Movement priority

[Ming]

My experience is as follows:

Situation One:
A1-> B2 (player A in province 1 moving to province 2 owned by player B)
B2-> A1

Possible outcomes are a) battle in 1; b) battle in 2; c) both armies remain at their province; d) A end up in 2 and B end up in 1.

Antidotal evidence suggest that d) is very unlikely under normal circumstances. Virtually all (but may not be 100%) occurrence that I can remember have either one army having flight or stealth (but moving normally), or one army being very small.

Situation Two:
A1 -> B3
B2 -> A1

In my experience battles do sometimes occur at province 1. However, on those occasions that I can remember B has a castle at province 1. So it is possible that for movement purposes province 1 might still be considered to be owned by B (hence B moves before A). Nevertheless, I think a more likely answer is that movement order in this situation is random.

[Lingchih]

Originally Posted by Ming

My experience is as follows:

Situation One:
A1-> B2 (player A in province 1 moving to province 2 owned by player B)
B2-> A1

Possible outcomes are a) battle in 1; b) battle in 2; c) both armies remain at their province; d) A end up in 2 and B end up in 1.

Antidotal evidence suggest that d) is very unlikely under normal circumstances. Virtually all (but may not be 100%) occurrence that I can remember have either one army having flight or stealth (but moving normally), or one army being very small.

Situation Two:
A1 -> B3
B2 -> A1

In my experience battles do sometimes occur at province 1. However, on those occasions that I can remember B has a castle at province 1. So it is possible that for movement purposes province 1 might still be considered to be owned by B (hence B moves before A). Nevertheless, I think a more likely answer is that movement order in this situation is random.

Antidotal. I think you mean anecdotal. Other than that, the math is way too comlicated for me. All I know is: if an army moves away from an attacking army, they will not enage.

[Ming]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Antidotal. I think you mean anecdotal.

You got me.

Originally Posted by Lingchih

All I know is: if an army moves away from an attacking army, they will not enage.

Situation Two would be an exception to what you know.

[thejeff]

Is it also possible in your situation Two, that a small force attacked 1 from 3 and that kept A from moving so the army from 2 also arrived and they all fought in 1?

There is (was?) also a rare bug that prevents movement between hostile provinces. That could add to the confusion.

[Ming]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Is it also possible in your situation Two, that a small force attacked 1 from 3 and that kept A from moving so the army from 2 also arrived and they all fought in 1?

Good point. I guess it is possible although the second force would need to be very small or invisible to me to escape my attention at the time.

[Beorne]

So I was remembering right ... it is an obscure matter ....

[Herode]

Sure

[Edi]

Originally Posted by BesucherXia

A side question:
Something regarding movement from this changelog have caught my eyes:
http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html

20th july
* Improved move order validation.

Has anyone idea what it could exactly mean?

It means that force marching and sneaking non-stealthy units out of sieges is no longer possible.

[WraithLord]

From KB (based on an older similar thread), HTH:

8.3 Intercepting Armies, army movement order
Question:
Numerous times, I have instructed armies of various sizes to move / attack into neighboring provinces, but those armies were somehow preemptively attacked causing my army to then not move. Sometimes the enemy "intercepting" army consisted only of a single unit - a very irritating way to have stopped my army of hundreds.

However, every time I try to duplicate this feat myself - by sending attacking armies against an enemy on the move - somehow my intercepting armies never seem to "catch" the enemy.

Is this an AI bug? Has anyone observed any "rules" which constrict how such interceptions would work? It certainly would change my strategy.

Answers:
-> The order of events in a turn, as described in the manual, provides some hints; e.g., armies going to friendly territory always move before armies going to hostile territory.

If both of you are trying to move into enemy terrain, I've been told the order of army movements is partly random, but is influenced by things like army size and terrain.

-> You've been unlucky. I have used this trick too, and it works just as well against the AI as it does against you. However, in order to "catch" the enemy army, you have to:

|1.) Originate in the same province that the enemy is moving to, and be headed toward the same province he's coming from.
|2.) Either have a largish army or get lucky. The chance of interception is somehow based on the size of the armies, and if both armies are small they can "pass through" each other.

-Max

P.S. BTW, if you really do have an unstoppable army of hundreds, this is a good reason to split them into two or more columns. It's a lot harder for the opponent to stop both columns, even if he knows exactly what province you'll be moving into--then the delayed column just catches up. On the other hand, if your army is NOT unstoppable this invites defeat in detail.

P.P.S. One other possibility--it *might* depend upon which nation you're playing. I know that if two EA nations both attempt to move into an indy province on the same turn, and one of them is Abysia, Abysia will always attack the indies first and will therefore be the defender in the battle.

[WraithLord]

Ahmm, there's something I'm not sure about.
Say nations 1 and 2 have armies in provinces A and B respectively, and movement orders are: A1->B1 (1 moves from A to B) and B2->C2 (2 moves from B to C)?- Is it possible that 1's army will engage 2's in B?