View Full Version : Reinforcement broken?
Old Bald Guy
07-08-2003, 11:52
I've noticed it before, but last night it became completely obvious. I spent fifteen minutes rearranging my reinforcement panel so I would get all infantry as reinforcement to my army being attacked by the Sicillians. I wanted to completely wipe out their army of 3000, so I arranged to get more missle troops and Saracen infantry on the field. Didn't happen.
When the battle began, I had a horse archery unit I didn't choose. When I withdrew my seige cannon and organ gun, Mamaluk cav appeared. As my depleted Sarcens were withdrawn, nothing but cav units appeared. By the time the battle was completed, I had 16 units of cav on the field, and the Sicillians got away.
I know reinforcements come from top to bottom. I had several depleted inf units at the bottom of the panel which never appeared. I had NO cav units within four rows of the top. I had thought this was happening earlier in the campaign, but this time it was completely obvious the reinforcement arrangement was not working.
Anyone else seen this? If this is a bug, it damn sure needs to be fixed, because it completely messes up your strategy.
What am I doing wrong???
Mount Suribachi
07-08-2003, 12:03
I was gunna post on this. I've had this happen to me too ie no matter how I arrange my reinforcements on the pre-battle screen I get nothing but cav. when the cav runs out, I finally get my inf arriving. Very annoying when you're facing 1000 FS and 4 units of Saharan Cavalry arrive...
Oh well, add this to the reasons why I will not buy RTW till VI is patched...
Urban Legend
07-08-2003, 12:11
If this is true, then there is even less reason to play the orginal campaign with VI.
Al Shama'ar
07-08-2003, 17:20
As far as I know, cav always comes first as reinforcements. All i've been able to do is to sort them out (cav archers, MS, RK, etc) anyway i want. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
Al
DrHaphazard
07-08-2003, 17:23
Yeah i think perhaps horses automatically come to the fore when you reinforce, i had this happen to me the other day. Can't say i didnt need those horses tho since i was attacking and it would have been far to late had i needed to wait for spearmen to arrive.
Unfortunatelly, it's true. All your reinforcements will be cavalry first. What can I say, the pre-battle screen was the feature that I was looking forward to the most... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
A slight workarounds:
- choose all infantry army at first, since you'll get the cavalry anyway
- choose cavalry in first 16, withdraw the ones you won't need to get infantry
- adjust the stack composition; either use a single stack only, or lower the amount of cavalry in the army, so you cycle through them more quickly
- cycle through reinforcements before the battle starts; either stop once the unit you want to show up is next, or "weave" the cavalry with infantry in the way you want them to appear; this is a hassle to do, it takes a long time, and I haven't tried it in VI yet, but it used to work in the original MTW; I don't know whather the order will be correct in VI
The way it stands now, pre-battle screen is useful for choosing you starting 16, and the cavalry bug is predictable, and therefore has a minor advantage, just like the predictability of death at 56 has. There are some other weirdnesses with reinforcements and generals, which I wrote about in the thread I started recently....
Foreign Devil
07-08-2003, 21:59
Quote[/b] (Mount Suribachi @ July 08 2003,06:03)]Oh well, add this to the reasons why I will not buy RTW till VI is patched...
Is this a problem specific to VI?
You could always keep withdrawing the cav until you got the needed infantry... of course, if you needed the cav later, you'd be out of luck...
Can't say I've had many problems with this, as most of the time when I bring out reinforcements, I want it to be cav so I can quickly bring it to where I need it.
Mount Suribachi
07-09-2003, 07:03
Quote[/b] (Foreign Devil @ July 08 2003,21:59)]
Quote[/b] (Mount Suribachi @ July 08 2003,06:03)]Oh well, add this to the reasons why I will not buy RTW till VI is patched...
Is this a problem specific to VI?
well the pre-battle screen where you could arrange your forces and, supposedly, your re-enforcements, is a VI addition.
