turn resolution sequence
 

This is the situation:

In an MP game I am fighting Niefelheim. He has one big nasty jarl equiped with boots of flying, and for the past six turns, this Jarl has been raiding my lands, moving every turn to a new province. Although he is big, scary (GoH up) and fully equiped, I send out a party to confront him every turn, either from a neigbouring province or from the castle he is sieging.

Since we both move into enemy territory, my understanding is the game randomly decides who gets to move first, so I would have a 50% chance of catching him every turn. However, for 6 turns in a row I missed him and he just flew of to another one of my lands.

Obviously very frustrating, and it is starting to make me wonder. Is turn resolution in this type of situation indeed decided randomly? Or do some nations get to move befor other nations structurally? Or perhaps flying units or something else (map movement points?) decide who moves first? Is there a way to increase my chances of moving first?

Of course, it could just be a bad string of dice rolls. Although if I am not mistaken the upfront chance of that happening 6 consecutive times with a 50% probability is 1.56%...

Any inputs would be much appreciated!

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

Movement battles aren't resolved before everyone has moved. So you move in and he moves out before any battles take place. That's why raiding is so useful.

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

Short answer, you'll never catch him.

You're misunderstanding the movement process.
All moves are done first, then battles resolved. The only time randomness comes into it is when paths cross.

Example:
Jarl in Province A
Your Party in Province B
Jarl attacks C
You attack A.
The Jarl will always be gone before you get there.

If instead, the Jarl attacks B, while you attack A from B, the game will randomly decide whether the battle happens in A or B, with a small chance of the armies missing each other and battles happening in both A and B.
Since he's flying and probably jumping over provinces, this will be hard to do.

The only guaranteed solution is to teleport on top of him. Otherwise you'll have to guess where he's going and have a force waiting for him.

Good Luck

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

Ah, that explains a lot. Thanks for the input.

It does suck though, I can't spare the gems to go teleporting.

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

Then you have to guess his moves. A common and interesting task)

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

True - and definitely a very interesting aspect of MP fighting. However, in this particular case he is flying with map movement 3, and in the middle of my lands.
There's at least 15 provinces he can choose from... The only good news is that it's just one Jarl - with so many lands its really just an inconvenience, unlike the big armies he has on my borders.... everything is relative!

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

Just defend the most important provinces (with temples or indy mages) well as they are likely targets for his attacks and go take provinces after him. Niefel PD is awful so you shouldn't have trouble with any race. Make your own sc's/thugs, raid him, mind hunt him if he doesn't have good enough MR and so on.

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

All you need is a flyer of your own to just go behind him and clean up all the province the enemy raider craps on. That should balance things out.

As for flying meaning you are unable to guess his movements - its not really the case. Put yourself in the shoes of the controller of that SC. He's likely not moving *completely* randomly. The enemy player wants to maximize his damage to you (probably in gold) while minimizing the threat to his raider. So high value provinces which are not near forts or other troop bodies are the most likely targets.

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

Temples provide a defensive boost?

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

No, other than raising your dominion.

They're just valuable, so he's likely to hit them.

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

So the comment was to defend those provinces the most rather than use those options to defend them. Ok! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: turn resolution sequence
 

As far as I know, there is no way to tell what provinces produce indy mages except by looking at a stack of them sitting in a province (which probably means it's too well-defended for a thug to take). I would be surprised if the Niefel opponent were successfully able to target your indy provinces. Temples, on the other hand, are quite targetable.

-Max