in which I demonstrate the result of step 2 while playing the German side in the standard 1941 campaign. Note that the battle does not have an official resolution, and the 159th Rifle Division still occupies hex 47,82 even though the stated odds would have forced it to retreat. Furthermore, the hex is now shown as newly captured German territory.]

3) Attack the enemy hex again with a formation sufficient to force it to retreat. Upon doing so, the enemy formation will surrender, even though it may have plenty of retreat paths available. Presumably this occurs because the game is not equipped to handle the question of a force retreating from a hex already occupied by the enemy.

[Reyne]

After part 3: Note that the Soviet division is forced to surrender due to this exploit, even though they have plenty of retreat options available.

[Reyne]

Thankfully this exploit is extremely visible to an informed opponent when going through the battle site reports, as it creates obvious "empty" battles that highlight when the opponent is deliberately using the bug.

In the commander's report, however, the "empty" battle is less obvious, as it is shown as a retreat to both sides [demonstrated from the Soviet side here.] As a result, recognizing the use of the exploit requires the player to note that they fought two losing defending battles in the same hex, which may be difficult in a typical turn with dozens or more battles.


As you can probably guess, I accidentally discovered this bug by being too impatient in going from battle resolution -> strategic movement.

[Reyne]

This exploit can be carried out in any situation where a side has the ability to conduct two winning attacks against the same hex. One last example here, with the Soviets using it to force a German formation to surrender in the base 1944 campaign.