Foreign Devil
07-09-2003, 07:58
Ah. Didn't know you could(supposedly) use it to arrange your reinforcements.
Old Bald Guy
07-09-2003, 11:05
Well, the good news is people agree it's a bug. The bad news is, it's a bug. I thought I was getting it wrong.
Ok, so the 56 bug is annoying. This one is potentially show stopping. I know I've lost a couple of battles because of it.
Bummer.
Umm ... the cav arriving first thing happened to me last night, but I thought maybe I had messed up. Nice to know it is a bug. I guess for me the solution may be not to have too many cav. I always want first reinforcements to be archers or heavy infantry; I can be economical with cav as I usually only employ it for pursuit.
Foreign Devil
07-09-2003, 20:54
Quote[/b] (Old Bald Guy @ July 09 2003,05:05)]Ok, so the 56 bug is annoying. This one is potentially show stopping. I know I've lost a couple of battles because of it.
How could this make you lose a battle? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
NewJeffCT
07-09-2003, 21:11
Quote[/b] (Foreign Devil @ July 09 2003,14:54)]
Quote[/b] (Old Bald Guy @ July 09 2003,05:05)]Ok, so the 56 bug is annoying. This one is potentially show stopping. I know I've lost a couple of battles because of it.
How could this make you lose a battle? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
Quote[/b] (Old Bald Guy @ July 09 2003,05:05)]Ok, so the 56 bug is annoying. This one is potentially show stopping. I know I've lost a couple of battles because of it.
How could this make you lose a battle? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
I would guess it would make you lose the battle if you strategically withdraw a certain type of troop (say, a group of chivalric men at arms) expecting them to be replaced by the same type of troop to combat the enemies pike or spear heavy army and you get a group of hobilars, you are stuck with a unit that is almost useless against an anti-cav army.
Portuguese Rebel
07-09-2003, 22:40
Hmmm never saw this happening I must have been lucky http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Everytime i fight the troops arrive when i want them to arrive http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
Does this happen a lot?
Old Bald Guy
07-10-2003, 10:13
Not often, Reb, every time. At least, every time since I've noticed it in my current game. Plus, the last unit in the first 16 is not always one you choose, usually a cav troop. It's strange.
Last night, I pulled this unit and cycled through the reinforcements until I got the unit I wanted. Then, I got slammed badly by the Arrogantese (sp intended) and when I started clicking reinforcements, I got nothing but archers, which were lined up behind the cav units which were cycled out before the battle started. The reinforcement queue just doesn't work.
How could you lose a battle? Oh, try fighting the GH and have the reinforcing spearmen you expect turn out to be horse archers. You are dead, my friend.
It happens all the time for me too, and is especially annoying when you are defending, and typically want to replace your missile units with ones that have fresh ammo.
This has frequently caused me to auto-calc defensive battles against cavalry archer armies like the GH, because i take big losses when fielding slow heavy cavalry against horse archers instead of arbalasts that can slaughter the horse archers.
I never noticed this either though I seldom take more than 16 units to a fight or call for infantry reinforcements first when I do. I generally expect to need fresh cavalry for the pursuit. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
It makes sense that cav would arrive first. However, the setup does not tell you this so if it isn't actually broken it is at the very least poorly presented.
Urban Legend
07-10-2003, 17:53
Erm use bigger units? That way less chances of fielding more than 16 units.
Knight Keimo
07-10-2003, 18:23
Am I only who doesn´t like that reinforcements screen??
It take ages to organize 2000-3000 men, or then I dont understand how to use it.. Is it suppose to be easy?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Mount Suribachi
07-10-2003, 20:31
Quote[/b] (Urban Legend @ July 10 2003,17:53)]Erm use bigger units? That way less chances of fielding more than 16 units.
Not everyones PC can handle bigger units. Cos of problems between MTW and my GFX card I can barely handle normal units - it looks ugly and stutters with big armies.
