bugs in WiR 3.0

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Sat Mar 03, 2001 3:25 pm

Originally posted by Mist:
It is possible to create your HQ on the enemy controlled territory. I had shattered Leningrad HQ couple of times after cutting of railroad near Tikhvin but that stubbord HQ reappeared at the same place. Then I decided to run test game and was successfull to create my HQ on the enemy controlled territory. It is even possible to cut off supplies because empty HQ does not disapear(for example, soviet human player can cut off supplies of entire german army by placing only 6(six) HQs in Eastern Europe).
I think it would be easy to fix this thing.

Yes, this problem existed with corps units, Arnaud may have forgotten to make the fix applicable to HQ units as well.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Sat Mar 03, 2001 3:31 pm

Originally posted by Mist:
I've noticed that isolated(and AI controlled) units can simply retreat instead of shatter/surrender. I've isoladed a whole lot of russian troops in Baltic coastline by cutting rail-lines near Tikhvin. In the following massacre most were surrendered, but several retreated from SL 0 to SL 0!
Is this another AI FEATURE?

It could be an AI feature, that's possible. I've seen this sometimes, but I believe all those times, I was playing the AI.

The next unpleasant thing was that isolated Volkhov front contained 6 tank divisions, but when I've finaly managed to make it surrender, there was only one tank division! Where the hell others had gone? Any ideas? Ed, Ricky! Please, HELP!

I've seen the AI put panzer divisions in the Finnish HQ, so nothing surprises me anymore. I thought Arnaud had made sure that units couldn't be transported out of a corps at supply level 0 (or maybe below a certain readiness level). I'll test this again, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is another AI feature.

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Sat Mar 03, 2001 3:59 pm

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

Yes, this problem existed with corps units, Arnaud may have forgotten to make the fix applicable to HQ units as well.

the only little difference is that empy corpses automaticaly disapear

)

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Sat Mar 03, 2001 4:15 pm

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

I've seen this sometimes, but I believe all those times, I was playing the AI.

It happens quite regulary in my game, but most of times retreating surrounded army have no hex where to retreat and shatters/surrenders. Baltic pocket was unusual situation because there were many empty hexes and I had not enough troops to fill em all(just a thin line to cover important railroad). I cutted supplies and started to push russians. Most surrendered, but some retreated.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Sat Mar 03, 2001 5:14 pm

Originally posted by Mist:
the only little difference is that empy corpses automaticaly disapear )

Depends on what you mean by "empty". There is a nasty bug that allows a corps with a divison/battalion in it to continue to exist behind enemy lines. Even if all the equipment is gone because of lack of supply, 0 squads, 0 arty, 0 AT, 0 flak, and 0 AFVs, the corps stays on the map, can plot movement of 1 hex per turn, and can take control of towns/cities. How's that for a ghost army?

[This message has been edited by Ed Cogburn (edited March 03, 2001).]

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Sat Mar 03, 2001 5:30 pm

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

Depends on what you mean by "empty
[This message has been edited by Ed Cogburn (edited March 03, 2001).]

Nothing unusual here.

That's just a 'corps on the paper'. Russia had a lot of them before the war. I just remembered a story described by former recon soldier of WWII. It happened on the Caucasus in 1942. Their formation had no personal, and their platoon was ordered to throw off germans from positions they just recaptured. Their batalion(?) commander recieved an HIGH ORDER to counterattack. That's ok, but platoon consisted of 7 men(0 squads in WiR terms) they had neither arty nor air support

. That soldier tells that they started to slowly advance and crawl in enemy dirrection. Germans fired, killed one, wounded other. Report to high command was following:'We tried to counterattack, but were rupulsed'
Serriously, I mean corps without units in it.

[This message has been edited by Mist (edited March 03, 2001).]

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Sun Mar 04, 2001 10:14 am

A quick thanks to Mist, I just put together a new WiR buglist to put up on the mailing list, and most of the new problems were reported by Mist. Good work.

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Sun Mar 04, 2001 5:34 pm

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

A quick thanks to Mist, I just put together a new WiR buglist to put up on the mailing list, and most of the new problems were reported by Mist. Good work.

I am very happy to be usefull for you guys

Thank you all for the best wargame!

Tom1939 · Post by **Tom1939** » Mon Mar 05, 2001 1:18 pm

Hi!

