Weird bug - teleporting Cavalry

[Fangorn_BR]

Hello,

I'm currently playing Silvanol (the turn still up if you want to check it). His cavalry was facing my unit. Then his unit attacked me from the rear, without triggering an auto disruption, and end up retreating.

[rbodleyscott]

Unfortunately these screenshots are not showing. Also we are not able to examine your game directly.

[Fangorn_BR]

If you right click on the images and open in a different tab they will show.

But I can give a description. My own unit is in position 5 of the number's pad, facing 7. The other player has a unit in position 7 facing 4, and in position 8 facing 5. His unit in position 8 attacks my unit in position 5, then his unit in position 7 attacks, but moves to position 2, just behind my unit. This attack does not trigger an auto disruption. The attack is repealed, his unit is disrupted and withdraws still in my unit rear.

I'll try again with the images:

[rbodleyscott]

I am not sure I understand, but it does sound odd.

[Fangorn_BR]

Let me try again with a larger image. The red arrow show the movement of attack and the blue the retreat after the attack.

[rbodleyscott]

That is very odd, because in the normal course of events the game would not let the second attack occur like that at all.

This looks to me like a case where the MP system has got out of synch, and the replay is carrying out a move which was not illegal when it was instigated by the player, but has become illegal due to some change in the situation during the replay.

At the end of a player's turn, what is saved is the situation at the beginning of the turn (NOT the situation at the end), and a list of all the actions carried out. The replay then actually reconstructs the position at the end of the turn, by carrying out the listed actions in turn.

This is reliable provided that both players are using identical game builds.

However, it will often get out of synch and produce incorrect (and sometimesd bizarre) results if the two players' builds are not identical - i.e. one player has some mods installed in their main build. (Even ones that only alter the number of models displayed).

Have you asked Silvanol what actually happened when he carried out his turn? Have either of you got any mods in your main build?

[Fangorn_BR]

Well, I am not currently playing with Silvanol so I dont know if he has modded his main game but I certainly not.

I can say, though, that there was no change during the replay. The move was always illegal and my unit didnt move during the turn.

[rbodleyscott]

I can say, though, that there was no change during the replay. The move was always illegal and my unit didnt move during the turn.

It is extremely unlikely that the game would allow a player to carry out an illegal move - the game has been out for 6 years and it would have come to light by now if it sometimes did.

However, you have in fact no way of knowing what actually happened during your opponent's turn. All you are seeing is a reconstructed replay. (NOT a video).

During the reconstruction the replay does not check moves for legality, it just carries out the saved list of attacks etc. in sequence. If both players' builds are identical, this will reproduce what happened exactly.

However, if both players' builds are not identical, the changed code can alter the sequence of random numbers produced by the random number generator, which can then change the details of what happened - e.g. a unit that routs during your opponent's actual turn, stays firm in the replay, thus being in a different position than it was during the opponent's actual turn. The replay will still try to reproduce each move as best it can (e.g. unit X charge unit Y), even though the unit is in a different position in the replay than it was during the opponent's actual turn - this can produce an illegal move.