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- kman
Move to city and ford
July 13, 2010 - 12:10pm — Stephen Schmidt
Recent experience shows that if a unit is on one side of a river, and sends
a "move to city" order, the order will fail if the city is not on the same side
of the river as the unit. Sending a ford as a waypoint will not resolve the
problem - the waypoint is not considered when determining whether the
move to the city is valid or not.
The reason for this seems to be that the "move to city" code has a lot in
common with the "move to ford" code and the question of a waypoint
does not, of course, come up for "move to ford" since the ford is accessible
from both sides of the river.
It seems to me that I might do well to change this, and have a waypoint
be useful in such a case. However, I thought I'd bounce the possibility off
this group first to see if anyone can think of a problem with that change
which has not occurred to me.
The change will -not- take effect in the Summer Games without further
notice.
Steve
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Move to City and Ford
I ran into that problem in the Spring 2009 Campaign in Italy.
Strategic square G3-V7
IS12IN unable to move tactically to Verona because it is on the wrong side of mountains or river.
John Vanvark
River Squares and Cities
Over the last few years, rivers have really been dumbed down so as to make it easier for forces to cross rivers.
However, crossing rivers was a challenge and should be.
So far in this summer Tournament forces have been crossing rivers at will. Part of this phenomenon is of course rooted in the very nature of a tournament. One has to play to best advantage against a turn deadline.
Players have a lot of information available presently. We know which side of a river the city is located. We know that the city is most likely located within 3 squares of 7-7. It seems like automatically inserting a waypoint to go to city in river squares so a march can be made to the city through a ford just makes life too easy for an attacking force, especially given the situation.
Robert
No changes to rivers
There haven't been any changes to river crossings. It may be too easy (in fact in some ways I agree that it is) but it's always been that way.
I will casually suggest that perhaps one reason it's easy to cross them is because people aren't very good at defending them yet.
However, another possibility, one I've toyed with in the past, is that there is no limit on how many units can cross a river at once. I thought for a while about having a rule that no more than, say, four units could cross a ford hex in one tac phase. That would make crossings against opposition considerably more challenging. It turned out to be awkward to code and I dropped it without considering it much further.
On the other hand, most crossings we make are undefended, and the reason is that in fact most rivers (at least reasonably far upriver from their mouths) do have a ford every three to five miles, and defending all of them is difficult. Generally speaking, armies that wanted to cross rivers unopposed found ways to do it. My tactical knowledge of the Civil War is better than my tactical knowledge of the Napoleonic wars, so if I can cite three examples from the former, Hooker had no problem crossing the Rapidan and Rappahannock before Chancellorsville, Grant had no problem doing it before the Wilderness, and Rosecrans had no difficulty crossing the Tennessee (which is a nasty big river) before Chickamauga. Difficulties with river crossings come up only when they are defended and the attacking commander chooses to try to cross anyway (Fredericksburg being probably the best ACW example). We do have some rules to recreate that difficulty, mainly the big defense bonus for units defending fords. I'm not sure it's enough, but we do have something. There is also the big advantage that it's hard to trap units in a ford since it's hard to block retreats to the far side of the river. So perhaps the rules we have now are not so bad.
Almost all of the same discussion applies to mountain passes, FWIW.
Steve
I am a wizard. I make things using magic. SJS
it can stop a defending force too
In game three, the Green Guards had defending units on one side of a river with our city on the opposite side. Our commander knew exactly where the ford was and issued the order "move to city" using the coordinates for the ford as the waypoint. Because of the reasons explained above, his units didn't move, and subsequently it had a direct impact on the outcome of the battle for the city.
As the rules/code works now, unless an attacking force has already seen the layout of a square and the locations of a ford, they wouldn't be able to march into the square, cross a ford via a waypoint, and then reach a city. I don't think an incoming unit should be able to issue an generic order to "move to city" via "move to ford" because then it would make it too easy.
If nothing is changed in the code, the solution for players is to issue the order to move to the city by ordering the specific tactical square for the city as the destination with the specific tactical square for the ford. Players just need to be aware that this is the only method to cross a river to reach a city.
Von Gottes Gnaden König von Preußen
Which ford?
A quick question about how to handle fords.
Would the unit move to the nearest ford or pass, or would it move to the ford/pass nearest to the city?
To the nearest ford/pass, always
In case of multiple fords equally close, the fewer-diagonal-moves rule does not apply; the one found first is used, with the program searching by columns west to east, north to south within columns. It would probably be objectively better if the fewer-diagonal-moves rule did apply, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort to change it.
Steve
I am a wizard. I make things using magic. SJS
Could cause unexpected results
Steve,
Under this proposed system somebody checking move to city may move further away from the city.
Say there are 3 fords, one in the north one in the middle and one in the south, with the city adjacent to the middle ford. A unit enters between the middle and north fords, but is slightly closer to the north ford. By checking "move to city" the unit would start heading towards the north ford, which would be away from the city.
I think that such an action would cause some complaints if that happened.
-nick
Algorithm to get to fords
This is an eye opener. Previously I had been entering squares with rivers as close to the edge and middle of the map as possible looking for the greatest opportunity to have a shot for a ford without getting tripped by the uncertain formation of the river. This seems to suggest that I favor the west side of the map going north, or south and the North side of the map going East or West.
Using the fewer diagonal rules rule may help overall move to ford problems. There may be a simpler method though. What if it were checked to see if a ford existed on the column, row of the unit, if not shift +/- 1 for column, row, etc. Would that be easier to code than fewest diagonal rules? Would it be just as reliable?
Robert