Matrix Games Forums

Corrupt fragment + AI growing base unit = monster CD count

Spitfire I am sympathetic you got screwed by some messed up aspect of the game engine.

But when I read 245 costal guns I got the best laugh of the week, my God no wonder you got hosed.

I doubt that Japan had 245 4.7" costal guns in the entire Pacific. And I find the fact that they fire 5.5" shells even more interesting.

You just convinced me to delay my counter offensives until I can pound the daylights out of the Japanese for months before going ashore.

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Betcha a 6-pack this only shows up in games vs the AI; it's trying to expand to fill out the aviation support per the cheatin' AI rules, but something is pointing at the wrong slot. Or something. Well, if you have had enough to drink it makes sense anyway.

If this shows up in PBEM too than I am only playing the Japanese side from now on...[:D]

(Visualizing three or four of these 245 gun BFs on an atoll...[X(])

Dave Baranyi

Interestingly enough, LCU casualties were relatively light. The Second Marine Division lost about 10%, and the other units somewhat less. Disruption was really high, but I'm not sure how much of that was caused by the landing. I theorize that the infantry got off the transports quickly enough to avoid the worst of the damage.

How is all the corruption happening? It seems to me that at least half or more bug reports I see, the answer is explained as something getting corrupted.

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Spitfire I am sympathetic you got screwed by some messed up aspect of the game engine.

But when I read 245 costal guns I got the best laugh of the week, my God no wonder you got hosed.

I doubt that Japan had 245 4.7" costal guns in the entire Pacific. And I find the fact that they fire 5.5" shells even more interesting.

You just convinced me to delay my counter offensives until I can pound the daylights out of the Japanese for months before going ashore.

This game isn't that big a deal--there were other reasons for starting over. It was my first game played more than a couple of months, and I'd made a lot of mistakes.(Though I'm waiting until the next patch; also should probably wait until summer; I wasted too much time in January and February playing it.)

ORIGINAL: SpitfireIX

After this fiasco, I decided, for a variety of reasons, to abandon the game, so I re-loaded with the Japanese as the human player, and decided to take a look and see exactly what the Japanese had that had shredded my landing force. So I checked Munda, and found only three units, including a fragment of a base force hiding in the jungle from the US Marines and Army. It didn't look too impressive, so I clicked on TOE, and discovered the following. In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, "AAAAAAAAAAAGH!" I have a current save, but I have no idea when this happened, so I don't have a repeatable save. Maybe next game I'll save every turn just in case. BTW, note that these guns are not the same ones that wreaked havoc on the landing force--not sure if that's because they "upgraded," or if their equipment got changed randomly again. Also, these are supposed to be 245 support squads. Has anyone else had anything like this happen?

--Doug

EEEEEHHHHH .. I see 1295 troops on the top but no gun ? ? ? normal ? ?

But what did the unit actually have?

The screen dumps are showing the TOE of the BF, not what it actually has.

Michael

oh .. you're right .. maybe no more guns .. and with 3 supplies ... and 6 support .. [:D][:D]


Harrer

I also thought LCU fragments did not have a TOE.
If you pressed the TOE button, it came up blank. This might just be a display problem which seems to persist with fragments (ie something left over from some other unit that used the same fragment slot in the past.)

At least, the leader looks okay.

Michael

Man! I need some CD units like this one![:D]

you should have included force 10 from navarone with your usmc to destroy those guns

I've peeked at some units when playing the AI. I haven't seen 245 CD guns, but I have seen 120. I don't think this problem is occuring with the CD LCU's. It's the base force LCU's.

I've never lost a lot of ships to CD's, only because I don't land at the bases with dark red troops. As the allies, vs AI, you just simply island hop.

It's the base force LCU's.

That is correct, The Computer player grows base forces, but it is only supposed to grow support and av support. In this kind of a case, there is only one of the two and it seems to get fooled into growing the only other part available.

To quote Tankerace said " How is all the corruption happening? It seems to me that at least half or more bug reports I see, the answer is explained as something getting corrupted."

To me this really is a big deal and serious setback to all AI players. In a short term game, Start Over, but this puppy can take years out of your life. It is a ball and game buster. Hope there is a solution.

