Disappearing armies/ships

[Hartmann]

On the German board someone posted, that his ships disappeared just after WINNING a battle against pirates. I, too noticed some cases where armies seem to disappear randomly. E.g. in a recent game the following situation arised:

France and Cologne, not allied, were both at war with Spain. They besieged Artois together and Cologne had a 60k army in that siege. The city fell and came under French control (because of the better leader). Then France at once settled for indemnities. The city went back to Spain and the army of Cologne (all the forces they had!) was simply gone. Although Cologne maybe could have disbanded the army, I don´t think that´s very likely.

Hartmann

 

[Johan]

The AI disbands his troops quite frequently if he can't move them home after a war.

/Johan

 

[Leprechaun]

This would explain why a 44k strong hessian army dissapeared after a war with poland, thanks for this info!

------------------
Pour dieu et mon droit

 

[Hartmann]

But Cologne was still at war with Spain. (And, huh, this 60k army was all they had!)

And there´s still the 'vanishing ships'....

Hartmann

 

[Oranje]

Hello Johan,

I've noticed the same mysteriously vanishing armies.
It seems to me that sometimes the AI makes an unjustified judgement with respect to the (im)possibility to get his troops back home after a peace treaty has been concluded.
I've seen troops disappear even when only (former) enemy territory had to be crossed to get them home. Also, when ships were available to transport troops back home oversea this seems a hard judgement for the AI.
Also, it would be a great improvement if, after a war ended, a country would be allowed to walk troops home over the territory of an ally, if necessary.
(somewhere between bug and wish list)


Anyway, 1.05b runs very stable, I haven't encountered any breakdowns at all.
Hope the multiplayer stability has been improved as well now.

greetings, Oranje

 

[Hartmann]

I didn´t check this yet, but I naively thought, that with 1.05b armies would now be allowed to cross allied countries on their way home after war, because they now are in supply in allied countries in peace. If they are not able to go home by crossing allied territories, then the situation can arise, that an army stays in an allied country for a very long time, just because it cannot cross the border of another ally lying in between. (This is of course much better than the former exasperating situation, where they simply died.)

Hartmann

 

[unmerged(412)]

I have seen this to, the AI will not use his fleets to remove the armies. There has to be a patch where armies are allowed under white to march back to there country. I was effected where I could not march through a allied country to get home during peace.

 

[unmerged(199)]

Not to talk of when your armies are trapped in a former enemy country and having to march back through a former enemy (now neutral) to get home. This can easily happen when in war with alliances.

Can't it be fixed so that armies with white flags can always march through all countries without pillaging (though still suffering from supply if not in home or allied territory)?

Could such a fix be misused in any significant way? Of course one could march a huge army into an area with a neutral army to cause it attrition, but this is probably not worth doing . Any other ways anyone can think this could be misused (and if not, couldn't this fix be placed on the To do list for patch 1.06 if one is needed)?



[This message has been edited by strategy (edited 14-12-2000).]

 

[Hartmann]

Seems to me now, that the disappearing army problem is indeed due to silly disbanding decisions by the AI:
As Poland I declared war to the Hanse together with my ally Brandenburg. I had a 23k army in Eastern Pommerania (already Polish). Hansa had a 50k army in western Pomerania - it was all they had. They moved this army to Brandenburg and I moved my army to Western Pommerania. Brandenburg besieged the Hansa capital. After a while, Brandenburg and Hansa concluded a seperate peace returning to status quo.
HANSA ARMY AT ONCE DISAPPEARD. If this was a disbanding decision by the AI, then it was plain silly:
- They could have easily walked it home
- After the disbanding they had no army left and it was a peace of cake for me to annex them

Hartmann