What determines battle order?
 

I was wondering, if I move to a province and other players move to the same province and it has independents, what determines who fights who first? Is there some command/initiative system?

Thanks!

Re: What determines battle order?
 

If the province belongs to a third party, a randomly selected person fights that third party, and then defends against the other party.

This changes if the province in question is/was owned by one of the two parties: If you are moving to a friendly province, you will always move first. If you are moving to a province which was formerly friendly, but has now been occupied by the enemy, and the enemy is moving out of that province into another one of your provinces, you will move after he does, every time.

There's other really complex rules for what happens if more than one army attempts to move into a hostile province, perhaps while a hostile army from a province, either another, or the target attempts to move into a province occupied by one of the moving armies. In such cases, the game selects the most disadvantageous outcome for the player attempting the most elaborate manuever, and picks that.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

that makes sense except for one instance.

Say I move and army to a province where an enemy army resides and during the same turn he moves to the province my army resides in. From what you mentioned, my army would fight him off in my province if he once owned it, but what happens if the province only has one owner.

I was wonderng because I had a large army at an enemy's fort and I tried to move it away for a couple of turns, but it was always stopped by a smaller force that attacked to province. Even though I won the battle, I couldn't move my army.

I though this was strange.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

The game does not keep book of the previous owners of provinces. Previous owners have no effect whatsoever in the game.

And for armies moving towards each other, the bigger army has a better change to push the enemy back to the province from which he left. It seems you just got unlucky. If both armies would be small, I think they could also miss each other and both would try to conquer the province previously defended by that other army.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you REALLY believe that, try chasing any army that happens to be rampaging through your territory: You will never catch it unless you guess where it is going in advance: If it were ACTUALLY random, you'd catch it about half the time, since sometimes you would move first, sometimes he would move first, as both territories are "hostile" moves.

However, this never works. The behavior is clearly deterministic in favor of the raiding party. Obviously, this is done to promote this behavior. Whether this is good or bad is irrelevant: It simply is, and to believe that it's purely a "random" thing is being naive. Size of army, speed of army, all appear to be irrelevant: A groundpounder raiding force consistently can outrun even flying pursuers, both large, and tiny: You NEVER catch them.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

Just to back Norfleet up: This can also inferred by the armies-missing-each-other rules. If an army moves from A->B and another from B->A, then there is a chance that they will not meet each other. This infers that the moves happen simultanously, which explains the behaviour Norfleet observes. Well, except about it being purposely to promote a certain stategy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: What determines battle order?
 

After what has beeen said, I guess that the game does all movements pseudo-simultaneously within each of the categories:
- magical movement
- friendly movement
- hostile movement
After all moves in a Category are done, opposing sides located in the same province result in a battle (more or less random order if more than two opposing sides are there).

The lone exception would then be (hostile) movement from A->B and B->A, where a chance for meeting exists...

This sounds quite plausible to me as well, as logging previous owners and hideously calculating the worst outcome for everyone seems difficult to implement to me (but I am only a theoretical computer scientist from university and not a bastard programmer from hell, so I might well be wrong on programming issues... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )


...so nevertheless if the principle stated above is true, one might have an alternative to stop a raiding army:

Say a raider is in province A and will move to and attack our lovely proince B. But this is unknown to us, the good guy, since there are plenty of lovely provinces adjacent to A. But we managed to sourround the foul raider in province A by our scouts, all set to move-attack province A and our big huge army, located in C, also attacks province A.

Now that scout which was located in B, the enemies infernally selected secret target, meets the raider on the borderline, steps out of the woods and stops the heathens! (i.e. we got lucky and the armies met.) Now (again by random chance) the fight may take place either in B (killing the lone ranger), or it could happen in province A.

The question is: Would our huge army from C be already present to help our brave scout coming from B fighting in A?

According to what I've said it would be so. This is also in accordance with the observation that all friendly troops always fight together in once province. I've got to test this...stay tuned!!!

