1.06.03 Observations

[easterner]

Thanks to crash never got around to testing this.

France-hard-solitaire. About 15 mon played.

Russ declared war on Swedes, crossed Finn border, 1 cps, uncrossed border. War lapsed. LAME!

Aus declares on Dal, crosses bordrr and sleeps, Dals put one factor in Ragusa, Aus kill it. Taking capital though not on to do list. LAME, but at least didn't lapse.

Aus declared war on Modena & Papacy: Lapsed. LAME.

Took Romagna and Wurtembg, somehoe got Bav as controlled minor.

declared on Naples and conquored, almost an EiA 1st, they usually lapse vs Naples.

Brit keeps crossing at Lille, Fr 4-Eng 0. Stupid w/o numbers.

brit got control of many Germ minors, Pr lapsed vs. Hessem, Brits stumbled into Holland and oblivion. Good tactic, bad execution.

REINFORCE GARR bug. SEMI-FIXED: Still can't add GARR factors in besieged ports with GARR button but CORPS button allows it. A not uncommon EiA foible since 1.02 or so.

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: easterner
Aus declared war on Modena & Papacy: Lapsed. LAME.

Sounds like excellent strategy to me. While I would not typically DoW both at once, I will NEVER allow them both to survive without attacking for more than a month or two unless there has been some kind of negotiation between myself and France and Spain. It's suicide to let France gobble them up (which he will do if Austria lets him).

[easterner]

Lapsing is lame, not strategy of denying to Fr. The Au AI has in the past constantly overextended it self for no reason and has frequently dropped into instability from too many Decs and too few CONQ. That by the by hands Venetia to Fr for no good reason.

In my test game they were light on Decs but inadequete still on CONQ the targets.

Two AI fixes needed since 1.00 are Build minor factors for their free states, convert to free Swede, Hesse, Baden & Wurt always with a moderate chance for Fleet minors and Swiss, Lomb, Venet & Pieds and a small chance of the other minors. Further CotR for everyone and Otto for TURKs should also always occur.

KoI and KoBav still needed.

[easterner]

Played some more. Late '06 Pr DEC on Fr. TU & SP DEC on PR. AU & RUS DEC on FR. interesting battles.

Massena & 20 man Cps wiped out by Pr. Au figured out how to take Dalmat. Tu & Rus & Au failed to DEC each other. Sp finally figured out how to take Alg and somehow got Tunis as FREE STATE. Sp sent Cps deep into Fr though it fell asleep on arrival of 1st winter. Rus fought 1st battle of war in Holland Amphib and last two at Hustrin with a CAV Cps that beat 4 Fr/allied Cps then wiped out in 2nd fight, both after Pr/Au COND surrendered. Rus & Fr still at war but only 1 Swede vs 1 CAV at St Pete's likely combatants.

Noble allies TURK & SP have both refused Fr access requests.

BUG RETURN: Unable to add INF at newly liberated Lisbon (blocaded & empty) will need build Cps and drop off an INF to fill it up at this point.

[Marshall Ellis]

Easterner:

Thanks again for report!
Can you tell me more about the Lisbon issue? Do you have that game?

[Jimmer]

Agreed. It's the lapsing that's the problem.
 
By the way, Marshall, I think part of the problem with the AI Austria's strategy in Italy is that it doesn't take into account winter movement, if in effect. The AI needs to determine two things when thinking about DoWing a minor, beyond just the strategic importance:
 
1)  Can he physically reach it with a corps in time to prevent a lapse?, and
2)  Can he economically afford to go there?
 
If winter movement rules are in effect, Florence and Dalmatia's capital are out of range to Austria.
 
But, even if winter movement is not slowed, she still needs to consider whether she can afford the attack.  This "calculation" needs to take into account all of the other invasions she has planned. I would recommend that the Austrians use no more than 40% of their banked income for January invasions. Then, another max 35% in February, and what's left can be used in March.
 
Other nations could have different ranges of the percent of banked money they might allow themselves to spend. ALL nations should plan on spending almost all of their starting money, though, with the exception of Turkey.

