Chrism comments in green
I was torn as to whether to put this here or in "Issues and Bugs" but I'm guessing the game worked as designed and I just don't understand the mechanics well enough to get it.

I read the link to the page on unit movement/shooting and the tick system. I also read another post by BOTA regarding unit movement. I'm still really confused...

1) So whats the deal with a 4.5 movement unit moving only 9 spaces if it was ordered to move 5 spaces turn one? The extra partial movement doesn't carry over automatically? If this is so, than any player who orders their units to move further than possible will have an advantage and the other player will not even realize. This seems like a bug that should be fixed. I agree. THis has bothered me too, but I think that is how the sytem is currently set up. We will look at this

2) Scenario: A unit is blocked so instead of moving on ticks 33,66, and 99, it moves on 50, 83, and 116. Well 116 is in the next turn, so obviously this turn it will only move twice on ticks 50 and 83, understood. But next turn, it will move on tick 16, 49, 82. And then in the following turns, as long as it moves 3 each turn, it will continue to move on 16,49,82. Am I right so far? Yes

Here is where I have a slight problem. This is now a "loaded infantry" due to it being held up previously. A really could player could intentionally load his units with good math and strategy, and keep track that they will be moving first. Yes. Difficult to do generally. Additionally, lets say the infantry in this example is next to a recon unit of mine (which moves on 20,40,60,80,100). I'm unaware that my infantry is gonna be loaded at tick 16. I think its gonna move at 33. I "need" m recon to move 5 units to get vision for artillery and want my infantry to follow behind it, but my infantry actually then moves first (on turn 16) and when the recon tries to move on turn 20 it finds itself blocked, and my whole plan is ruined because I don't get the vision I need for my artillery and lose a huge battle. Correct. That is why I never move my recon over a space that could be blocked unless im sure the units is not going to move until tick 33 -- new unit or I can precisly track back his movement since I made him -- usually I wont block the space if it would be bad if I got blocked

If units are going to have a carry-over effect and move on an earlier tick, clicking on a unit and bringing up its info should show figures which allow me to know that it is loaded. If a unit is going to move first, I need to be able to open a window or bring up information showing me this. Maybe, or maybe keeping track is part of the strategy, not sure.

3) How can a unit get screwed out of its final move without ever being blocked? Often I feel that an artillery shot slows down my infantry and stops its final move. I have tested this though and it is clearly not true. Is it that both units try to move on tick 100 and the arty wins the die roll and the infantry has to wait until next turn? This did not happen. The unit would have moved. Not sure what the issue is. Post a replay if you have an example. My guess is that this did not happen

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It is starting to make sense, but there have been a large number of strange troop movement or lack thereof in games I have played. I can understand how it happens when I understand the actual mechanics, but the mechanics are clearly not written in a very intuitive manner. Stuff does not always happen as it seems is should, and that is a problem. Its like explaining to Calvin Johnson why his TD catch (which to all viewers appears to be a catch) isn't technically a catch (you can youtube this if you want). Good example. Lost my fantasy football game becuase of this

You can explain to me that my infantry lost a roll on the final tick, but I refuse to accept how an infantry that moves 4 spaces will only move three. This changed the entire outcome of an FFA tournament. Only way this happened was he got blocked for one of his movements. Post the replay. I am sure that is what happened.

In my opinion, any unit that would act within the first 100 ticks needs to, itself only, get bonus ticks THAT ROUND, to finish what the player ASSUMES they will do. Its smart strategy to move an infantry onto a factory on the final tick, so it takes the least artillery shots, but if it doesn't make the final move this strategy is pointless. A player needs to know what his units will do (assuming the opponent doesn't do something to stop them). If my unit says 4 movement and is unblocked and not de-buffed, it needs to move four spaces. Sorry, but any other system is a failure in design. It will. Post the replay. I do not think this happened.

Upon further review, I'm guessing the situation I am referring to was a block. But now it raises a new question... are partial ticks rounded up or down?

Does infantry move on 33,66, and 99... or 33, 67, and 100? Its a cool down period. He moves on the tick when his cool down is already up. Inf cools down every 33.33. On 33 not cooled down. On 34 he is, so move. So he moves on 34 (cooldown met), 67, and 100

What are the normal ticks for a fighter? 16, 33, 49... or 16, 33, 50? Im not sure and I've played lots of competitive games. I think it is 17, 34, 50, based on above explanation of cool down. It is barely relevant since under current system it is impossible to keep track of fighter ticks except maybe on first move. I will try to find out for you exactly how it works

I thought a a fighter would move its third space before a four move infantry would move its third, but maybe its a coin toss... I think it is a coin flip. They both would move on tick 50.

Still very confused though.

Has any thought ever been put into removing carry over movement altogether? This would be much simpler to understand. Perhaps no carry over movement, simply carry over shooting (it makes a big difference when artillery that didn't shoot, shoots first). Its debatable and this is not something we will likely chage soon. You see how relevant it is for artillery shooting. If your art shoots on tick 51 and only got 1 shot because nothing was in range until tick 51, you really want it to shoot first next turn -- its what is fair, while it seems like this is less important in movement, I think there are similar situations and movement should carryover as it lessens the luck factor on losing a coin toss, etc.

Great responses Chris!

First all your responses that my infantry had been blocked is correct. I see now that it lost a coin flip for movement with one of my own units.