Whilst it *may* be more realistic for Cavalry to arrive first, I haven't seen it anywhere in the manual, nor should the pre-battle screen allow you to tinker with the order to no avail. It should just stick all your cav to the top of the reinforcements pile.
And, this has just occured to me. I'm 90% sure, this doesn't affect the CPUs reinforcements. I've definately seen the AI bring up cav as the last of its reinforcements.
Quote[/b] (Mount Suribachi @ July 10 2003,14:31)]And, this has just occured to me. I'm 90% sure, this doesn't affect the CPUs reinforcements. I've definately seen the AI bring up cav as the last of its reinforcements.
I am not too convinced that it doesn't affect the AI. Most of the time, it's the same thing, cavalry first, although their reinforcements in pre-battle screen showed differently.
The funny thing is, that I have a feeling that this wasn't the case on some occasions when I was just starting VI. Maybe because I didn't know it for sure?
I have this problem too with reinforcements but also I noticed that when fresh troops come on they show very tired. This may have been put into the game since they have been standing around for half a day in there armour naturally tiring them.
Does everyone else have the same thing happen to them?
HopAlongBunny
07-10-2003, 22:50
The reinforcement bug appears to be random. I had it occur during two campaigns...for the entire campaign. I have since played two more campaigns w/o that problem. It IS very annoying...one of the features of VI that made it worth buying.
"Fresh" troops always come on with some fatigue. I think its based on some sort of average of all your units in the battle.
Quote[/b] (oaty @ July 10 2003,16:14)]I have this problem too with reinforcements but also I noticed that when fresh troops come on they show very tired. This may have been put into the game since they have been standing around for half a day in there armour naturally tiring them.
Does everyone else have the same thing happen to them?
Reinforcements will come to the field progressively more tired as the battle drags on. You've probably noticed that troops on the field, although they might not be doing anything, will also get more and more tired. The lowest that the fatigue can drop this way in dry weather outside the desert is quite tired (two bars). To the best of my knowledge, reinforcements will have the same fatigue deduction as if they were standing on the field doing nothing since the beginning of the battle. Also, take into account that they have to walk to the battlefield, which often involves walking uphill at the edge of the map. This thread (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=18;t=8373) from the MP forum has some further details on the fatigue, if you're interested.
ps. This is not a new feature of VI, it was present in the MTW 1.0 as well.
Yes - on the fatigue issue, I think it makes sense to deploy your most heavily armoured units on the map and keep the lighter stuff for reinforcements. This is especially true in the desert, where heavily armoured units can't recover fatigue. Your heavy units (knights, FMAA, AUM etc) can do their work unimpeded by fatigue against the first wave of the enemy, typically the critical one, but may be puffed out coming in as replacements.
Mount Suribachi
07-11-2003, 18:00
Something which occurred to me today on the nature of whether cav 1st reinforcements is a realistic justification of the "bug"
It all depends on how view the reinforcements. Are they the Prussians at Waterloo? Arriving late on the battlefield after a long march? In which case cavalry 1st would be more realistic.
Or are they reserves? held back by the general, ready to be thrown into battle at the most opputune moment? In which case you should be able to choose which units you reinforce with.
I would argue that the 2nd is a more historically accurate scenario.
Well on some terrains I've had troops go from very tired back to quite fresh maybe that was because it was very early in the battle still or the further north you are the more stamina your men can get back
haven`t come across this bug yet (playing VI + medmod) they appear in the correct order, just as i had them laid out in the pre-battle screen. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
a lot of my reinforcements ARE tired when they get to the battlefield, could be to simulate a forced march, i guess.
oh well, back to conquering the known world again http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Portuguese Rebel
07-15-2003, 22:02
So it seems this bug is not 100% effective?
I wonder what triggers it?
The bug seems ever present to me and while the player can work around it (eg economise on cavalry), it may hurt the AI. When their second wave is going to be almost all cav, if it is the lighter stuff you can just form up a shield wall and plink at them with arrows. I just slaughtered a mass of Egyptian camels and Saharan cav like this.
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