[BUG][1.3] Multiple AI stacks attack, city defenders flee?

from Elemental Forums

This happened a while ago (in-game; a few days ago real time) so I'm afraid I don't have a savegame or debug.err.

I had a fortress with 7 trained groups in it when Magnar declared war on me.  He moved 20 stacks against that fortress in a single turn.  When the first stack attacked, my trained units had a couple of city militia and city archer groups with them.  I defended the city, and noticed the city groups leveled.  When the battle for the second stack started, the city groups were nowhere to be found.  Had they buggered off to a pub to celebrate their new levels?

My trained groups held out through 9 waves before my melee groups fell, then I hit "Auto-resolve" for a couple more before my archers went down, too.  No city groups showed up to help, at least in the battles I fought myself.

A turn or two later, after a champion-led (Tuatha and Ritressa) group got there and reclaimed the fortress, Magnar's remaining stacks tried again.  The same thing happened - city militia and archers helped in the first battle (and leveled), but not the subsequent ones.  (I held on this time, but Ritressa took a beating.  Several of them, actually.)

This seems like a bug, to me.  Is it one?  I really could have use city defenders in that first go-round.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8,997 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


I've seen something similarly wacky with city defenders being able to wander outside of a city.  I was attacked and somehow after the battle there seemed to be duplicate defenders on top of each other such that I could take my City Militia and walk around with them as a stack outside the city walls.   Not sure how this happened but I've seen it happen two separate occasions.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

This is a 'feature'. I hope that SD tweaks how this is done and tracks city defender units across the coarse of a turn. If the unit dies, then it's dead for the remainder of the turn. If the unit is wounded, hits points are tracked from battle to battle. At the beginning of the next turn, if the city is not under siege ( aka...opponent faction units are not adjacent to the city) than the defender units reset to their initial troops.

As is, it's very frustrating to know that your defender units will only defend for the first combat. It makes having hit hem effectively useless.

 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

When the battle for the second stack started, the city groups were nowhere to be found.
End of quote

I've seen something similarly wacky with city defenders being able to wander outside of a city.
End of quote

Both happened to me several times.

And I can 'duplicate' my army right after a defensive city siege (Game version, 1.3 legendary hero):

As you can see from the following figure, I moved out my army after a siege, instead of getting one army, I got six.

F1

 

If I click the 'ARMY' panel. You can see that they are all duplicates.

F2

 

Thankfully, it only take a reload to fix this glitch.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Just a though.

Does it mean that it only take one single expendable unit by attacking the city prior the real siege to get rid of all the city defenders (catapult, city archer, city militias)?

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I've also noticed that if I take an AI city and then don't garrison it, relying on the inbuilt garrison troops, then if anything attacks the city, the city will fall without a fight. In other words, it's as if the city has no defenders at all. Is this as designed? Is this the same thing that the rest of you are seeing, i.e. city defenders disappear after one battle, and that even applies city defenders after the city is conquered? In my last game this happened to me even though there were maybe two or three turns between capturing the city and the cities being taken by single attacking units, with no combat at all.

Clearly the garrison units re-appear at some point, I have wondered if this is because I play quite long sessions without reloading, and whether the garrisons would reappear if I reloaded.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Spharen, reply 4
Just a though.

Does it mean that it only take one single expendable unit by attacking the city prior the real siege to get rid of all the city defenders (catapult, city archer, city militias)?
End of Spharen's quote

Yup.

Except you can't abuse it because the AI cities get all their city defenders at full health for every battle in the same turn.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

So this is another example of the AI having an unfair advantage over the player instead of better Artificial Intelligence?

 

 

Cool.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting N1ghthavvk, reply 7
So this is another example of the AI having an unfair advantage over the player instead of better Artificial Intelligence?

Cool.
End of N1ghthavvk's quote

yup. this one has been bugg'n me for awhile now. Sucks that I can't take out an AI city because of infinite-respawning city defenders.....yet my city has a single unit attack and then the main army afterwards and my city crumbles quickly...

 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Did they fix that in the 1.4 beta patch?

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

No since it technically isn't a bug, but rather a design decision.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Can this seriously get looked at balanced out? The fact that city militia defend only one city assault, and then disappear even if they don't die, is pretty ridiculous. Whats the point of even having them if they only fight one army and the AI brings 6 or 7 to siege in one turn. 

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Just to play devil's advocate - what should happen to any milita defenders that are wounded and/or killed in early "rounds" in later "rounds"?  Should they enter the next fight at full health, or should they start off injured (or dead, as the case may be?)

From the perspective of maintaining verisimilitude, they should retain injuries (or stay dead), but probably from a mechanics perspective (this is a handwavy design thing to prevent the old-school option of actually building and stationing lots of low-level units in cities to prevent otherwise non-threatening random wandering mobs from destroying the city)

 

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

I have no problem with city guards that were killed or damaged in the earlier assaults not showing up or showing up damaged in later assaults.

However, when three city militia units and a guardian statue weren't even damaged but appear in only one fight = thats pretty ridiculous.