Heavy vs. Light Fleets

[toddtreadway]

It seems like in some instances if you attack with a heavy fleet against an opponent with a mixture of heavy and light fleets, the heavy fleet may end up attacking a light fleet. The rules seem to say that a heavy fleet will never be paired up against a light fleet if an opposing heavy fleet is available. So why would this happen?

E.g. the Western Allies send one heavy fleet to attack a German heavy fleet and light fleet. The Western Allied heavy fleet engages the German light fleet. The German heavy fleet does not participate.

[JanSorensen]

Aye, this is a known bug. Its not exactly top priority to fix though as its not terribly harmful.

What happen is this:

A) 1 German HF + 1 German LF move to attack 1 WA HF.
B) A range of 1 or 2 is rolled (meaning that both HF and LF may fire)
C) The number of firing units on each side is rolled as a 1.
D) By random chance the German LF rather than the German HF happen to be the one selected to fire - for the WA its a given that the HF is to fire.
Thus the HF is pitted against a LF despite an enemy HF being present.

Unfortunately, its not a simple problem to fix even though it may appear so. Thus the risk of introducing new bugs while fixing this one along with the time it would take to code the fix means its not certain to be fixed.

Personally, I am willing to just accept this as yet another part of the uncertainty of the naval engaments.

[toddtreadway]

Thanks Jan.

I don't think this is really a bad bug, either. The added uncertainty is fine with me.

[Uncle_Joe]

Probably a 'rule change' in the docs could take care of this one. Just change it to Heavy Fleets TEND to fight Heavies if available, but not guaranteed.

[JanSorensen]

Good point. Maybe Joel can be convinced to do that if Keith (the programmer) does not find the time and inclination to fix it. I gave up fixing it in code personally as the risk-vs-reward from the changes I figured I might need to make seemed less than positive.