Second, after posting and going to work, I had an epiphany as to what the intuitive disconnect is, and why things sometimes seem like the shouldn't be. It logically seems as if there should be no coin flip between two units when one unit is faster overall.

The cool-down explanation makes perfect sense in terms of the math involved and figuring the calculations, but how does a player view it? A cool-down for guns makes perfect sense, but a fighter doesn't move more hexes per turn because it reloads its movement quicker, it moves more hexes per turn because it takes less ticks for it to move one hex (distance relationship). So to the user, an infantry doesn't have a 33.3 tick cooldown time on movement - 33.3 is the amount of ticks it takes an infantry to walk one hex. If a recon and infantry unit are separated by an empty hex and both are attempting to move on that hex at the start of a turn, the recon unit will get there first (unless the infantry has carry-over) because its movement cool-down time is quicker, but to a user playing the game, the recon moves there first (and rightly so) because it is a faster unit.

I understand if you want to leave carry-over, because on many levels it does make sense. Although to some degree, if carry over is possible, wouldn't it be great to order an infantry to move 2.99 spaces, therefore allowing it to move on tick 1 of the next turn? If my infantry can move three spaces in a turn, it can only move 2.75 spaces (and get carry-over) if it is blocked. What if I wanted to order my infantry to move 2 spaces, then use the rest of its cool-down time to over-prepare for an early move the next turn? Also, on another quick tangent, what if I wanted to order my infantry to hold for one move, then move two spaces? Currently that is not possible (to my knowledge), but seems like it should be possible.

Hold is something we want to add to the game. It is a great idea.

Now, back to my epiphany. Suppose an infantry and recon unit are separated by one empty space and both are ordered to move there at the start of the turn. However, the infantry had been blocked a few turns earlier and is still working with some carry-over, which has it slated to move tick 20 (same as recon). In my opinion, the recon should auto-win "the toss" by default because it is a faster unit. Now someone may well say, "To the players viewing, they likely had no idea this was a toss situation and that for all they knew the infantry had carry-over that had it moving on a tick earlier than 20. To someone who see's the event take place but doesn't know how much carry-over the infantry had, its much greater odds that its carry-over has it moving somewhere between tick 1-19 as opposed to tick 20. Players viewing this will doubt this is a coin flip, and just assume the infantry had carry-over to make it move first." And that is a fair statement.



But here is the situation I was in, and it was a situation which could often occur. Unless the movement cool-down time is slightly different than I believe, a plane will make its third move on tick 50 (it gets in 6 moves over 100 ticks, so half of that is tick 50). An infantry that has a movement buff will get its 2nd move on tick 50 as well (4 moves over 100 ticks, so half of that is 50). What happened to me was I had an infantry (buffed with +1 speed) attempting to make its second move, on tick 50, into a hex occupied by a plane, that was attempting to leave that hex on tick 50, for its 3rd move of the turn. A coin toss was performed, my infantry won, it was blocked, then moved one tick later as the plane moved, but this delay caused its 4th tick to come after tick 100, meaning it didn't move the 4th hex. The replay is up online if you want to view this. Its the FFA with myself, Thor, and someone else and occurs sometime around turn 7-10 if I recall from watching.

This is actually a different scenario than two units racing to square. To me, the viewer, a plane is faster than an infantry, because it takes less time to move one space, so if they both are scheduled to move on turn 50, there is no reason there should even be a coin toss performed, the plane is the faster unit and should win by default on tie-breaker (the tie-breaker being the faster overall speed). There is no assumption that infantry had carry-over movement (it could, but in this situation I could know, perhaps from the previous turn, that it does not). Also, in a situation where a friendly unit is trying to move into a hex that is occupied by another friendly unit, and both units move on the same tick, the first movement is automatically awarded to the unit which is vacating the hex for the other unit.

Why should I have to fear moving two units, of the same speed and adjacent to each other, along the same line? Why should I have to fear that the back unit may win the coin flip and get held back? Or, if I was really tricky, why should I be able to do this in hopes of giving carry-over time to one of my units, and keep track of it on the pad of paper sitting next to me, to give me a possible advantage later in the game?

In your responses to my previous post, Chris, you pointed to an advantage of the carry-over movement as "[lessening] the luck factor on losing a coin-toss." To me this statement indicates that you would agree that the game is better when you have less instances of players gaining advantage or disadvantage based on a coin flip, and this is a view that I myself hold. If one or both of the following was done, there would be less coin-flips and player's would better know what will actually happen during the next turn: 1) Tie-breaker before a coin-flip goes to a unit if it has more total speed than the other unit; I think I like this idea. I want to thing about it more.2) Tie-breaker in a scenario where a friendly unit is trying to move into a space occupied by another friendly unit (which is also moving) goes to the unit vacating the space for the first unit, therefore allowing troop movement among your own forces to be more predictable and flow much better. I definitely like this, not sure how hard it would be to implement

I wouldn't be surprised if some new players get confused when they have two units of the same speed moving in the same line and the back unit gets delayed. They probably think to themselves, "whoa, this doesn't seem right, this game has funky movement."

Hope this gives you some good ideas to work with.

A real question raised by this post is should there be any carryover of movement. What do people think (of course .5 would have to be carried over).

...the first movement should be automatically awarded...

Agree. We will look into this

Thanks for the posts Doug.

This was VERY helpful for me in understanding how the game mechanics work. Thank you so much for your clear explanations


Rothmorthau