Battle testing for 1.09 patch

[Jagger]

Gary, here is a well set up situation to test. Although anyone else with the time to test, the more results the better.

The 1863 scenario with Hooker vs Lee. Go to Hookers army in Stafford, VA just southeast of Manassas. Activate synched move for Hooker and all his active corps. Plot an attack on Lee's army at Fredericksburg.

Note the days required to reach Lees army by each of the corps participating in the attack.

Now go to Grant's army west of Vicksburg at Richmond, La. Activate synched move for Grant and all his active corps. Plot an attack across the river against Pemberton's army at Vicksburg.

Note the days required to reach Pemberton's army by each of Grant's corps participating in the attack. Now hit the proceed to next turn button.

Are all corps arriving at each battle on the same day? Or are they attacking piecemeal? If they are attacking separately, each separate corps will be attacking at poor odds and will either retreat before battle or be badly defeated. The battle screen will indicate how many corps are participating in the battle. If sync move is working, all Union corps should attack simultaneously in each battle.

Also there is one engineer unit in both Hookers and Grant's HQ formations. If the HQ formation is attacking by itself, remove the engineer units and try again. Engineers, sailors, marines allow formations to move faster.

Also check casaulties for both sides if the battle is a multi-day battle. Check to see if all losses are suffered by only a single formation.

Run through this situation three or four times to see if all results are relatively consistent or if any extreme, anomalous results occur in terms of arrival times or formation casualties.

Synched move and defending/attacking with only a single formation are the two primary problems I have seen with 1.08d.

Although with the sync move problem, Pocus has stated to ignore the differing arrival days as they will still arrive on the same day regardless of the displayed marching times. So maybe not a problem but still should be tested because the working 1.08 displayed simultaneous arrival days.

Also I recently had three corps defending Manassas when attacked by a large Union army. Only Jackson's corps fought in three separate battles over a single turn and was completely wiped out. Jackson received no help from the other two CSA corps within his region. In earlier versions of the game, that was a common bug but was fixed. That bug may be back. Although there is a possibility that Jackson's loss without help from the other two corps was a freak situation but it is still so similiar to the earlier bug that it deserves attention.

Let me know what results you find with 1.09. If you have any questions, let me know as well.

Thanks!

[Le Ricain]

Playing with vers 1.09 beta5, no mods and using activaton lock option.

The West

Turn 1 - note inactive stacks may move in the first turn
After setting synchronous movement the travel times are:

Grant 12 days
Wallace (inactive) 17 days
Sherman 12 days
McPherson 12 days
McClernand (inactive) 17 days

Turn 2 - Still advancing on Vicksburg. All stacks are now active. The travel times are:

Grant 4 days
Wallace 1 day
Sherman 5 days
McPherson 5 days
McClernand 1 day

Turn 3 - On day 5 all five stacks arrive in Vicksburg and attack.

The East

Turn 1

Slocum (inactive) 18 days
Sedgewick (inactive) 18 days
Howard 13 days
Meade 13 days
Hancock 13 days
Sickles (inactive) 18 days
Hooker 13 days
Reynolds 13 days

Turn 2

Slocum 4 days
Sedgewick (inactive - locked) 14 days
Howard 6 days
Meade 6 days
Hancock 6 days
Sickles (inactive - locked) 14 days
Hooker 6 days
Reynolds 6 days

Turn 3 - On day 14 Slocum, Howard, Meade, Hancock, Hooker and Reynolds (all active) all arrive in Fredricksburg and attack Lee. Sedgewick and Sickles, both inactive and locked, are still one day away from Fredericksburg.

Conclusion - system works as stated by Pocus.

[Clovis]

Playing with vers 1.09 beta5, no mods and using activaton lock option.

The West

Turn 1 - note inactive stacks may move in the first turn
After setting synchronous movement the travel times are:

Grant 12 days
Wallace (inactive) 17 days
Sherman 12 days
McPherson 12 days
McClernand (inactive) 17 days

Turn 2 - Still advancing on Vicksburg. All stacks are now active. The travel times are:

Grant 4 days
Wallace 1 day
Sherman 5 days
McPherson 5 days
McClernand 1 day

Turn 3 - On day 5 all five stacks arrive in Vicksburg and attack.

The East

Turn 1

Slocum (inactive) 18 days
Sedgewick (inactive) 18 days
Howard 13 days
Meade 13 days
Hancock 13 days
Sickles (inactive) 18 days
Hooker 13 days
Reynolds 13 days

Turn 2

Slocum 4 days
Sedgewick (inactive - locked) 14 days
Howard 6 days
Meade 6 days
Hancock 6 days
Sickles (inactive - locked) 14 days
Hooker 6 days
Reynolds 6 days

Turn 3 - On day 14 Slocum, Howard, Meade, Hancock, Hooker and Reynolds (all active) all arrive in Fredricksburg and attack Lee. Sedgewick and Sickles, both inactive and locked, are still one day away from Fredericksburg.

Conclusion - system works as stated by Pocus.

and did you get successful retreat attempts?

[bigus]

Two quick tests showed 6 days for activated corps leaders and 9 days for inactive leaders to reach the regions for both battles. First rounds showed all active units showing up for the battle and later rounds showed the inactive leaders showing up on day 9. I did have the ANV retreat in one test. I am using these tests with delayed commitment set to "small delay" in the options menu.

I'm curious to know Jagger what your commitment settings are for these tests. also what posture your setting each corps leader. I had all leaders on offensive posture with a conservative attack in the two quick tests I did.
All with 1.09 b5 clean install.

bigus

[Le Ricain]

and did you get successful retreat attempts?

The attack on Vicksburg was a stalemate, but Grant had the honour and pleasure of holding the field. Yes, the CSA had a successful retreat.

In the East, Hooker was repulsed with casualties spread evenly throughout his corps. He was able to successfully retreat back to starting region.

[Jagger]

Ok, great! It looks like synchronized movement is working properly in the 1.09 patch. The actual marching days are not important as all corps are participating in the battle.

And no one had problems with a single formation fighting without support from friendly formations within the same region. If anybody does see a battle similiar to mine with Jackson, please save and post the battle log.

Bigus, I am using moderate delay in my test games.

Thanks everybody! Sounds like 1.09 battle process is working properly.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jagger]

Jagger:

I just got back and it looks like others have done some testing for you. Since I'm curious of what you were seeing before and I have v1.08d on one machine and v1.09 beta 5 on another, I think I am going to run some comparison tests anyhow, just to see the difference in behaviors between the two versions. Let's just say it's for investigative educational purposes.



edit> In comparison, it "seems" that v1.08d did in fact suffer from rather disjointed attacks and one of the corps was extremely mauled in comparison to the others and Hooker's w/Army unit was actually destroyed. Whereas the v1.09 beta5 seemed to have the casualties distributed much more evenly throughout all the corps involved. Since I have not seen this behavior before I am not certain of the results except that v1.09 seemed far more rational in the outcome.

Gray, thanks for taking a look. Losing Stonewall's Corps in three days of battle without any casualties to the other two corps in the region certainly raised red flags with me considering the old bug.

It does sound like 1.09 is working properly. Although I am still going to be watching closely--retreats in particular.

And with 1.09 finalized, I am downloading tonight!