Yes, Ed. It was against the AI. No problem with your to death scenario! It's great! I just wanted to report the bug correctly. I don't have the save file, I attacked on and saved on the same place sorry

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Mon Mar 05, 2001 9:16 pm

I've noticed more bugs in 3.0. It could noted by others, but anyway.
1) There can be leader dupplication after certain HQ is shattered and created again.
2) Player can move better leaders to minor ally HQs by removing it and creating again(it seems that leaders are chosen at random).
3) Rum,It and Hun HQs display incorrect readiness loss when are moved(10% per hex instead of actual 20%)
4) Air group missions are incorrectly displayed when changed from 2 symbol name to 1 symbol name(for example when AT changed to A it is still displayed as AT until refresh airgroup list by quitting and opening it again).
5) Sometimes it is impossible to rail-move during rain, but still possible to rail-transfer.(?!) 'Supply too low' message appears.
6) I've also found a backdoor to receive more than 1 special supply. Player just needs to change korps's name via F3 button(I humbly propose that F3 would cost OPs, say 20, instead of forbiding of moving).

These are very minor bugs of course but it would be fine to fix'em if it will not be difficult.

[This message has been edited by Mist (edited March 05, 2001).]

VictorH · Post by **VictorH** » Tue Mar 06, 2001 12:46 am

Mist:

Matrix should hire you on as a playtester. Great work finding all those bugs!

byrnejb · Post by **byrnejb** » Tue Mar 06, 2001 2:05 am

I have run accross a few things that are probably bugs.

1. HUMAN vs. Computer. Select a corps, transfer all units out. Select same corps. Select PLOT command. Pick a plot point adjacent to the corps. Game immediately exits to shell.

2. Secure PBEM, 1941 Campaign Scenario Start. Axis Player. Perform any corps plot and air unit mission, save game, exit WiR. Start WiR, select GAME FILE / PBEM
, load saved game file.

a. All plots have been removed from every corps.

b. All Air Units that have performed missions are returned to ready status and may fly again. I cannot tell if the damage done by the perviously flown missions is removed from the Red Army as well.

c. The number of weeks delay for retooled factories have been reduced by one.

d. Rail cap is reset to 5000.

e. Units previously MOVED may have now have PLOTS done for them and executed.

f. Air Units previously transferred may have their missions changed and then flown.

g. Attempting to SAVE a game after the COMBAT phase is complete causes WiR to exit to shell. Given my lack of experience with secure PBEM I am not sure if this is a feature or a bug.

[This message has been edited by byrnejb (edited March 05, 2001).]

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Tue Mar 06, 2001 4:26 am

Originally posted by VictorH:
Mist:

Matrix should hire you on as a playtester. Great work finding all those bugs!

Well, one more strange thing(sorry, if I am repeating other report). Sub-units, like arty, indep panzer bn's etc, do not recieve special supply during blizzard. Trick with F3 key helps. ie they are special supplied after the name of the korps is changed.

silkworm · Post by **silkworm** » Tue Mar 06, 2001 5:52 am

Originally posted by Yogi Yohan:
I know losses is a problem with this game, but those incurred by German forces seem excessive after 1941, especially on the defense.

Take a case where a Soviet 2:1 infantry attack is repulsed by a German Infantry Korps in the summer of 1942. The Germans are supported by bombers and the Soviet are not. You'd expect much heavier Soviet casualties than German but they are usually roughly equal or even somewhat larger for the Germans.

There must be something wrong with the combat routines.

Yes! Change loss protection from entrenchment back to linear from square root! A unit defending at entrenchment 9 should only suffer 1/9 casulaties, not 1/3! As it stands, it's very hard to recreate the historically stubborn defenses at Leningrad and Sevastapol. IF we want to balance the game in favor of the attacker, make it harder to reach the highest levels of entrenchment, but do not limit the highest possible entrenchment with the square root thing. I am so dissatisfied with this change. Can Matrix make a quick patch...or better, give us the source code? A little open source competition would be good for the game and good for Matrix, too.