[Marshall Ellis]

The AI is already weighing weather and money in the DOW step. The problem is that sometimes it sucks units away from their current assignments! It's a management problem

[Jimmer]

Yeah, and those are the hardest to code for. Oh, well.

[Marshall Ellis]

It will get somewhat better as I play more and more deep games.

[easterner]

Yes I have game, saved in Rein phase.

Fr acquired Port from Au as Victory Condition and declared it FREE. Received 4 INF on 1st REIN turn and could not place in Lisbon though could in any other city. Rus were blockading Lisbon after Fleet popped in FREE turn.

Error message said needed a unit to place INF in Lisbon.

[easterner]

France moves east. Tired of perfidious allies France invades Turkey. Fr cps lands in Acre, next phase Palestine becomes Fr CONQ despite not occupied 2 full turns and capital not occupied at all.

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: easterner

France moves east. Tired of perfidious allies France invades Turkey. Fr cps lands in Acre, next phase Palestine becomes Fr CONQ despite not occupied 2 full turns and capital not occupied at all.

Did Turkey go into instability?

[easterner]

Yes it did.

[Jimmer]

Then that's what is supposed to happen. When a major goes into instability, it loses all of its conquered minors to neutrality. However, if an enemy corps is present in the territory, the major controlling that corps instead gets immediate control (as a conquered minor).

The reversion to neutrality (or, enemy control) does not occur if the controlling nation has a corps present in the minor at the time neutrality would have been triggered.

NOTE: Free states are triggered by fiasco zone entry, not instability. And, fiasco causes all minors to go neutral or to enemy control, regardless of occupation attempts.

[Marshall Ellis]

Jimmer is correct!
Thansk for the help Jimmer!

[ndrose]

NOTE: Free states are triggered by fiasco zone entry, not instability. And, fiasco causes all minors to go neutral or to enemy control, regardless of occupation attempts.

This is correct according to the rules; however, the game does not always do this. I have seen free states lost in fiasco, but often they are retained. I think the pattern is that they are retained if there is a corps present, which, as you say, should not matter.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: ndrose

NOTE: Free states are triggered by fiasco zone entry, not instability. And, fiasco causes all minors to go neutral or to enemy control, regardless of occupation attempts.

This is correct according to the rules; however, the game does not always do this. I have seen free states lost in fiasco, but often they are retained. I think the pattern is that they are retained if there is a corps present, which, as you say, should not matter.

I've seen this beofre as well BUT you should not be seeing it anymore!
If you do then send me a game!

[easterner]

Game 2

GB-EASY-SOLI

Have 3x ceded Oldenberg to Prus to create neutral zone between FR & GB territories. Pr has failed to get country 3x. No sign in rules that receiving is optional.

[ndrose]

I've seen this beofre as well BUT you should not be seeing it anymore!
If you do then send me a game!

I'm still seeing it in 1.06.03, unless I'm misunderstanding the rule. I just finished a game as Russia, in which I had kept the Turks in the fiasco zone for most of the game (heh heh), but they held onto Algeria all that time, presumably by virtue of the Algerian corps that was there.

I'll post it to Mantis.

[easterner]

Brit game completed.

Fr sent 95% of army to spn border, sat there for years, then some more after Sp allied with Fr. Never intervened against tiny Brit army that eventually took Madrid.

When Large (relatively) army took Holland the army moved north. Six corps went to Breda so Br declared on Pr Influenced Belgium (Fr lost all minors but Lux & Liege after going INSTAB early. Pr snagged most of them Au & Br got a few) creating a neutral zone from Fr. the cops were destroyed. The two minors taken then Fr army finally struck nearly destroying the Br/swede force. Br retreated to Holland till last turn of game. Fr AI never declared war though Call to Allies got them at war with Au. Neither ever seriously engaged the other. Pr was at war with Sp from CtA and grabbed some lapsed war minors from them as did Au. Rus lapsed war vs Sweden and went home for remainder of game till over ran all of Euro-Turkey from Belgrade, Sophi, Varna and occupied these and all cities north of them. Turks took Egypt and then called it quits too, holed up in Constans with mega-army ignoring 1 near and 3 semi near Rus corps.

So AI heavily somnolent though performed well in combat.