Slitherine

Well, I ran this again multiple times and on a whim used the same units that you did in the editor, classic "pink Roman" cavalry vs "spartan hoplites A" And there was never auto cohesion loss at impact.

BTW, i still must be missing something since i dont know why you and Gaz keep mentioning the stop start aproach. The GRAY arrow will show you exactly where your unit can go, no need to pause and resume... However, you are correct in that the cavalry DOES make contact with the rear of the hoplite with its own flank in that sequence....(the 4th hex the cavalry enters))
I really dont think thats a bug but the nature of using hexes, although I guess you could argue that that hex should not made availalbe to move into (since it appears to violate the rule that you cant contact a unit not in its front arch.... hmm actually it not violating that rule per se, the enemy hoplite IS in its frontal arc, just not the hexside that ends up being the point of contact LOL)
Anyways, units often "touch" ( and thus engage in impact) other units by following evaders in ways that they could never do if there wasnt an evadee to chase (hope that makes sense) so this is in line with the design decision methinks

Anyways, not sure why in your tries at it the hoplite suffered an auto drop before combat ... Maybe shoot that scenario over to tech to look at?
Cheers!

ARRRRRRHHHHHHH

I hate this game..... I couldnt help but go back and play with this again because i know Hidde and Gaz are veterans of this game and if they see something than its worth looking at from all angles

You guys have discovered a friggin horrible EXPLOIT in the game

I stand by my tests that I did as I simpy use the mouse pointer to charge that rear hex and got NO auto cohesion loss

However, if you pause the unit and make sure that damn annoying green "trail" shows up AND THEN CONTINUE the charge, then you get a valid "rear hit" with the auto cohesion loss...

friggin huge EXPLOIT and clearly not the intent of the game It would be the same if you discovered you can click on a unit and hit the "q" key 5 times to rally it to full strength.

My guess is that the pausing and the re-calculation of used movement "fools" the game into beliveing you are starting the charge from your current position.

You guys should post this in the tech area

Im done with MP until this is fixed, I never watch replays and i wonder if this has ever been done to me , whether on purpose of just by accident . Oh well.

gaz: BTY the evade bug is bizzare but under certain circunstances Bow armed cavalry whom are set under "ai evade" will NOT evade from enemy cavaly that would crush them under odd circumstanes ( i posted this a while back in the tech area) i cant even remeber the specifics but the attacker being drilled or undrilled made a diffence.


EDIT:
Ah crap , gaztriz and hidde: I didnt intend my above rant to imply you guys were purposfully expoiting a bug to gain an advantage in MP. I do blame Slitherine for introducing new bugs into the game eveytime they patch the game to fix something else... So much changes and no documentaion to tell what up or down, eventually you just do whatver the game engine allows...
Unfortunatley that ugly green pathfinding "helper" has been in the game a LONG time though...
Has this expoit been there for the same amount of time?
One can only shudder to think how many BG's died an ilegal death because of it, LOl.

gazxtrix wrote:whats the drilled/undrilled evade bug?

This one is anoying too. If your Archer Cavary is set to AI Evade and gets charged by undrilled lancers it wont evade. If the lancers are drilled they evade. So this is a pain cause you have to always be at Always evade to be sure they dont stand to fight...

Fedem wrote:

gazxtrix wrote:whats the drilled/undrilled evade bug?

This one is anoying too. If your Archer Cavary is set to AI Evade and gets charged by undrilled lancers it wont evade. If the lancers are drilled they evade. So this is a pain cause you have to always be at Always evade to be sure they dont stand to fight...

its even worse when playing vs the AI. The AI isnt programmed to set its evade stances, its stuck on , uh, "AI evade" which means you can easily catch superior armoured mongols with your undrilled knights every time.... A human of course, if he is aware of the bug, will make sure he sets to always evade.

And lets not add the posibility to restart a turn to undo a charge that went bad or a bad move that lets you exposed....

Surely honest foggers wouldn't restart a turn ?!? I cant' imagine what satisfaction anyone would get out of that.

TGM - the charge thing i noticed by accident in a game v PB probably towards start of season 7. Luckily the unit was out on a flank and was very noticable by its absence, so i replayed the turn to watch the replay (something i very rarely do) and hence discovered this new tactic, dirty play i thought.

and no offence intended or otherwise was taken

I assumed it was a feature of the game. You conduct a partial move to a position of advantage and then charge. This can only occur if you've created openings in the enemy line to exploit. It can't be achieved if the enemy covers their flanks. In regards to using said tactic everyone has the option and it behooves players to watch the replays to learn these facts (though I know TGM detests the tedium of that) though it also should be said that these things need to be documented. A simple clarification on the origin of a charge should suffice and resolve if it is a bug or a feature.

pantherboy wrote:I assumed it was a feature of the game. You conduct a partial move to a position of advantage and then charge. This can only occur if you've created openings in the enemy line to exploit. It can't be achieved if the enemy covers their flanks. In regards to using said tactic everyone has the option and it behooves players to watch the replays to learn these facts (though I know TGM detests the tedium of that) though it also should be said that these things need to be documented. A simple clarification on the origin of a charge should suffice and resolve if it is a bug or a feature.

Im not casting any stones here but I do find it hard to beleive that this could be considered a "feature" since fundamentally NOTHING changes by moving a unit three hexes, pausing , and then continuing to charge. The unit doesnt change facing or anything and there is no differnece in the path that the unit ends up taking in order to hit the enemy BG in the rear , whichever way you do it. The only differnce is when you purposfully pause it apprently causes the pathfinding calculation in the engine uses to "reset" and gives you a huge advantage CONTRARY to the rules. These rules actually are well documentaed with illustrations(in this case) that state you never get an automatic cohesion drop if your unit starts its move in front of a plane of hexes of the targets rear.
Why would a game "feature" force you to take a bizzare xtra step and even "sqiggle" your mouse cursor to get the green pathfinding line to show up to get this secret benefit?
i dont think saying not watching replays is is the cause of players not knowing about this either as not every one needs the pathing arrows nor uses them,. i started playing this game before this was introduced and actually requested Slitherene to make it optional as it annoyed me aesthetically-wise to have the map 'cluttered' like that, especially the neon green trail....

