Higher province number moves first?
 

Seem to recall a post that mentioned that higher numbered provinces move before lower ones (given identical situations). Let me know if I have it wrong or backwards.
-ssj

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Provinces don't move.
Battles are resolved in either province number order or in reverse order, apparently randomly. Many things in dominions are done this way.

If you're talking about army movement, I'm not sure that's clear. It should only matter when 2 armies are trying to invade each others provinces or a third party's province.
In the latter case, the armies always move, so only the order the battles take place in is important. This again appears to be random, possibly by nation id (or reversed).
The first case is less well understood. I do not believe it's as simple as whichever nation/province/army/whatever moves first gets to have the fight in the others province. If it was, using a single commander to block invaders would work about half the time, which it doesn't seem to. I've also seen, rarely, armies swap places.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

I have also seen armies stop each other, so neither moves.

I don't think battles being resolved in province order has anything to do with movement which happens before that, but I may be wrong.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

I thought armies moving was random, but doing some tests between LA argatha and LA Pythium: Pythium moved first _every time_ (I tried about 5 times).

With argatha, I was moving a single commander with boots of flying, and with Pythium I was moving mostly an army of Hydras. I didn't think to check province numbers while I was doing this, so I can't give information on that. The phenomenon could be a statistical anomaly, but there's only a .5^5 (~3% chance) of that assuming move order is actually random. for each move I was moving the argathan commander into a province pythium had just conquered, and pythium into one of argatha's provinces. (ie, into-enemy movement for both sides).

I definitely thing there is some arbitrary deterministic component to move. This is especially funny since a single commander with flying can't catch a slow moving army of Hydras...

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

I'm not sure I follow your example, but I think you're missing something.
There are three phases of movement. Ritual, friendly and hostile.
All movement within a phase is assumed to be simultaneous. It doesn't matter whether Agartha or Pythium moves first, when the movement phase is over, Pythium's army has moved on and Agartha's has moved in.

One edge case where movement order might be important are when both armies are moving into each other's province. Then it usually looks like one has moved first and kept the other from moving. A->B, so B cannot invade A. If B had been invading C, he would be gone. My argument is the rare cases where both armies move, switching provinces, or neither moves indicate that this is not being done based simply on arbitrary movement order.

The other case where movement order might matter is when 2 nations invade a third party's province. It is more likely that what order the nations fight is based on some kind of id order, though one invader will always fight the owner first.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

I'm pretty sure the "neither moves" case is caused by the movement bug, where the army that should have moved just doesn't.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Ok, a test with 3 nations

Arco (nation nbr 0)
Ermor (1)
Lanka (something highish)

All using vastnesses thanks through modding.

4 provinces
120 and 121
90 and 170

First trial (9 times) Arco and Ermor moving armies from 120 to 121 or vice versa.
The armies never miss each other. Sometimes Arco is the defender, sometimes Ermor.

Second trial (about 20 times) Arco and Lanka oving armies from 120 to 121 or vice versa.
The armies practically always miss each other. When they fight sometimes Arco is the defender, sometimes Lanka.

Third trial (7 times) Arco and Ermor moving armies from 90 to 170 or vice versa.
The armies sometimes miss each other. When they fight Arco is always the defender.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Could be. But, I managed to create a situation where this reliably happens and not on just one particular set of provinces, but anywhere. Nation A has two armies in provinces a and c. Nation B has an army in province b. Army from b attacks a. Armies from a and c both attack b. One of the possible outcomes of this scenario is that the battle occurs in b between armies from b and c, and that army a doesn't move. This has led me to believe that armies a and b blocked each other from moving.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

It's possible the movement bug is related to this behavior though.

I've never verified it happening when I could be sure there wasn't an army attempting to come the other way.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Oh right. I missed an important catch, movement battles are resolved after all movement is resolved. Thus one army 'chasing' another will never catch it...

sort of silly I think. There should be something to model an army being faster than another and catching up with it, rather than simply having to guess each turn where the enemy army might move. I mean, an army of Caelum flying somethings in a province next to an army of something really slow should be able to catch the slower army.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Better map move is already a pretty huge advantage.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

What are the province sizes, visually, and are any of them tagged as large or small. Also, what are the sizes of the sizes of the army?

Finally, my personal guess goes along these lines:

All units are given a unique number. When an 'army' moves it is composed of a 'group' of army commanders.

Suppose Army A:

Army commander 1,
Army commander 2,
Army commander 3


Suppose Army B
A Cmd 4
Army cmd 5
Army cmd 6.

