What are decoy stacks?

[yoppy]

Calvinus wrote some time ago that there are decoy stacks (armies not diplomats). What does this mean.
Is it only possible with fog of war (Yet I'm playing with no fog)? Are this the army stacks without any content?

[calvinus]

Decoy stacks are possible if FoW on details is set on. So if you have FoW on map only, the decoy stacks are still possible.

Decoy stacks (called in French "leurre") are empty stacks, created by the AI to make confusion on the map, in order to make you use some of your forces to pursuit false targets.

[yoppy]

Hello again Calvinus.
Although I'm sure that I unchecked all Options for Fog of war I see these decoy stacks. Is it possible?

[calvinus]

Hello again Calvinus.
Although I'm sure that I unchecked all Options for Fog of war I see these decoy stacks. Is it possible?

You probably see some decoys that have been generated before you disabled all the FoW options...

AI will not create anymore decoy stacks as long this FoW configuration will be in effect.

[yoppy]

Ok this may be possible because everytime I'm patching the program the fow settings are activated and I have to uncheck them again.
So if I understand you not wrong, if I start a savegame with a newly patched program there will be some decoys generated and they stay in play for a reasonable time even if I disable fow?

[calvinus]

Yes, decoys are removed anyway at the end of the turn.

[yoppy]

Puh, it's hard work to react to your comments, calvinus.
I will look tonite if I was in the first or secound military phase after starting the newly patched game. If I understand you right, there couldn't be any decoy stacks in the second military phase after disabling the fow?!

[calvinus]

Yes, you should see no decoy.

If you see them, please report it and post a zipped savegame. I'll try to work on this, hoping it's not a trick done by AI when detaching units.