Spain has formed a Mosh Pit

[JeromeBaker]

Has anyone else noticed the AI bunching up troops. I noticed Spain had about 3 or 4 units bunched up in the middle of Spain and with each turn more added to the bunch until almost the entire center of Spain is a cluster of mostly single units gathered around in a circle. The more units bunched together, the longer it takes Spain's turn to end. As of now, it takes around 3 to 4 minutes (maybe more) for Spain to finish up. My 'hotfix' for this one is to land a few field armies on Spain and then take out all the troops causing the back up. Anyone else seen this one before? I am really looking forward to the battle when I get home from work, because whatever unit I attack should be reinforced by 20 + other spanish units.

[a-e]

Spain does the same with me but instead of single units they have full stacks, none of the AI use single unit armies - only full stacks

[antisocialmunky]

Saw 4-6 full stacks of this in Frace after they had killed the Dutch.

[nafod]

France has about 5 full stacks and 10+ half stacks sitting in Alsace Lorraine. My prussians do not want to uncork that keg.

[Grumfoss]

Sweeden are doing this in my latest game, they have a full city and loads of small stacks milling around it.

[antisocialmunky]

France has about 5 full stacks and 10+ half stacks sitting in Alsace Lorraine. My prussians do not want to uncork that keg.

I had to, they took one of the Germans States I needed.

[anweRU]

France has about 5 full stacks and 10+ half stacks sitting in Alsace Lorraine. My prussians do not want to uncork that keg.

Actually, you might be able to beat them easily with just a couple of stacks of line inf. & arty., and auto-calc. I noticed that France never seems to research any military techs, but concentrates on enlightenment techs. At least, if you don't let it live long enough.

[Barry]

Faultless path-finding :)

[JeromeBaker]

Spain does the same with me but instead of single units they have full stacks, none of the AI use single unit armies - only full stacks

I am not a seasoned screen shot poster by any means, but I will try to figure it out (btw, any tips on where i go to find a screen shot or what I hit in game to take one?). I hear you about AI not using single unit armies, but I think this was a bug where a few single units were meant to meet up and for some reason didnt and know the program doesnt know how to undo the jumble and each turn the circle of units gets larger as the traffic jam grows. If I remember correctly Spain had a bunch of single unit armies wth 1 larger 3/4 stack in the middle with a couple other stacks with a maybe 2 to 5 units. There are not just a couple units here, I think there were 20+ spanish flags and the units take up most of Spain's open area in the middle.

[nafod]

I am not a seasoned screen shot poster by any means, but I will try to figure it out (btw, any tips on where i go to find a screen shot or what I hit in game to take one?). I hear you about AI not using single unit armies, but I think this was a bug where a few single units were meant to meet up and for some reason didnt and know the program doesnt know how to undo the jumble and each turn the circle of units gets larger as the traffic jam grows. If I remember correctly Spain had a bunch of single unit armies wth 1 larger 3/4 stack in the middle with a couple other stacks with a maybe 2 to 5 units. There are not just a couple units here, I think there were 20+ spanish flags and the units take up most of Spain's open area in the middle.

Seen that too. My Prussians REALLY DON'T want to uncork that keg. Of course it would help matters if Great Britain could figure out what to do as the system hangs on their turn....

[JeromeBaker]

I didnt have the paitence to attack spain and take out that cluster(my system was hanging 5 mins plus each turn) and instead bought Portugal from them for two American islands, a bunch of money, and 3 techs. With in one turn all of the Spanish army (now like 30+ units) comes together to form stacks and marches off and I give Portugal to UP with the goal of getting a war going between them and Spain. So it definetly was a bug, but it had an easy solution.

[nafod]

I didnt have the paitence to attack spain and take out that cluster(my system was hanging 5 mins plus each turn) and instead bought Portugal from them for two American islands, a bunch of money, and 3 techs. With in one turn all of the Spanish army (now like 30+ units) comes together to form stacks and marches off and I give Portugal to UP with the goal of getting a war going between them and Spain. So it definetly was a bug, but it had an easy solution.

I think it stems from them having nothing to do with them. Probably linked somewhat to the No naval invasion AI. But if that is the case at least these nations have expansionist plans....

