HUGE bug: Enemy intercepts, then doesn't attack. timer runs out, and I lose?!?!?!?

[Prussian to the Iron]

well, its all in the title. heres the story:

so in my Prussian campaign, sweden is dangerously expanding, and have taken lithuania from my ally poland. so, once they DoW on me, i build up a small army of 7 infantry and 2 arty. i march these into the former courland, and am intercepted by a much smaller swedish army. 'ok,' i thought, 'ill just kill them here, then wipe out the mobs guarding the city'. so i went into the battle, wanting to test out a formation i was recently told about.

so i spend like 5 minutes putting my men into the perfect formation, and press 'end deployment'. the enemy garrisons a couple buildings, then sits there. it doesnt even move its horse arty to shoot me. nor does it move its horses.

so i quit, then re-load the pre-battle save. this time, i turn on a 30-minute time limit, thinking 'well, at least now if they st there ill still win.' oh but how wrong i was. they sat there again, for 30 fast-forwarded game minutes, and i got my arty to destroy a garrisoned building of theirs, killing 66 men.

well, the time runs out. and I LOSE!!!!!! how does that make any sense at all?

now, luckilly it didnt take any of my men but still killed 66 of theirs, so it wasnt disastrous like i imagined when it said 'crushing defeat'. ive encountered this before, but now im starting to get really pissed off.


however, so far ive only seen this happen if i am 'intercepted'. if i am simply attacked or the enemy sallies from the siege, i actually get to battle.


why is the a.i. so stupid? i mean, at least in previous titles they actually attacked you. and if they attacked and the timer ran out, then they were defeated, not you.

[Slaists]

It's not a bug, but rather, a feature. That's how CA has implemented interception. The party getting intercepted is the attacker. In this case, it was you. If the player gets to intercept, then the AI is the attacker and timer running out means the player wins.

One might argue that it would be logical for the party doing the interception to be the active one, but that's not how it is in the game.

One might argue that CA had not actually made up their mind whether the interceptor should be the defender or the intercepted... Currently, the interceptor (the defender) does not get to deploy field defenses whereas the intercepted (the attacker in the game) does...

Actually, I am having a battle on the other PC here where I am defending against an AI party intercepted by me. The actions of the AI are kind of indicative of the designer confusion. Initially, the AI almost walked off the map and then sat for a while behind a fence... Then, it ran back to my fort and attacked...

[Prussian to the Iron]

wow. but i thought features are suposed to be good things. i mean, it seems like its more of a fluke on their part.

i cant believe that. i mean, its just stupid as stupid gets.

on the bright side, at least i cant lose an entire army like you would if the timer ran out like in previous titles.

[Slaists]

wow. but i thought features are suposed to be good things. i mean, it seems like its more of a fluke on their part.

i cant believe that. i mean, its just stupid as stupid gets.

on the bright side, at least i cant lose an entire army like you would if the timer ran out like in previous titles.

Well, in the community there have been arguments on both sides (that the interceptor should be the attacker and the reverse). I kind of side with your reasoning that the interceptor should be the active one; however, in the game, that would remove any sense in having forts/fortifications in crucial places. I guess, while coding, CA could not differentiate between two types of "passing": 1) very close to the fortification (a mountain passage, for example); in that case, the intercepted party should be the attacker in order to "cross". This is how it is now in the game; 2) passing via remote roads that are still accessible to the host army in timely manner; so, it can intercept (attack) if it chose to.

The way it has been implemented currently in the game, a cavalry-only army, if intercepted by a fort based force, would lose automatically upon loading the battle. In ETW, cavalry cannot attack fortifications... I know, it's silly, cavalry should always be able to dismount if they chose to, but that's a different point. Try playing Prussia and build a fort near Lithuania. Soon enough, cavalry-only raids will start. You'll win 'by default' as long as you press "intercept" and the Poles send only cavalry

[Beskar]

The idea is this.

Your army is marching along all happy, then the inceptor moves out to "dig in" a defensive line while you are happily marching towards them. As you can only go through them or turn back, you have to do that choice. If you fall back, you simply not go that way and try going a different way instead.

[Slaists]

The idea is this.

Your army is marching along all happy, then the inceptor moves out to "dig in" a defensive line while you are happily marching towards them. As you can only go through them or turn back, you have to do that choice. If you fall back, you simply not go that way and try going a different way instead.

I guess, the problem is that the AI does not know how to fall back

[pevergreen]

We had a big thread on this a while back. Search function is your friend.

As it has been said, it was concluded it was a feature, wether or not a correct one, varies upon taste. I see it as a correct one, as like Beskar says, you either fight through or are defeated.

Like that thing that happened to Caeser in the Gaulish forest, it was a historical battle in RTW.

[Slaists]

We had a big thread on this a while back. Search function is your friend.

As it has been said, it was concluded it was a feature, wether or not a correct one, varies upon taste. I see it as a correct one, as like Beskar says, you either fight through or are defeated.

Like that thing that happened to Caeser in the Gaulish forest, it was a historical battle in RTW.

Like I said before: the problem lies in the fact that the ETW AI does not know how to retreat. Come on, having two units of light cavalry raiders at your disposal, YOU wouldn't be assaulting a gun fort swarming with troops, just to test whether you really will get defeated. YOU'd retreat... The ETW AI doesn't know how to do it.

