Q:- Rout Bug ?

[barocca]

I think I just saw the rout bug in action.
It was a 3v3, low latency, but very high lag.
!!!

I was left hand army,
Our teams center army held,
Our teams right army got crushed,
enemy chased him off map,

Now the fellow in front of me was engaging my left flank - quite hard!
He had just called his left flank into the center of the mellee area, without realising that my right wing/flank was still hidden in the trees. I think he assumed my reserve was my center and my center was my right flank.

Now, when he moved his left flank, I sent 2ND a Monk, a YS and an archer in pursuit, moved behind his lines, and turned in along his flank! to attack him from his flank and rear.
Before my right wing/flank made contact the whole lot routed, and instantly my entire army routed.
I only had 3 or 4 units engaged hth, the rest where marching up, or waiting for an opening.

What I believe is I suffered a morale penalty because the right hand rear area of map was controlled by the enemy.
so when i turned my right flank/wing in behind my opponent i had enemy in front and behind - EVEN though I CAN"T see the far side of the map(enemy behind), I believe shogun is adding in the morale penalty.

Because my right wing was 4 complete fresh mellee units and I was moving into his flank, they broke towards the center of my army, I believe so many fresh troops breaking at once 'cascaded' the rout to my entire army.

Considering the lack of 'hard data' on the finer points of morale, regarding how Close behind does an enemy unit have to be to cause a penalty?
Does a penalty apply If the unit is 'concealed' (if the men can't see it - how can they be afraid of it?)?
etc etc.
Is this a workable theory?

OR should a developer type read this,
Is this what is happening?

If not, then what does cause the mass rout of fresh units?

------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[Link(Micke)San]

Read this post....... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000327.html

I even got full unit routing when moral was set off lol

------------------
May the honour be with you all....
-LinkSan

[ShadowKill]

well i have noticed that when you move your units around as a group and you clutter them all up you can have the whole army run off the field with no chance at rallying if you want to see this just go to a custom battle and give the enemy 1 unit a nag's and you take 16 monks if you move them to much your whole army will rout. lesson learned do not over lap units it is bad for you health

------------------
Clan Shades
Shades
You are already dead you just don't know it yet!!

[Tenchimuyo]

I just hate when that happens.

[UglyJun]

so that means this games AI IS PLAYING U THEN NOT U PLAYING THE GAME WELL ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME SORRY!!!

[NoFearKokoro]

Anyone of your unit routed will affact your entire army and even your allies. I have been in a 3vs3 game and we played defenders. One of my ally (let's named him A) was standing upon a hill and facing two strong emamies. the other ally, B, called A to pull back his units but A didn't listen. After a bloody fight, A started to route and B also suffered morale penalty because B's army was on the way when A's men ran away. B only attacked for few minutes and entire army broke down.

[barocca]

Jun,
we're talking about multiplayer - online.
ShadowKill is merely telling us one way to 'cause' a general rout without your men actually accomplishing anything.
His point is you can tire your men out so much that they quite simply give up and go home,,
sometimes without getting near the bad guys.

NoFearKokoro,
what you said makes perfect sense.
If my guys can see my ally running, then naturally it's going to make them nervous.
BUT (and there's always a but)
If my guys Can't see the enemy behind them - too far away or concealed, then my guys Do Not Know what is going on behind them.

And until such time as they do know,
(enemy moves into view or becomes unconcealed)
Whatever has happened miles away should have no effect on morale here and now.

Either the 'cascade' calculation in the game is too harsh,
AND/OR
(it appears to be AND!!)
where on the map the enemy unit behind your men is does not matter and wether or not your men even know it is there does not matter, they still suffer the penalty.


Thread so far In Summary

I think the rout bomb/bug is caused by:-

1. - Cascade calculation is too harsh.

2. - Distance from 'threatening' units on flank or rear is not measured.

3. - Concealment/Visibility status of enemy unit/s 'threatening' flank or rear is not taken into account for the 'morale' calculation.

