Possible bug with partisans not appearing when playing PBEM

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I'm playing a PBEM game as the Allied player against Happycat. We have now come to the October 1st 1941 turn after he attacked Russia late April or early May 1941. To this date not a single partisan has appeared in the game.

But I have seen several messages about partisans appearing when I click on the End turn button after I saved my game. I even saw where those partisans appeared on the map before the game went back to the main menu. But when I get the save game from Happycat those partisans are gone and there is no sign he has even attacked the hexes I saw the partisans appearing.

I therefore think there is a program bug here about the sequence of when things are happening. This is the sequence it seems to me:

1. The Axis player performs his attacks, builds and moves.
2. The Axis player saves his game.
3. The Axis player clicks on the end turn button and sends his save game to the Allied player.
4. The Allied player loads the save game from the Axis player turn
5. The Allied player performs his attacks, builds and moves.
6. The Allied player saves his game
7. The Allied player clicks on the end turn button and sends his save game to the Allied player.

It seems to me that the partisans are generated when the Allied player clicks on the End turn button. But the result of the partisan generation is NOT stored
in the save game because the game was saved prior to clicking the End turn button.

I think all actions in the game that are happening when you click on the End turn button must for PBEM games be moved till the start of the turn for the
next player, i. e. partisans are generated at the start of the German turn and not at the end of the Allied turn.

I also noticed that I have never seen any messages about research progress as the Allied player, but I notice the research increase every turn. I have even got new tech levels with no information about them. I have not seen a single political message happening during the German turn either. E. g. like Finland joins the Axis, Belgium surrenders etc.

So it seems to me that those message boxes we're used to get between turns in the hotseat or TCPIP game are not shown properly in the PBEM game. The same problem applies to partisans not appearing.

Are you guys at Slitherine aware of this problem and will fix it in a future patch? Is there a workaround for me us to use to make sure partisans appear. It's hard being the Russian playing having to defend without getting a single partisan unit. Those partisans are vital so the Germans need to protect his captured cities and also keep rearguard units protecting his air force.

After my last turn I saw a 10 step infantry corps appearing just next to his big cluster of air units. No German land units are nearby so this partisan unit can do a lot of damage to his air units unless he retreats units from the front and bombards the partisan instead. But since the partisan doesn't arrive when the Axis player loads the last save game it means he can continue to pound the weak Russian front. So this game bug has a very big impact upon game play in PBEM. So I would think it's a high priority bug.

All those messages I don't get won't affect game play. It's more annoying that problematic. I can always check my research levels to see if I gained a new tech level and Happycat has always been nice to tell me when his Axis minors joined the Axis.

[davetheroad]

The generation of partisans at the end of the player turn is fine. your problem is you are sending your manually saved file to your opponent and this does not contain the partisans!!!.

You send the automatically saved file which has the same name each turn. What I do is end my turn, go to the pbem folder and rename that file allied turn27 or whatever, this is the file you send to your opponent, NOT the file you saved.

[firepowerjohan]

davetheroad is correct, do not forget to read the multiplayer guid because it has some valuable stuff for tcpip also.
viewtopic.php?p=27433#27433

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Oops. That explains why I haven't seen any partisans so far in the game. Then we have played the entire game with the wrong save game. Are there other bad consequences to this besides losing partisans? What other actions occur when you click on End turn?

What is the name of the save game? I received the initial save game from Happycat (since he is the Axis player) and it seems the
save game name is one he created.

Does this mean we have to use the default save game name created during End turn or can this name be renamed before you send it to your opponent. The reason I ask is because you may have several different games running by PBEM and if they all use the same save game name you may be in for a nasty surprise loading the game. E. g. like your password not working because you received the save game for another player.

[davetheroad]

In a pbem match the axis player should give the game a unique name, e.g.
DFvST planyellow

When he ends his first turn the game does a autosave and names the file
PBEM DFvST planyellow.data

This filename is now used for autosaves for the rest of the match unless the filename is changed

for tidy housekeeping you may want to rename that file in file manager before you send it

PBEM DFvST planyellow axis01

After your opponent ends his turn it still is
PBEM DFvST planyellow axis01

he renames it PBEM DFvST planyellow allied01
and sends it back to you

In turn 2 it is axis02 etc etc

It would be better if the game autosave added the suffix axis/alled01, 02, 03 etc etc