Mystery commander deaths after battle - bug?

[LintMan]

I just had a wierd battle where I won, routing the enemy, with 5 out of 6 commanders still alive, and none of my non-pd troops routed. But the report lists 6 out of 6 commanders dead, and looking in the province, it is under my control, and the surviving Herat Companions are there, but no trace of the leaders are there or in surrounding provinces. Also, my surviving hoplites are shown as routed to a neighboring province when in fact they didn't route in the battle.

On this same turn, an earlier battle (an Earth Attack) in the battle reports gives the "bad vcr header" error and crashes the game, but things seem fine as long as I don't try to view it.

Details of the battle (single player game):
Arcoscephale (me) defending:
10 province defense
Strategos (with Flying Ship & many other items)
- 24 Heart Companions
- 33 Hoplites
- 2 slingers
- 2 Scorpions
Mystic: FFESS magic
Druid: NNHH
2 Arco Priestesses
Soulless comander
- 55 Soulless

Marignon attacking:
Grand Master
Witch Hunter
Friar
- 3 KoTC
- 3 Royal Guard
- 10 Summer Lions
- 5 Spring Hawks
- 16 Fire Snakes
- 9 Halberdiers
- 7 crossbowman
- 10 archers
- ~30 barbarians
- ~20 militia

At the beginning of the battle, I make the sorry discovery that the flying ship gives the bearer flying *in combat* as well as on the map (even though it doesn't add the wing icon), so the strategos flies ahead of everyone and promptly gets mobbed and dies.

After the the battle goes OK - the soulless are obliterated (except the leader in the rear), but most of marignon's troops are killed/routed.

At the end, all my leaders except the strategos are still alive. My surviving 17 Heart Companions and 20 Hoplites hunt down the Last remaining Marignon units. The 4 spellcasters are all fatigued out but the souless commander is not.

Checking on the map, all the Heart Companions were left in the province (leaderless), and the Hoplites were in a neighboring province.

Wierd, eh?

[Graeme Dice]

Are you using Version 2.08 or earlier? if so, there is a battle replay bug that shows up when the host and clients are on different operating systems.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Are you using Version 2.08 or earlier? if so, there is a battle replay bug that shows up when the host and clients are on different operating systems.

Oops, I meant to mention that I'm in 2.11. I remember hearing about the bug you mention, and it does sound like my problem is similar, but I'm in single player. (under Windows XP)

[Norfleet]

Did you JUST patch? All battle replays on the turn you patched from 2.08 to 2.11 are incompatible on Windows boxen, because the behavior that was made default is the unix behavior.

Otherwise, maybe somebody died in the "bad VCR"? Do you have any idea which commander was killed in the Earth Attack that is unviewable? Or perhaps a commander retreated while affected by Bleed, Decay, Bane Blades, or Banefire, and the effect took hold after he left?

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Did you JUST patch? All battle replays on the turn you patched from 2.08 to 2.11 are incompatible on Windows boxen, because the behavior that was made default is the unix behavior.

Nope, I patched back when 2.11 came out, and this game was started post-patching.

Otherwise, maybe somebody died in the "bad VCR"? Do you have any idea which commander was killed in the Earth Attack that is unviewable?

It was my mage that cast the Earth Attack on an enemy, in a province nowhere near the problem battle. I don't know if any enemy was killed by it or not.

Or perhaps a commander retreated while affected by Bleed, Decay, Bane Blades, or Banefire, and the effect took hold after he left?

The battle was with Marignon, and its army had none of those attack abilities. (The Grand Master was FFFSSN). And except for the hapless doomed strategos and the dead pd hoplite commander, my other 5 commanders were alive and unrouted at the end of battle. Watching the battle, the 4 mages/priests were never targeted by any spells, missiles or melee attacks. I paused the battle a second before it ended and checked everyone's status, and no one had any ill effects or damage. (Well, the soulless commander had slight damage, but nothing serious or ongoing)

Checking the replay again, I recounted the surviving hc's and hoplites, and the number shown to survive doesn't match the number of actual units remaining. So it really does seem that I'm watching one variant of the battle, while the game reflects a different possible variant.

[Norfleet]

Welp. You got me. I'm baffled. This sounds like one of those flukey, intermittent bugs that's a real pain in the *** to track down. Glad that's not MY problem.

[ June 06, 2004, 08:51: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Master Shake]

Could the answer be Decay. If I remember correctly, units hit with decay make a MR after the battle for death. So the commander could have survived the battle, but died to decay afterwards.

[atul]

I just had an experience like this one, although not as severe. In 2-player MP my latest turn shows a battle, according to the battle report I lose only one normal unit but replay shows how one of my Behemoths bites the dust along with several normal units. The Behemoth however is still alive.

The spells cast are mostly buffs (my mages) and Sulphur Haze & Fire Darts (offending suicidal Phoenix). I wanted to wait for further info from my opponent/host's PoV before reporting anything based on partial information, but then noted this thread.

Dunno whether my battle has anything in common with LintMan's, except that (maybe) poison was used in both? At least some units in LintMan's battle were cabable of inflicting poison damage, and situation where you win although all commanders die could happen with poison clouds or such. Could it be possible that poison resistance throw (somewhere I remember reading there was some resisted thingie, or?) were bugged similarly to the previous MR bug? Ok that was a total shot in the dark.

Anyway, I think my host has this and previous turns' .trn/.ftrlnd files saved if there's any interest in them. (oh yes, 2.11, I'm on winxp, don't know of the host, yet)

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Master Shake:
Could the answer be Decay. If I remember correctly, units hit with decay make a MR after the battle for death. So the commander could have survived the battle, but died to decay afterwards.

The Marignon force had no decay-capable units, and four of the six unexpectedly dead commanders were never attacked at all during the battle, not by melee, missiles, or spells, and they were in perfect health at the end (although they had fatigue at ~100).

Interestingly, on the next turn, one of my commanders was attacked by an asassin. The battle was shown to be in a certain province. She easily dispatched the asassin. When I checked the location of the attacked commander, though, she was in a neighboring province to the one it showed the battle was in. Neither province shows the crossed swords indicating a battle took place.

I'm starting to think my game has gotten a bit corrupted. Fortunately, I'm in the endgame stages now.