Stacking & deployment: 1.06E

[Busacca]

Hi Calvinus,
hi everybody,

I Noticed many issues related to stacking, force deployment and army organization troubles.

In the uploaded game-save some over-stacking situations from the 4 players CG scenario, (Player France) Army by Army Activation Mode with all game option working but the simplify supply rule.
Last available beta patch used: 1.06E

Massive over-stacking is visible at more map spots for AI manned forces:
Western Front, Germany Enemy AI, Metz.
Western Front, Germany Enemy AI, Searbourg.
Eastern Front, AUSTRIA Enemy AI, Krakow.
Eastern Front, Russia friendly AI, Podolsk.

Podolsk example is very interesting in so far Russia is an AI controlled allied Power so you can examine in detail Corps and HQ in the region without fog of war restrictions.
You can see more than one Army HQ per region, then Corps number violate stacking rules.
All over-stacking examples are not auto-resolved at game turn end, on the contrary AI keeps adding new forces at any new game turn.


Players can over-stack units at many times and by many ways, too.

“Army assigned Corps” can be added to a different Army stack: during reinforcement phase by dragging and dropping them from the Reinforcements Box over the “wrong army HQ” in the Army HQ Box, or by “Right Mouse Click and Drag” during the military phase.

Independent Detachment can be created out of “Army assigned Corps”: by LEFT or Right Mouse Click and Drag during the military and reinforcements phase.

Armies can have more than the maximum number of corps allowed to their nation: 7 for many countries.

You can include into any army corps from a different nations.

You can have more than the allowed number of corps per region: I had mountain regions with 6+ Corps.
On the contrary, in some mountain regions I was not able to move Artillery from HQ reserve and deploy it to front line. Artillery units deployment should not be possible only in high mountain region.

2+ HQs per region over-stacking situation is then produced when a transiting army enters but cannot leave a region where a different army is deployed. That’s because of running out of movement points.
Such over-stacking situation is then not auto-resolved during the game.

Major Army creation can introduce over-stacking situations that are not auto-resolved by game engine. Notice you can change any time the major army during the military phase before activating an army HQ. With that you can play any army as a Major Army during the military phase: it produces rules violation too, with more armies controlling the high number of corps allowed to a major army.

Enemy forces are sometimes standing in same region after combat resolutions because defeated side forces missed retreating. The thing can carry on along next game turns: that’s because presence of opposed sides stacks in the same region does not trigger combat resolution. In fact we have combat only when a stack enters a region where an enemy force is deployed. Guess that is related to attacked and defender identification: engine missing identifying attacker and defender sides when all forces are already on station in a region.

There’s not stacking limit to Naval Units deployment.
Anyway I got some strange events with fleet deployment and movement.
AI Fleets engaged enemy naval units in own port at Box Areas, while in-port fleets cannot be forced to battle.
AI Fleets entered and based at enemy controlled Box Areas ports or harbours, even when an enemy fleet was based there. Then, Fleets based at an enemy controlled Box Areas port or harbour could start recovering damage.

I did not tracked Air-units deployment in detail, but I noticed it is possible to assign 2 fighter or 2 bomber squadrons to same Army HQ, while just 1 should be allowed.

Of course stacking and deployment violation can be avoided by players respecting known games rules. Anyway players have many chance to “cheat” when playing WW1.
Then, fixing all situations leading to over-stacking and deployment violation could be useful to prevent AI from forming mega-stacks altering game balance. Hopefully forces could be homogeneously deployed along frontline so to close gaps player can use to infiltrate enemy territory and to advance in depth.

May be troubles are typical of the Army by Army Activation Mode while not occurring in WEGO.
I never tried WEGO yet, so reports from other players could be useful to clarify points, helping Calvinus fixing them.

I already e-mailed issues to Calvinus: sharing Italian as mother-language makes things easier. As regard it could be interesting to have some other Italian language WW1 gamers to exchange opinions with.