When units won't move

[Tim James]

As a lifelong micromanager, I'm trying my best to give an order and leave things alone. But sometimes I wait a quarter of a day and the unit still hasn't moved! The orders slip so much these guys must be paid by the hour.

What is a good process to go through to determine the cause of units stuck in place? I assume there must be some legitimate reason, such as lack of supply, or fatigue, or aggro, or a bug. It would put my mind at ease if I had a step-by-step list of things to check, with the most likely causes first.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: Tim James

...

What is a good process to go through to determine the cause of units stuck in place? I assume there must be some legitimate reason, such as lack of supply, or fatigue, or aggro, or a bug. It would put my mind at ease if I had a step-by-step list of things to check, with the most likely causes first.

You can get a broad idea on what may be impacting a move order by clicking on the destination icon for a unit, and seeing the steps the AI is ordering the unit to take to reach the destination. Each reorganization icon between the unit location and the destination is a guaranteed delay in reaching the destination.

You can get a more finite idea of what's happening incrementally by selecting a unit and clicking on the "log" tab on the unit sidebar. Each activity step in addressing the order is listed.

If you wanted to go through specific issues which impact a unit starting a move, here are some suggestions:

First thing that will delay movement of units will be the orders delay setting. Its impacts are described here Pg. 142: "If you are playing with Orders Delay turned on ( see Set Scenario Options ), then command Capacity, Load, Unit Delay and especially Force Delay values become very important. These values tell you how well your HQs are coping with the units they have to command, and how long it will take for your orders to take effect. The At-Start delay is given in each side’s Breifing."

With no orders delay, units will still take time to react to a direct order based on issues associated with factors you mention.

Unit health and command status would have a more universal impact on a unit move than a supply status. All units lose effectiveness with issues such as increasing fatigue, lowering cohesion, or reduced morale.

Supply status could have an impact if the move is dependent on a critical commodity such as fuel for motorized units or being out of basics and suffering morale or fatigue issues as a result.

Terrain and move formation have an impact. If ordered to move on a broad front over difficult terrain, a unit is going to take a long time to show evidence of activity. In addition, terrain which is difficult to traverse except on a road may dictate a delay while the unit organizes itself for a column march along the road.


Hope this helps.

[Tim James]

Seems like sometimes it's just a bug. I'm on the 276 beta.

(image removed due to inability to post links)

Linked these two battalions and gave them an attack order at 5 AM when the scenario started. They didn't budge the entire day. When nighttime arrived, they decided to take a nap.

Slip. Slip. Slip.

Around 22 hours I got tired of proving it to myself, so I moved the attack icon 50 meters. Whoa, hey there, it's time to move! The assault kicked off in about an hour.

I think the most annoying thing about this is that it's going to tempt me to make these adjustments after a couple hours. Sometimes it will be necessary to kickstart the AI out of its glitched state. Other times, I'll just be adding orders delay.

[Phoenix100]

Hard to see without a picture, Tim. There could be all sorts of things stopping them, or it could be a bug. As Jim said, what does the log report? Does it say 'Halting, halting, halting...' etc. or Nothing at all? What was the terrain change involved in moving them? What scenario is it? Best if you can get a pic up, I think. Why can't you just add the image into your post? Then we can try and help better.

I'm playing through a massive scenario with many units and haven't seen a formation lock up (that's what it could be)yet.

I assume there wasn't something simple involved - like originally trying to get motorized units to attack into terrain where motorized units cannot go? Or were they motorized and out of fuel, or other supply. What was their fatigue state/moral state etc? What was the command load on the on-map boss? If the boss is severely overloaded than orders can take a very very long time to filter through. Though 17 hours would take the prize, perhaps...

Best to post a pic with the units highlighted so we can see these things in the side bar, plus a pic of their log.

[Tim James]

The forums don't allow newish members to post links. You can see the image at:

i.imgur.com SLASH Y8w9HgG.png

Scenario: Stuck in the Teeth
On-map boss command load: 13 / 34

Two infantry battalions on the north side of the front. 2 Bn given command of 1 Bn
2 Bn says New Orders, command load is 7 / 9 with a force delay of 75
2 Bn's three organic companies say nothing in the log
1 Bn (and his 3 companies) say Force Marching
No change to the log until 18:00 when they say "Resupply on the Way"

Fatigue began the day as minimal. As they were sitting there shooting the breeze, it looks like it went up to 30-40%.

Morale and cohesion look fine.

FUP in the fortifications? But like I said, all I did was move the attack ObjLoc about 50m to the east, and everything sprang back to life.

I have a savegame with them sitting there around 1400 hours.

[Phoenix100]

I looked at the pic, thanks. Do all the units shown have the same attack order? Or is it just those shown as marching (the rest have defend boxes)? Not that that makes anything clearer for me. Sounds like a bug. Send your save game to Dave (dave@panthergames.com) with a note referencing this thread and perhaps the image also attached, since the image isn't here. I think he's taking a break at the moment, but maybe he will want to look at it when he returns to work. You can ask him to, anyway. He's usually very supportive. I know he's about to move on to CO2 development (once the final for CO1 is out) but not sure what that means in terms of bug discovery. I'm sure he will want to see it, even if that doesn't mean a hotfix or whatever. Then at least you will find out what's going on. Are the 'new orders' referred to the order you gave? (Which would mean that that unit, with those in the log, has been designated in command of your task by the AI)In which case, what time did the unit get the new orders? But if you moving something brought things to life then it does sound like an issue, especially if there's nothing showing in the log except the receipt of the orders. If there was a legit hold up you would get a message there, I think.

[Tim James]

For what it's worth, I haven't noticed this since reverting to 263. Obviously no one else is seeing this with 276, so it must be something to do with my installation. I sent Dave the files, so there's no need to speculate amongst ourselves. I'm very happy with 263.

[Arjuna]

I fixed a formation lock up in build 277. This is with Matrix now and should come out soon. It will be the final patch #6 release. Apart from that fix all data has been converted for all data packs.