I believe that army combats are triggered by any commander activating. Combats can be done in sequential order, or reverse sequential order. When a commander triggers, he triggers all commanders associated with him.

I believe this fits observed behavior pretty well. When numbering commanders, I believe that this is done in nation order. So, in the first turn, Arco will build commander x, ermor will build cmd x+1 etc.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Ok, assuming it is based on the commander numbering thing and it follows the usual forward/reverse random sequence, an army with a very early commander and a very late commander should always move before an army with only a middle commander.
If this determines where the battle happens it should be testable.


As for commander unit ids, they are handed out in order, but I suspect as usual this might be done in nation or reverse nation order. No evidence for that, just an assumption. It also reuses numbers of dead commanders so it gets more confusing as the game goes on.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

OK, so the test:
I started a tiny game with Arco & Man, starting with 9 provinces so they'd share a border without having to fight indies.
First turn moved the starting troops to the border and built a commander(M) there for Man.
Second turn built a commander(A2) in the border province for Arco.
Third turn both attacked across the border.
Arco led by one of his starting commanders(A1) and A2, Man led by M.
All ordered to retreat.
The battle took place in Man.
I repeated this with the same commanders. The next time it was also in Man. The third in Arco.

This led me to think it's not that simple. Then I ran another try hosting with debug on. The following was interesting:

Bune is the Man commander. 6 is the Arco province, 8 the Man one. This battle took place in 6.

The next try had the same findpath and move validation, but ended with:
Those are the Arco commanders. The battle took place in 8.

This doesn't seem to be based on commander id or the order of the moves.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Very interesting.

It does look as if moves are validated by commander, although what determines the province the fight occurs in, and the order of the battles is not clear. ( But it isn't cmd order).

Its also interesting that the distance isn't 1, its 7. Does this correspond to the relative sizes,do you think?

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

I doubt it. I'm not sure what the 7 means (or the 514 for that matter.)
You'd need to look at a larger more complicated sample.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

I've noticed this as well. However, I have also noticed one other behaviour that may either help clarify things, or help confuse them. When I am moving units from one of my own provinces to another one of my own provinces, it always happens before combat. Every time.
But when I move to a province occupied by an enemy, the sequence seems to be random. I also have tried to chase enemy kamikaze armies across my territories in a futile and frustrating attempt to stop them. Only rarely do I catch up to them, and when I do I have no way of knowing if I caught up to them because they stopped moving or because I moved "first."
My conclusion is that there is some sort of initiative assigned to the respective armies and they move in in that sequence in order to determine in which province battles are fought. And in these cases, moves within friendly provinces seem always to occur first, as if they are treated separately, even though the friendly province you moved into is attacked the same turn. As you all have shown, initiative does not seem to depend on the composition of the army at all.
On other thing, maybe you have realized this by now or not, but you can immobilize an enemy army by attacking it with more than one army. I have found that whenever more than one army attacks the same province, whatever enemy army is in that province always defends. Maybe this is statistically untrue, but empirical evidence is overwhelmingly conclusive. There is one exception here, and that is if at least one commander is ordered to defend, then there is a chance the other commanders in the attacked province may move prior to combat. Oh, by the way, when I say more than one army, I mean more than one group of commanders. When you select multiple commanders and give them all an order, it appears as if the game treats them as one army. I have noticed a difference between grouping them thus and when I group them differently or even send them separately.

This is just one more little detail that makes Dominions III such a great game. The less that players can master the game system, the more the contest becomes a test of skill and strategy. For what it's worth, I hope this is one mystery that is never solved.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

I hate to say "your wrong," but i think you may be a little confused or have just seen some very wonky data. I'm pretty sure that its accepted that you cannot "catch up" to armies with just one army chasing them. those rare times must be when the army is not ordered to move, or when they are ordered to attack your pursuing army. don't know about the multi army thing, but i'm almost positive that chasing armies doesn't work.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Yeah, for some unknown reason some people strongly believe that you can chase another army and get a battle. Only way to do it is to move to a province that is being attacked.

Re: Higher province number moves first?
 

Movement between friendly provinces is handled first. That is known, well observed and even documented in the turn sequence section in the manual.

From my simplified debug example, it seems pretty clear that individual commanders are handled separately, whether they are selected together or not. The multiple army thing is probably a statistical artifact. Chasing armies simply doesn't work, unless he stops or turns back and attacks where you are coming from.

The sequence in the debug log seems clear. All movement orders are processed, then checked to see if any are interrupted by attacks coming the other way. Exactly what determines that is unknown.