The doubts about whether this is an 'intended' feature arise when one sees the 'attacker' being able to deploy field defenses whereas the 'defender' (interceptor) cannot. At least, it seems, CA could not get their thoughts straight: which way it should go.

[Prussian to the Iron]

We had a big thread on this a while back. Search function is your friend.

i may be missing something, but whenever i search for something i get just about everything but what i am looking for. and even then, what would i look for to find a thread like this? 'intercepting wrong sides'?!

i hate search function; it almost never comes up with what i want, and keywords have to be perfect and exact.

[PseRamesses]

Prussian iron,
Did they intercept u during your move or during the AI´s move? If they did during your move you have walked into their zone of control and you have to defeat or remove the "obstacle" in your path. Makes perfect sense to me m8.
If they intercepted u during the AI´s move they simply took a defensive stance and it also makes perfect sense to me too

[resonantblue]

It makes sense to me. It brings usefullness to forts. In reality, you might be able to go around a fort, but if you're marching in the vicinity the fort's light cavalry would destroy your lines of communication. Which is why in reality you would have to take that fortress. The intercept simulates that because if you're trying to go around the fort in its vicnity (let's call that the fortress garrison's light cavalry sortie range) that means your lines of communication run through the fort's interdiction zone.

Which, if it were real ife, meant you had to attack the fort. And you can actually build a chain of forts that can't be bypassed as in previous TW games where it only meant you took an extra turn to get by the fort. Which, if one looks at the Iberian campaigns during the Napoleonic Wars, is how it should be.

[pevergreen]

i may be missing something, but whenever i search for something i get just about everything but what i am looking for. and even then, what would i look for to find a thread like this? 'intercepting wrong sides'?!

i hate search function; it almost never comes up with what i want, and keywords have to be perfect and exact.

For your situation, I would have searched "intercept" maybe searching only thread titles.

Search checks the title of the thread and the posts in the thread, so if its mentioned it will come up. I forget how it ranks them though. Maybe most recent is first.

[Prussian to the Iron]

exactly. you said:

big thread on this a while back.

which means it would take forever to find it. i am getting pretty annoyed when people constantly tell others to use the search function.

if it was better, maybe i would. ive tried before. it is crap.

[pevergreen]

exactly. you said:


which means it would take forever to find it. i am getting pretty annoyed when people constantly tell others to use the search function.

if it was better, maybe i would. ive tried before. it is crap.

I did a quick search for intercept, it was on the second page. Thats about the 25th entry or something. Took me 40 seconds.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ight=intercept

Its even in the thread title

[Prussian to the Iron]

it doesnt matter. if you're just going to continually shove 'search function' down my throat, than just dont talk to me.

[Fisherking]

Chill out guys!

People are trying to help

[Prussian to the Iron]

hes not trying to help; hes being just like a bunch of others and telling every other person to use t search function. i consider this spam; it is irrelevant to the topic most o the time. the last 6 posts here (plus the 1 he made at the start) have been about the damn search function. its annoying.

[pevergreen]

The reason people suggest the use of the search function is that you can find the answer yourself, without needing to create another topic. Its teaching you independance, as you are finding the infomation out for yourself.

Its like trying to fix a problem without reading the FAQ/instructions about the darn thing.

[Prussian to the Iron]

ah crap, it wont let me ignore him.......grrrrrr

ill just manually ignore him then.

[pevergreen]

Actually, if you click on my name and then go to my public profile, then under the big version of my name should be a thing saying "User lists", if you click that, the option to add to your ignore list comes up.

fyi, I placed you on ignore about 4 months ago.

edit: Also, congratulations on getting a thousand posts!

may there be many more to come.

[Prussian to the Iron]

it says i cant ignore you because yuo are a 'moderator or administrator'????

as long as we're done with this discussion i dont really care.


P.S. thanks for the congrats! i didnt even notice!

[pevergreen]

Ah, I sort of sub moderate the Modding section and my own mod, that may be it.

Silly vBulletin.

yeah, QAC really.

[Slaists]

I'm not sure what logic (if that can be called "logic") was CA following when they coded the AI's battle behavior when it gets intercepted by a fort-based force and the AI supposedly has to ATTACK the interceptor (the player).

Example: 3 AI's line units + some cavalry + 1 cannon get intercepted by my star-fort based stack(!). Knowing that the AI will attack, I decide not to wait for the exhausted ninja acrobats in the square, but to speed things up and put the troops (most of them) out to meet the "raiders" in the field.

What do you think the AI does? It sends it's 3 line units RUNNING in a bee-line for my walls. The irony is that on their merry martyr way the AI's troops are passing by my lined up field troops and while being shot to pieces with rank-fire.

Survivors reach the wall, do their ninja rope-bit, (while getting even more exhausted) and then rout instantly... Note that it was not the case that the inside of the fort was empty and the AI had any hope of marching into the square and winning the battle by capturing "the flag".

1. 3 line + cavalry + 1 cannon should not ATTACK a full stack; they should RUN for their lives. Back to where they came from preferably.
2. who on earth came up with the bit of programming that makes the AI completely ignore what's going on in the field?