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

I doubt that Japan had 245 4.7" costal guns in the entire Pacific. And I find the fact that they fire 5.5" shells even more interesting.

The unit had probably upgraded the 4.7" guns to the 5.5". IIRC, the TOE displays don't update to represent upgrades. If he posted a screenie of the actual unit, that would tell.

This Bug has been around since the beginning and it`s close to a **GAME STOPPER**, with all that implies for us guys playing the full Campaign in a historic way. Which BTW, was what this Game was sold as.

One reason I don`t post much is the constant barrage of silly requests by silly people ( who feel they know more then Garry about wargame Design ) for " enhancements" in this or that " model " or " debates" on AI issues that are not broke, and are in fact a judgement call, while this issue, _and others_ as bad still exist.

While no doubt not an easy fix, the old Devs. stock answer " it`s a corruption issue " is starting to sound lame. Maybe more like " we can`t fix it and we don`t care " ???

In that respect, why is so much effort expended adding " requested features" like the new Japanese AC production control and others, while these Major Bugs Still Exist ?

I've got a game going against the AI. I'll have to take a look around and see what there is to see.

I loaded up my AI game last night. I peeked at the Japanese status. I've been bombing Kwajelein for about 30 days now. The base has no supplies. The LCU's are very close to 0. There's two base forces there. One has a TOE of 4.7" CD guns at 80!!! The good news is that 25 are disabled. The other BF has a TOE of 4.

BTW, the BF that has a TOE of 80 has at least 1 part from each line item. (there are no items that are completely destroyed. It's not partial. So, I don't think the game is confusing the CD guns with AV support. It's just multiplying all line items by the airfield size. (It's TOE for AV support is 600, but hasn't filled out completely)

This is what I worried about when I read that the AI's base forces will grow as needed. Why did 2by3 include this feature? In a PBEM game the Japanese player has to send extra base forces to an important base so that they can fly the extra planes (or service the extra troops). Why can't the AI follow the same rules? It's the one thing about computer games that I have always disparaged - that the AI is given non-historic abilities in order to ease the programmers' work. Now it turns out that this rule has given the AI an incredible boost in fire power. Sure, it can be overcome, but it greatly reduces the historic feel of the game.

I couldn't find any uber CDs in my game, but I did discover that the Japanese engineer training academy is in Rangoon. One engineer unit there had 1,818 squads of engineers! That's not men, but squads. It's basically an engineer corps. Needless to say, Rangoon had maxed out its building program. I suspect they may have actually secretly begun digging a tunnel under the Bay of Bengal from Rangoon to Ceylon.

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

In a PBEM game the Japanese player has to send extra base forces to an important base so that they can fly the extra planes (or service the extra troops). Why can't the AI follow the same rules? It's the one thing about computer games that I have always disparaged - that the AI is given non-historic abilities in order to ease the programmers' work.

The programmers have to get some breaks. My review of the Japanese AI showed there were several bases with a/c without base engineers, so all of the planes were sitting around 100% damaged and the pilots - well, they were still drawing pay. Anyway, I thought, "gee, this should be easily programmed," and I started thinking about it. Rule: you can't move a base engineer if it is the last engineer and their are a/c present. Well, that doesn't work because the engineer is stuck there until the a/c leave. Maybe it's better if the a/c are forced to leave if the AI determines the engineers ought to move. Rule: if engineers need to move, as determined by a switch value somewhere, and it is the last engineer in the base, then fly all a/c to another base. Well, maybe the other base's engineers need to move as well, so they'd have to fly to only bases where the engineer is not planning to leave. What if there are no such bases or you have Hurricanes stuck on Andaman? Another round of code for freezing the engineer until an AK arrives to take the planes away. Unless, of course, the engineer movement is top priority and there is an AK within two-days sailing to take away the Hurricanes.

I'll cut the programmer's a break. While letting the AI build bases up to what it needs will result in more support being available in the game than may have been "historical" (especially with all of the full-strength fragments running around), it provides a reasonable facsimile to reality without have to spend a ton of code lines for figuring what bases have priority for engineer units, which engineer units should receive replacements, where an extra 90 points in aviation support might be needed in 10 turns, etc. I'm starting to think that, like sausage, I don't want to see how the AI plays in any detail. Just try and fix the uber-weapons problems.