Anyways dont matter at all to me if some players knew about it , used it by accident or not in the past, What matters is this is most assurably a bug/exploit and needs to be fixed going forward.

gazxtrix wrote:Surely honest foggers wouldn't restart a turn ?!? I cant' imagine what satisfaction anyone would get out of that.

TGM - the charge thing i noticed by accident in a game v PB probably towards start of season 7. Luckily the unit was out on a flank and was very noticable by its absence, so i replayed the turn to watch the replay (something i very rarely do) and hence discovered this new tactic, dirty play i thought.

and no offence intended or otherwise was taken

Honest foggers of course do not make restarts as winning like this is for loosers but anyway this also needs a solution to prevent it. I sent a message to hexwar about it but no response still....

The rear charge for me it's a bug and needs to be fixed. If it wasnt it shouldnt be a difference between pausing the movement or not.

Cheers

I thought we got past the resart the turn many patches ago - are you saying it can still be done?

Must say I agree with TGM in that I doubt the move to a position of advantage before charging was a premeditated feature.

[quote="petergarnett"]I thought we got past the resart the turn many patches ago - are you saying it can still be done?

quote]

Hmm, I doudt its within the realm of any software company to prevent people from hard crashing their computers (and thus losing data from a running piece of software to "try again" turnwise in a game) Maybe air traffic controll/miltary software can , thru continuous realtime backups ?? Any ways, as i remeber, Slitherine stated that they maybe couldnt prevent this even with tweeks but certainly they can track it via the server log.

petergarnett wrote:I thought we got past the resart the turn many patches ago - are you saying it can still be done?

Must say I agree with TGM in that I doubt the move to a position of advantage before charging was a premeditated feature.

Unfortunately It can still be done. Power off your Pc (found it on a blackout) or worst if you do ctrl alt + sup and turn off the process of the game you can restart the turn. That results of melee are the same but you can avoid do a charge or you can change a move.

A pitty. At least they should provide a way to let the players know when yr opponent made that so if you want you can abandone the game or make an automatic defeat if they do it.

Cheers

I can't imagine there's many (any?) players out there who would cheat like that. Maybe I'm being naive, but... It's a bit like having to install CCTV to record tabletop games in case your opponent edges his line forward while you're having a pee break!!!

Sarpedon wrote:It's a bit like having to install CCTV to record tabletop games in case your opponent edges his line forward while you're having a pee break!!!

Do you mean you don't do that?!

I tend to follow Tesco's example, and get some poor kid on Job Seekers Allowance to do it for free :O)

petergarnett wrote:I thought we got past the resart the turn many patches ago - are you saying it can still be done?

Must say I agree with TGM in that I doubt the move to a position of advantage before charging was a premeditated feature.

I think the fix for the restart is that they insure that the random number generator starts the turn with the same seed (or equivalent) so you will generally get the same "die" rolls on the restarted turn as you did originally. There probably isn't much that can be done beyond that to prevent restarts without either forcing the player to forfeit the game if it "crashes" on his turn or else to do much more frequent mini-saves so that a restart would begin in mid-turn. Hexwar decided not to do any saves locally for MP games to prevent other types of game hacking so it probably isn't feasible to do checkpoints on the fly without reversing that decision.

The main issue being discussed in this thread where pausing the move in mid charge will allow what would otherwise not be a rear charge to become one looks like a bug to me where the game has lost track of the initial position from which the charge started. My guess is that it has been there for a fairly long time as the result of some change to the anarchy charge logic but has only been noticed more recently. Personally I don't think it is a game breaker per se although definitely annoying. Unfortunately with the game development currently in transition from Hexwar to Slitherine's new developers, I doubt this is going to be fixed any time soon. It certainly will make it more important to not leave holes in your line and to maintain better flank security until it is fixed.

Chris

Dear Slitherine: Could you please acknowledge this bug so there is some hope that it can be eventually fixed?

It's a bug. I have pointed this out twice to keithmartinsmith (the deigner) and he said he could not see it.

In the TT game the whole unit has to start behind the rear of enemy unit. When it charges it will be a proper rear attack and then you automatically drop a cohesion level.

To be honest guys if you have found a bug pm keithmartinsmith or the tech guys.

Wondering if they can do something about those ocassions where troops always on evade stand when hit by pursuers.

Would really like to see it being impossible for troops except lights to go backwards in the game. In TT it is impossible for most undrilled troops to turn 180 degrees let alone go backwards. Again most would need to pass a test (a 7 out of 2 six sided dice) to turn 90 degrees.

Can you imagine if they did implement that? It would probably spoil the game for many of us but will be prob more realistic and closer to the tt game.

This bug should be fixed in version 1.7.3, thanks for reporting it.

Trained cavalry could wheel and do a charge. Once stirrups were introduced maneuvers like that with some of the most IRREGULAR cavalry could also work. The Cossacks come to mind. Brilliant riders and able to turn on a dime and give you nine cents change.

I tried it - it works and I will use it in the games. I see nothing wrong with it.

What the game REALLY needs is a stirrup rule. That is SORELY lacking. Roman cavalry should not be able to maneuver well at all. Early - Mid that is unless they are of a class that used stirrups. Control of a mount became much more pronounced once they were introduced.

So I would say it depends on the army module. Research the army and if it used stirrups use the rule.