[Edit: clarified some parts]

[ June 08, 2004, 13:58: Message edited by: Chazar ]

Re: What determines battle order?
 

It seems like Ebsen has explained the behavior that Norfleet describes, without resorting to the game keeping track of "previous owner." You can't catch a moving enemy army in the province it starts the turn in, because your attempt to move into whatever province they are in is simultaneous with them leaving for a different enemy province.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you REALLY believe that, try chasing any army that happens to be rampaging through your territory: You will never catch it unless you guess where it is going in advance: If it were ACTUALLY random, you'd catch it about half the time, since sometimes you would move first, sometimes he would move first, as both territories are "hostile" moves.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I believe Endperez meant Once nation A takes control of a province, whether it was previously controlled by nation B of nation C has zero effect on moves or battles to come. Then he's 100% correct. All standard moves are resolved before standard battles, thus province ownership only plays a role when 2 enemy armies move towards the same province. I guess you just misinterpreted what he said.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except if you attack from the province the enemy moves to...

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, that is what I meant. It seems my English isn' as good as I had hoped...

edit: quote under wrong name
edit2: oops... I looked at different post, so quotation was right in the first place... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ June 08, 2004, 15:00: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">edit: quote under wrong name
edit2: oops... I looked at different post, so quotation was right in the first place... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Vill du bokstavera mitt namn riktigt! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My understanding is that this is incorrect.

I could be wrong, but I believe faster armies move first. If armies are the same speed, then the smaller army moves first. I can understand how rules like this might make it seem like you can never catch raiders, but that's because raiders are likely faster and/or smaller than the force you are trying to cath them with. Try to catch a raiding army with a move 3 SC and see if you catch them.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

Has anyone actually demonstrated that faster armies move first? I've seen this claim before, and believed it, but my in game experiences don't seem to support it.

Heck, can anyone say that they have "caught up" with a raiding army before its move? And by this I mean moving into the space it is located in, when it is attempting to move elsewhere, and forcing it to fight instead of move. As opposed to moving to the same place that it moves to, or running into it as the two armies try to move into each other's provinces, or any of the various other tricks people have suggested. A lot of people say that they think it is possible but I can't recall anyone saying they've actually done it.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you were right, if an army of 20 Ulmish Black Plate infantry and an army of 20 Ti'en Ch'i light cavalty moved to the same uncontrolled territory, T'ien Ch'i would always be the first to get there. That's not what happen - chances are 50-50. And if the territory belongs to Ulm, Ulm will always arrive first and defend afainst T'ien Ch'i.

Re: What determines battle order?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's simply impossible, unless:

(1) You intercept using magical movement (Teleport or such) or summoned troops (eg, Call of the Wild).

(2) You kill its leader(s) using rituals or assassination.

You can, however, catch up with this army after its move if:

(3) it was pushed back by army of your own [Edit: or any other nation] coming from the province it tried to move to.

[ June 09, 2004, 18:28: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

Re: What determines battle order?
 

Ok, after reading the manual and seeing that it is explicitely written there that all combat movement precedes all battle evaluations, I tested whether intercepting raiders by scouts works as I described below:

It does, but chances are quite slim:

20 marignon cavalry and 10 crossbows raided, 2 caelian scouts intercepted from the province the raiders attacked and a huge caelian army moved into the square occupied by the raiders.

In about 1/3 of the cases, the 2 scouts battled the marignon raiding party an where slaughtered on the spot where the scouts originated from, hence avoiding the big caelian army. 2/3 simply went without battle, the 2 scouts moving from B->A and marignon from A->B without meeting at the border.

Replacing the scouts by a seraphine accompanied by 20 blizzard warriors changed that: the armies almost always meet, and the battle took equally often place in the raiders orginial province, hence allowing the big caelian army to join the fray.

[ June 09, 2004, 12:24: Message edited by: Chazar ]

Re: What determines battle order?
 

I went and tested this and I was totally wrong. Smaller and faster do not grant you the ability to "catch" and army.