Seriously, the AI in this game is broken. There are no if's and's or but's about it.

I feel like I'm playing my 9 month old nephew in checkers, and not only is it easy to beat him. He's more interested in throwing the pieces around and eating them himself.

[Dead Guy]

I've seen an austrian army try to start a real mosh pit. It was running in a circle which it repeated every single turn, raiding three villages/mines/farms in prussian territory and stopping in the exact same spot every time. It was a pretty good stack too, almost full, and it didn't break this circle of idiocy even when Poland-Lithuania took Vienna which was well within it's movement range in the following turn. Not even when Austria was down to one province.

Reminded me of Ralph Wiggum... Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck!

[hoom]

Haven't seen this personally but I suspect it could be due to the stacks moving simultaneously thing?

In a few cases I've set two or more sub-stacks to head to the same place but when they get there they stop & give a 'path blocked' message instead of joining together like I'd expected them to do.

So if the AI tells those units to all move at once intending them to move one after the other like in RTW/M2TW, it may suffer from them all colliding instead of joining up? (& lacks a routine to check for this?)

In the case that the strategic situation nearby changes & the units suddenly join up & start doing things, I'd say the AI would be reassessing the situation, & giving new orders, the units being near enough to each other to start merging immediately now trigger merging properly or something.

[JeromeBaker]

In the case that the strategic situation nearby changes & the units suddenly join up & start doing things, I'd say the AI would be reassessing the situation, & giving new orders, the units being near enough to each other to start merging immediately now trigger merging properly or something.

In this case I really dont think that the strategic situation changing had anything to do with Spain's armies forming up because they have a new objective. I started a war with Spain to test this while they were still bunched up and nothing happened. I think a couple units in the center of the mosh pit (which started in Portugal) got stuck with incorrect pathfinding and then each turn the cluster got larger. When I bought Portugal all of the Spanish troops had to leave my terrirtory and this means the original cluster got moved as well and this corrected the pathfinding glitch. SPain was completley broken as a country when the pathfinding issue started because they not only took 5 mins plus a turn which I stated above, but even diplomacy with Spain took 20 times longer than with other countries and when I clicked on Spain to go into a diplomatic session the computer would kick me out to the desktop screen a lot and I got kicked out to desktop a lot during Spains turn as well.

[KozaK13]

I got this, only the Spanish full stacks gathered in Brittany, starting from about 1750 and built up to about 14 stacks....i was glad i was France and their ally.

[JeromeBaker]

i was glad i was France and their ally.

It seems you didnt get the lag part of it though. If you got the lag you would either buy the terriroty with the backup on it or start a war with your ally just to get back to normal time lag during end of turn.

[a-e]

If you conquer Portugal then they will most likely consolidate their forces to destroy you. If you bea them a few times they will leave you alone largely

[Allu X]

It's because they know what they want to do, 'get to the Americas' - but have little know-how on how to get there, since Naval Invasions are like, "huh, what now?" to them. :)

I saw this in a campaign of mine, with many French units lining up facing Britain, looking like they were wanting to attack - but not knowing how to cross water.

[Smellycat]

its because they don't have military access to france, their biggest ally (and of course naval invasions are out of the question) when i play france i always give/get billateral military access then they go beserk and take half europe

[anweRU]

Allies don't need military access agreements. I thought they did, until I realized my units could move into allied nation territories (green instead of red).

[Smellycat]

no they can't you are thinking of protectorates

[anweRU]

Nope. I mean allies, not protectorates.

Just last night, as UP, I landed my stack in the Italian States, my ally - not protectorate, and attacked Naples the next turn.

Denmark, which is my ally but refused a military access deal after making the alliance, is sending stacks through Sweden, marching along the Baltic coast to get to the last Swedish lands.

etc. etc. etc. I can take screenshots and post them tonight if you wish.

Allies do not need military access. For further proof, you can't get/sell military access from/to an allied nation in the diplomatic screen. You have the option, but the AI will refuse the deal. You can easily do so with the same nation before forming an alliance.

[Smellycat]

just start the game as france otr spain and see for yourself