4. - other factors being given too much weight in the morale calculation, adverse weather, fatigue status, current confusion level of unit (ordered or disordered), etc.

For reasons known to the moderators of this forum I won't explain why I don't think it is a cheat 'code'.
But I don't think it is.


I think the Rout Bomb is a Bug in the complicated calculation that determines the current morale status of your units.


------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[ShadowKill]

well in responce to Barocca yep most of the time i do not actully say what i am getting at so thank you for clearing it up fot me

And to Jun if you know there are such things as certain this that make things happen like what i was talking about you can learn how to use this to you advantage ie.(fighting on totomi you as the defender you set up your men to the front right up on the lil hill as close up as you can get. now the game starts and the enemy has set up his men on your left his plan is to get to your side and get you to attack fighting with your army set up so when they rout they run into the rest of your army and in turn make your whole army rout.

to counter this you would put your strongest units to the at the right of your line so they would be the last to rout. what you would want to do is attack hard to your left and make his right side rout that would send his troops running into his men fighting and causing his troops that may not have even been fighting yet to rout aswell.


I tryied my best to decribe it as if i was the def and was just picuring it in my mind so lets so if i can come up with a way a lil better to show you (i think i will go play with PSP7 for a lil bit

[ShadowKill]

There 5 min's of my life devoted to that lil pic there

------------------
Clan Shades
Shades
You are already dead you just don't know it yet!!

[Puzz3D]

Shadowkill: I know what you're saying because I recently set up on that defender's hill on Totomi, and it happened to me just as you describe. Also, when the enemy gets between you and your exit point, you have no chance to rally routed units.

barocca: There may be a morale penalty if enemy troops get between your flanking units and your tashio. If so, then those deep flanking maneuvers should be carried out by high morale units.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[barocca]

Puzz3D
Sorry, my fault, I have to be more detailed in my descriptions...

It was not a deep flanking manouver, and H2 monk being my 'outermost' unit, should have been quite comfortable,
The enemy Taisho was not between the flanking units and my Taisho, The shape my units formed was an L shape.

Remember this thread?
a question about fatigue? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000407.html

you'll see an instance of a deep deep flanking maneouver carried out by h2Ys and Yari cav. They routed 4 h2Ys during that skirmish.
The enemy Taisho Was Definately between them and my taisho!


BTW,
I saw another instance of a unit routing for no reason today too.

It was a unit of 50 h3 ND's chasing my routed unit of 7 h2 ND's, they were miles from anything else.
There were several hills and forests between them and their Taisho.
But as soon as I routed their Taisho, they routed!
They could not have known what was happening behind them, unless they had 2 way radios!
According to the owner of the unit, they were pursuing me and impetuos!
But they routed!
(in the confusion he had not realised they had gone after my guys)




------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[Gregoshi]

Barocca,

I believe distance is figured into the flank/rear calculations. See the Dojo discussion below:

Flanking Revisited

In this thread there are several posts from LongJohn2 who Eradosan fingered as a Dreamtime programmer. He gives some very detailed descriptions regarding flanks and morale.

Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[barocca]

Very Informative - i missed that thread entirely. Well worth the read.

Still,
how did those NoDachi know they were alone?

In theory they should not have broken when they did.


------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[Link(Micke)San]

One thing thats bugs me....
True Samuraij´s from those days didn´t run from death, that was the same as death for them (ashiguras i understand if they run)
But monks and other units shouldn´t run, they fought to the last men, if they didn´t they knewed that they had to kill them self anyway, so to not lose family honour they died on the battlefield!!
Correct me if i am wrong on my reading about the true Samuraij´s....



------------------
May the honour be with you all....
-LinkSan

[barocca]

ah,
but this game is :-

"100% Authentic"
"16th Century Japan is stunningly recreated in every exacting detail"
isn't it?
but?
but?
...thats what it says on the box !!!


I don't think they would run in the first place...