RickyB · Post by **RickyB** » Tue Mar 06, 2001 7:48 am

Originally posted by silkworm:
Yes! Change loss protection from entrenchment back to linear from square root! A unit defending at entrenchment 9 should only suffer 1/9 casulaties, not 1/3! As it stands, it's very hard to recreate the historically stubborn defenses at Leningrad and Sevastapol. IF we want to balance the game in favor of the attacker, make it harder to reach the highest levels of entrenchment, but do not limit the highest possible entrenchment with the square root thing. I am so dissatisfied with this change. Can Matrix make a quick patch...or better, give us the source code? A little open source competition would be good for the game and good for Matrix, too.

In recent talks with Arnaud about the blizzard problems for the Axis, he said that the key issue in losses, which he may not have known about before this, is that the entrenchment effect of reducing losses only applies to the first two combat phases - artillery and antitank fire. The assault phase is not effected by the entrenchment factor, although it is reduced against defenders in cities by half or so. He says the game has always been this way. Another one of the game's many undocumented formulas. He is now considering using the entrenchments to reduce defender losses in the assault phase, which should lead toward what you want.

I already find Leningrad a fairly tough nut to crach against a human, mainly because of the rivers to its south and southeast. I haven't reached the stage of even trying for Sevastopol in the latest versions, concentrating on Rostov instead, so I don't know how the change in the map limiting its exposure to only 2 hexes plays out. Overall, I think the current balance plays about right in my mind, but there will probably be a tweak in the near future.

Matrix has said a number of times that they cannot release the code as it is owned by SSI, not them, and SSI won't allow it. Thus, you need to hit on SSI, not Matrix, to release it.

------------------
Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

silkworm · Post by **silkworm** » Sun Mar 11, 2001 7:42 am

CAP's from only one HQ will intercept any given enemy mission. This seems unrealistic, and makes it pointless to mass HQ's and ineffective to disperse airpower.

Also, why not limit units to be able to change HQ only once per turn, to avoid the unrealistic pattern of using a few HQ's for combat and the rest for special supply?

silkworm · Post by **silkworm** » Sun Mar 11, 2001 7:48 am

The Escort mission for air units is now a pointless option to have in the game. CAPs always act like escorts for ground attack missions, and they intercept enemy interdictions and bombing at full strength instead of half. So it's always better to change set every fighter unit on CAP after their escort missions. I think in the original game this was not allowed.

Optha · Post by **Optha** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 11:06 pm

Can the special suply function be moved to the result phase? This will increase the importence of a good leader, give the unused OP´s some sense and don´t allow any cheat.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 3:36 am

Originally posted by silkworm:
CAP's from only one HQ will intercept any given enemy mission. This seems unrealistic, and makes it pointless to mass HQ's and ineffective to disperse airpower.

Don't understand you here. As far as I can tell, CAPs protect only the HQ where the planes are, plus the ground units assigned to that HQ. We decided it was unrealistic for bomber air groups to fly only one mission, so they now fly in one player directed mission AND ground support in the combat phase.

Its true though that the game defaulting to "Escort" no longer makes much sense, it should default to "CAP" instead (you had this problem with the original WiR too). I'm going to ask Arnaud to consider having fighter units that are still usable (not "used") to automatically switch to CAP at the end of the turn, just before combat.

Also, why not limit units to be able to change HQ only once per turn, to avoid the unrealistic pattern of using a few HQ's for combat and the rest for special supply?

Well, I loaded Campaign '41, went to the soviet turn, and gave special supply to one of the units near Moscow, attached to the Moscow front. I then reassigned the unit to STAVKA and tried to give it special supply, but it failed, saying the unit had already received supply. This is the change Arnaud made to make the "switch to another HQ for more special supply" cheat useless, units can only get special supply once per turn now.

As far as I can tell, its working. Do you have an example of a unit getting special supply more than once in a turn? We already know about the change-korps-name cheat to get around this, but if you've got something else, send me or RickyB a save game file that demonstrates the loophole.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 4:01 am

Originally posted by Optha:
Can the special suply function be moved to the result phase? This will increase the importence of a good leader, give the unused OP´s some sense and don´t allow any cheat.

What do you mean by "result phase"? As long as its the player who decides what units get special supply there is always the possibility of finding a way to cheat. I for one do not want to see special supply made automatic in some way. Its better to use the new restriction, that you can give a unit special supply only once per turn, and close any loopholes that show up (like the change-unit-name cheat to get around the new restriction).