Higher province number moves first?

sansanjuan · #1 October 17th, 2009, 11:29 AM

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

thejeff · #2 October 17th, 2009, 11:49 AM

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.

Psycho · #3 October 17th, 2009, 12:10 PM

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.

Omnirizon · #4 October 17th, 2009, 12:37 PM

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...

thejeff · #5 October 17th, 2009, 01:19 PM

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.

vfb · #6 October 17th, 2009, 01:32 PM

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

Illuminated One · #7 October 17th, 2009, 01:43 PM

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.

Psycho · #8 October 17th, 2009, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vfb

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

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.

thejeff · #9 October 17th, 2009, 02:24 PM

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.

Omnirizon · #10 October 17th, 2009, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thejeff

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.

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.