------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[Anssi Hakkinen]

There are innumerable occasions of armies composed wholly of samurai routing and fleeing - most often "to fight another day". Offering resistance to the last man was rare, because it risks capture, which is probably the worst kind of dishonor.

Furthermore, especially lower-ranking samurai may take a more pragmatic view of the situation - after all, if they flee from the field, they probably won't be harmed. Rather, they get to return to their homes under a new lord - infinitely preferable to dying for a lord who will obviously be defeated or is already dead.

------------------
"Go to the battlefield firmly confident of victory, and you will come home with no wounds whatever. Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death."
- Uesugi Kenshin

[Puzz3D]

barocca: I ran some custom game tests on my LAN to investigate routing and flanking. I found out some very interesting things.

First I used 7 honor=0 Yari Ashigaru, and an honor=2 YA taisho unit for each army. The armies were formed into a single line of rectangular units (4 or 5 men deep) with the taisho unit centered behind. I brought the attacking army (Mori) up quite close to the defender (Takeda) line. Most of the units in both lines became 'uncertain'. Taking Mori's end unit to a flanking position and filling the gap with Mori's taisho made Takeda's end unit waver, but the flanking Mori unit also started wavering unless it was pointed directly at the Takeda line. So, units carrying out a close flanking maneuver can easily consider themselves as flanked even though the enemy units are not facing the flanking unit.

One other thing I tried here, was to take Mori's tashio way behind the Takeda line. The tashio unit became uncertain back there, but Mori's line units didn't seem to suffer any morale loss that I could see. As the taisho approached Takeda's line from behind it began to waiver when still quite far from the enemy's line. After moving around a bit back there, the taisho ran away and couldn't be rallied. The only Takeda unit I moved around much was the taisho, and that unit also ran away. As I played around with the rest of Mori's units, they eventually all ran away. I figured they got tired.

I decided to try this with 7 honor=0 Yari Samurai and an honor=2 YS taisho for Mori, and the same for Takeda except for an honor=2 YA taisho. With the lines facing each other quite closely the end units became uncertain. Moving the taisho to the end would bring that unit up to steady. The taisho would make enemy units uncertain as he moved along close behind them, but they would recover to steady once the taisho moved on. Routing each taisho in turn didn't noticably change the status of his units. I rallied the taishos, and was moving them around when I saw this rout bug, as it's called. Each taisho was steady. One was quite fresh and the other was quite tired, but they both abruptly routed when I gave a move command, and neither could be rallied.

I played around with this, and it's repeatable. I couldn't get this to happen if the enemy was far away, but with two lines a distance of about 30 men apart all you have to do is move a unit or the taisho side to side a bit. Between the 15th and 20th move the unit will run away, and you cannot rally it. It will happen even if the unit is steady and quite fresh. If you try to rally such a unit, you can see them briefly attempt rallying to an uncertain status, but they can't hold it. Seems like something spooked them.

It might be a bug, or it might be that giving too many move commands makes the troops think you don't know what your doing. In that case, rallying would make no sense whatsoever.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[barocca]

Puzz3D,
how far away was the Taisho from the enemy when they were geting Uncertain?

According to the developer type(longjohn2) that Gregoshi mentions above, there is supposed to be no effect unless the unit is within 75 meters of a threat - about 200 to 220 feet.

If the distance involved was waaay more that 75 meters then the developer type either has not told us everything we need to know, or Shogun is not measuring the distance correctly!

As an approximate,
a No-Dachi need 10 feet to swing his weapon without hitting his neighbour,
We KNOW the formation for the No-Dachi should be wider spaced than it is.
SO
Assuming a distance of 4 feet between men - not far really,
(Hold your arm out straight and your finger tips are 3 feet away from your face.)
AND
Assuming a standing man occupies 3 feet of ground,
THEN
70 meters is approximately the length from left to right of a formation of 60 men standing 2 ranks deep.

