Defending Depots

[mavraamides]

As Russia, I find I have to travel quite a ways through friendly territory before I can launch an attack. So I build a string of Depots to supply my invading army.

What are the rules about enemy destruction of depots? It seems sometimes they just dissapear without a battle. I always keep one unit in to defend them from small bands of enemy units. But sometimes, I just 'lose' a depot and my army ends up taking a bunch of foraging losses. Any ideas on why this might happen?

[ericbabe]

There is a "disrupted" depot rule in addition to the standard way of destroying unguarded depots after combat. Here's the excerpt from the updated version of the manual that we're working on:

Before a combat is fought in a province, the attackers have a chance of disrupting supply and destroying the depot there, and thus an attempted attack may destroy a depot in a province, even if the attack itself is repulsed. However, only depots located outside a province belonging directly to their owner can be destroyed in this manner. So long as a nation’s guarded depots are in a province it controls directly, they cannot be destroyed except by battle. The chance is related to the number of units on each side. Cossack units (especially Cossack cavalry) increase the chance of destroying a depot in this way. Note that if the disruption is successful, the defender may lose access to supply for the subsequent battle.

[mavraamides]

Thanks. That explains a lot. Now I know what to do with my stray Cossacks!