Retreating and dying. Is this a bug or my ignorance ?

Stelteck · #1 February 28th, 2013, 05:33 PM

Hi.
I just had a battle where i lost some of my super combattant while retreating of map. I do not understand why.
I need expert advice.

I use dominion patch 3.28 CBM 1.94

It is a huge battle between me, arcocephale and palata. I'am loosing badly. It is normal.

First part of the battle, for information :
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/64073834/battle1.avi

The second part of the battle focus on the behaviour of my SC during retreat.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/64073834/battle2.avi

At 1:00 of the video, we can see 3 of my SC :
GroStelios, my cyclop. Flying with boots. (He is top right)
King water troll. Middle of the screen. He is walking and running away.
King troll, flying with boots, fighting in the middle left. (The orange troll).

at 1:05, the message : "the army of arcocephale is routed"

immediatly : King troll and GroStelios disapeared. My opinion was : They ran away flying and immediatly left the map.
water king troll run away too, but it will be slower as he walk. He managed to leave the map at 3:46.

End of the battle. This is the result on strategic map :

GroStelios the cyclop is DEAD.
King water troll is DEAD.
King troll is alive on a neighbouring province.

I really do not understand why king troll is alive and not the others.

I thought retreating always succeed if there is friendly neighbouring provinces.

Anyone have an explaination ?

Thanks for your help.

Gandalf Parker · #2 February 28th, 2013, 05:46 PM

Did they retreat or flee?
There is a difference. Retreat (as a scripted action) usually works as long as there is someplace to retreat to. But fleeing (routing) a battle is a panic. The direction of the fleeing is randomly chosen. Sometimes to a province they own and sometimes not.
IIRC

Man with No Name · #3 February 28th, 2013, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Did they retreat or flee?
There is a difference. Retreat (as a scripted action) usually works as long as there is someplace to retreat to. But fleeing a battle is a panic. The direction of the fleeing is randomly chosen. Sometimes to a province you own and sometimes not.
IIRC

What? You do not remember correctly.

Stelteck · #4 February 28th, 2013, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Man with No Name

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Did they retreat or flee?
There is a difference. Retreat (as a scripted action) usually works as long as there is someplace to retreat to. But fleeing a battle is a panic. The direction of the fleeing is randomly chosen. Sometimes to a province you own and sometimes not.
IIRC

What? You do not remember correctly.

Is this true ? It can explain the result. It is a fleeing due to the army routing.

The second video is enough to see what happens. (battle2). Do not bother with the first one.

Man with No Name · #5 February 28th, 2013, 06:33 PM

Once a unit successfully retreats from the battle they are dealt with the same. It makes no difference if they fled or were ordered to retreat. And you can only retreat to friendly provinces. I do not know why Gandalf Parker remembers otherwise, but it is a mistaken memory.

A video of the battle is not going to be enough to provide you with an answer I'm afraid. That is like asking a mechanic to tell you what is wrong with your car by taking a photo of it. The mechanic has to see the car, and we will need to see the turn file. So unless you can post the turn file, I do not see how anyone can offer you an explanation as to what happened, or confirm whether there is indeed a bug involved.

Man with No Name · #6 February 28th, 2013, 05:46 PM

Those are some pretty big files to download (101MB and 322MB). Any chance you can just post the turn file instead? Because that is likely going to be required anyway to offer a reliable answer (it will be really hard, if not impossible to tell you what happened if all there is to go on is the video of the battle)

Corinthian · #7 February 28th, 2013, 06:34 PM

If one of the SC survived then this is most likely not a rout problem but a replay bug problem. Does you battle summary state that your SC survived or not? Because if you have the replay bug then the summary should state that they died.

Also, have you really checked all the provinces around? You can use the "8" button to see which provinces are connected to the one they fled from one. Sometimes this is not obvious.

Fantomen · #8 February 28th, 2013, 06:35 PM

Retreating and fleeing works exactly the same, randomized between the friendly provinces. If there is only one province all successfully retreated units go there, if there is no province all units die.

In this case, they probably died for some reason other than the retreat mechanic.

Edit: ninjad by the gentlemen above. Like Corinthian says the dreaded replay bug is probably the answer. Meaning that the battle replay does not reflect the real battle fought. Unfortunately this is not uncommon.

Also, turn files are better than videos. We all have the client and that way we can examine the actual event and even run a debug on it if it turns out to be some new major bug involved. (but in this case I'm 99.99% sure that it's either the replay bug or you missed something that explains it)

Stelteck · #9 February 28th, 2013, 06:47 PM

The battle summary told me that i have 14 surviving heroes. And i have 14 surviving heroes at hand. So battle summary say that my 2 SCs are dead, but the replay do not show it.

Replay bug then ?

Man with No Name · #10 February 28th, 2013, 07:01 PM

Yes it sounds like a battle replay bug, so your two mssing SC's were killed in the battle unfortunately.

This could be confirmed with the turn file, but it sounds like you have confirmed it yourself. (if you want it confirmed at a later date when the game is over or battle not important anymore, then you can post the turn then if you want to know for certain)