"UFO" Austro-Hungarian Corps

[mdsmall]

Hi Bill,

In a single-player game that I just concluded, the following unusual event occurred. In September 1915, the Russians captured Krakow and moved several units south along the road running towards Hungary. At the end of my Entente turn, two or three previously invisible Austro-Hungarian corps appeared to mobilize in hexes adjacent to the Russian units in the sector between Krakow and Przemsyl. They were then able to move in the CP turn and attacked the Russians. Since these AH units appeared in hexes adjacent to my forces, I don't think this was a case of unspotted units becoming apparent during the next turn (at least as far as I could tell watching the game engine at work). Stranger still, these units had no/no unit designations. For the rest of the game, they appeared on the board simply as "Corps", again even when I was adjacent and could otherwise see their unit designations.

Is there any feature of the game which might account for this? I should add that this occurred in a mod which I am play-testing, based on the 1914 Call to Arms campaign. But I made no changes to the mobilization or unit scripts for any of the major powers, so my guess is that was due to settings in the vanilla game.
Cheers,

Michael

[BillRunacre]

Hi Michael

From your description I'm assuming that they deployed at Tarnow?

There's literally only one UNIT script that deploys units there, and that fires in August 1914, so it's not a script triggering that.

Nor is there a mechanism allowing anyone to operate or deploy units during your turn, so the only rational explanation is that they operated/deployed/marched these units there during their turn.

Their not having a unit name is possible, especially if the AH have cycled through a lot of units.

If you have a saved turn then we would be very happy to take a look, but really we'd have to see it when this happens, rather than after.

[mdsmall]

Hi Bill,

Fortunately, I saved the game settings the turn before this happened. I tried it again playing against the AI with the fog of war off and the same thing occurred: three unmarked Austro-Hungarian corps suddenly mobilized around Gorlice in Galicia at the end of the Entente turn on September 25, 1915.

Let me know how to share this with you so you can take a look.

[BillRunacre]

Ah, if it's Gorlice then the only thing I can think of is that there is an Entente unit within 4 hexes of Budapest?

{
#NAME= CENTRAL POWERS AI: Austro-Hungary - Reinforcements - Budapest - 1914 (100%)
#POPUP=
#IMAGE=
#SOUND=
#FLAG= 1
#TYPE= 1
#AI= 5
#GV= 1[1,100]
#LINK= 0[0]
#LEVEL= 0
#COUNTRY_ID= 8
#TRIGGER= 100
#PRIVATE= 1
#DISPLAY_TURN= 0
#FULL_RESEARCH= 0
#DESTINATION_RESOURCE= 188,83
#DATE= 1915/01/01
#FAILSAFE_DATE= 1925/01/01
; 1st Line - Austro-Hungary Axis and not surrendered
#VARIABLE_CONDITION= 8 [1] [100] [0]
; Entente units in range of Budapest
#CONDITION_POSITION= 184,88 [4,4] [1,1] [2] [0]
#UNIT= 4 [10] [0] []
#UNIT= 4 [10] [0] []
#UNIT= 4 [10] [0] []
#UNIT= 12 [10] [0] []
}

[mdsmall]

That must be it! I sent a Russian cavalry unit south to cut the railroad junction at hex 185,84 and that would have triggered those reinforcements. I rarely play against the AI these, days, so had never paid attention to those AI scripts in the Game Editor. I take that this would not have happened if I had made the same move against a human opponent in a PBEM game. Correct?

[OldCrowBalthazor]

As far as I remember it does occur in multiplayer. Seems I got these units when an opponent got some Russian cavalry close like you described.

[BillRunacre]

As far as I remember it does occur in multiplayer. Seems I got these units when an opponent got some Russian cavalry close like you described.

They are set for AI only in the scripts, so we'd be looking at a major bug if that were so.

Do you know at what date in the game you may have seen something like this, or are you able to recreate it in Hotseat mode?

I ask as early in the game there are AH unit scripts representing their mobilization that could appear to behave in a similar way, and also because this AI script cannot fire before 1915.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

I thought I saw that in a MP match in 2020. It was mid 1916. I may have been mistaken though. If mine was the only report than regard my observation with extreme prejudice.
btw...I have a planned coming MP match for YT. I noticed reports that unit production is out by X months now, not turns. Is this a bug in the works to be resolved soon? (I understand Matrix has to process a fix and it may be in a que.
Thanks

[BillRunacre]

It might be a little while before that is fixed as it will be coming in the next proper patch, whereas it is a Hotfix to the research bug that is around the corner.

As it applies to both sides it is a largely, albeit not perfectly, balanced bug so I wouldn't let that stop you from playing.