NOW
according to longjohn2 the developer type,
No morale checks apply,
until an enemy unit is at this distance !
- ! my expletive is unprintable ! -


I thought the Taisho unit was more or less immune from morale checks caused by being seperated from the other units?
Why did the Taisho in Puzz3D's experiment waver?

I thought it was the other units that suffered moral checks if the enemy Taisho was between them and their Taisho?



------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[Gregoshi]

Barocca,

To be fair to LongJohn2, he was uncertain as to the exact distance - 75m was his best guess. He must not have been directly involved in that part of the game and hence his uncertainty.

Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[barocca]

Gregoshi,
I doubt longjohn2 erred by much,


Using the approximate measurements Above.

Obake has routed my men by appearing behind them at distances far greater then 75 meters.

Yabusama has done the same.



------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[Puzz3D]

barocca: Nothing I observered contradicted longjohn2. The Mori taisho in my first experiment was an honor=2 YA. That's not a very brave unit, and it became uncertain once it was away from it's own troops, and not getting whatever morale bonus they were giving it. Most of the honor=0 YA in both lines went to uncertain when they got close. I didn't measure the distance, but it was something like 10 men (about 10 meters by your estimate). So, there must be a morale penalty just for being in proximity to enemy units. There was no flanking at this point. You can only observe the coarse changes from steady to uncertain to wavering and finally running. The program, no doubt, is using a much finer scale to make the morale calculations. So, if there is a morale penalty for facing enemy troops, it could be starting further out, and gradually increasing as you get closer.

That brings me to the Mori taisho behind Takeda's line. I brought him very deep behind, and then approached Takeda along the center axis of his line. The line was seven 60 man units 4 or 5 men deep. That would be either 84 men or 105 across with a little space between each unit. So, say 90 or 110 meters. I believe a flank starts at 45 degrees off center. Some observations I made seem to confirm this. If you sight along a diagonal row of men in a unit, your looking along the 45 degree line. At the point that the Mori taisho went to waivering, I looked to see if Takeda's end units could be flanking it. The Takeda line still seemed to be within a 90 degree arc, but it was close. I didn't measure the distance, but the height of a 45/45/90 triangle would be 45 or 55 men (meters?). I would have estimated it at about 60 men (meters?). I bunched up the Takeda line just to make sure it wasn't a flanking issue, but the Mori taisho continued to waver. When I tried to move the taisho back away from Takeda, he ran away.

My suggestion that flanking units routing might be due to enemy units between them and the taisho isn't supported. However, flanking units can be suffering morale penalties if they are themselves flanked, and also take some kind of morale hit just by approaching the enemy. I would still say flanking with high morale units is the best bet.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[barocca]

Puzz3D
My question was basically how close before visible morale penalties,

So from your observations, longjohn2's approximate of 75 meter's distance for morale check would seem to be fairly accurate?

So do you think it's starting to look like the 'cascade' calculation itself may be the cuplrit?
(cascade - where each unit's morale failure affects the next closest unit, causing that unit to have to check it's own morale, with penalties because it's seeing a neighbouring unit rout, and because that unit now has an exposed flank.)



------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[ShadowKill]

yep that sounds right


Damnit everyone tell me nice pic I worked hard on that!!!

------------------
Clan Shades
Shades
You are already dead you just don't know it yet!!

[Puzz3D]

barocca: I can't rerun the test now because the 2nd machine I was using has been removed. If you figure 4 feet between men, then a line of 60 men is about 240 feet (74 meters). I did see a morale effect at something like that distance when the Mori taisho was behind the Takeda line. You can't pinpoint it because the morale indicator is so coarse. You also can't tell how big the effect is. All you can see is the transition points between steady, uncertain, wavering and running.

When all your men seem to rout at once, I think it is a cascade effect that is calculated so fast that it appears to be instantaneous. I suspect that the loss of flank support because an adjacent friendly unit routs gets felt immediately even though the routing unit is still physically on the flank. The effect of seeing a unit flee is probably also immediate. If there was a big enough delay introduced between the adverse event and the morale effect on other units, you would probably be able to see the cascade ripple through the army.


Shadowkill: I like the drawing, but how could it have been a lot of work? You say it only took 5 min to make.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[barocca]

Shadowkill,
nice pic,

Puzz3D,
damn you -
- i woke up an hour ago and sat down with a calculator and tried to work out how many thousandths of a second it would take for the computer to calculate the cascade effect, as part of a detailed explanation of how the cascade effect might work.
Only to log on here and find you've explained it far better - and in less words,
all that work...
see I'm tearing my calculations into little tiny pieces and throwing them over my shoulder in frustration..


damn, now where's the vacuum cleaner...

------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[Hirosito]

its a nice pic
and puzz3D ONLY 5min that more than other people


------------------
Hirosito Mori

A warrior's wisdom is shown in the treating of his defeated opponent

[Puzz3D]

Hirosito: I was pulling Shadowkill's leg. Actually, I'm impressed that he could whip up a picture in 5 min, and I appreciate his contribution to the thread. I've been the victim of what ShadowKill describes, and also the scenario that NoFearKokoro describes.


MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[Puzz3D]

barocca: I ran some more tests in custom battle against the AI to investigate the rout bug (feature). I took 8 honor=9 Warrior Monks against the AI's 8 honor=2 Yari Ashigaru on the Green map. It's quite easy to make the WM loose without either side inflicting any casualties. If you march toward and away from the YA eventually all the WM units will run away. It always happens when you move your unit 'away' from the enemy. The WM units were steady and quite tired, and once they rout they cannot be rallied. In a second test, I forced the AI over to my side of the map with some flanking maneuvers so that the map was reversed. Once again the WM's would rout when moving 'away' from the enemy units, and then proceed to run right into the enemy units. It varied, but I was seeing the effect at around 20 'away' moves. In a third test, I tried 16 honor=3 Yari Samurai against 1 honor=3 Yari Samurai. Marching quite close to the lone YS in a double line (13 in front and 3 behind center): the 6 central units of YS routed on the 10th 'away' move. Some other tests showed that you couldn't get the rout to occur if you were far away from the enemy units. So far, I've been able to establish that the effect extends out to at least a distance of 120 men (150 meters).

It looks like there is a parameter being used which the player has no feedback on. This parameter's value is changing each time a unit moves away from an enemy unit. When it reaches a certain value, that unit's morale is severly affected. Either that or the unit's morale is being gradually affected, but the morale value being used for the status display is some intermediate value determined before this hidden parameter's value is added. If the rout bug was simply a random effect with a small probability of occurance, I would sometimes see it happen on the first away move , but I haven't seen it in anything less than 10 away moves.


The implications of this are tactically important. If you're standing in front of an enemy unit and move to the side, you're moving away from it. If the enemy to your front also has a cavalry unit behind you, you can't move in any direction without moving away from an enemy unit. If you bypass a hidden enemy unit, you start moving away from it (I'm guessing that hidden units count). And, the obvious one of falling back to a better position in the face of a stronger enemy.

Personally, I feel the player should be given some visual feedback on this effect. If it is just a random event, then knowing the chance of it happening would be nice. Oh yeah, I forgot. We're not supposed to know this stuff. Trial and error. That's what keeps everybody playing, right?

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[barocca]

(*best Maxwell Smart voice*)
"Very interesting, the old don't tell the how anything works trick !"

seriously now,
I wonder if the number of units you are 'moving away' from has any impact on the calculations?

Time is very sparse for me at the moment, but I'll try to get around to experimenting.

------------------
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[UglyJun]

looks like every 1 still trying to play around the bugs or badly tought thru AI???
and i am not talking about the AI of comptroops the AI that is limmeting your freedom to manouver and to proberly play this game !!! anyway good luck in trying to play around the bugs!!1