RESOLVED: Intercepting troops attacking cities.

Not sure how to explain other than an example.

If you see that there is a stack of 10 tanks about to hit one of your cities and attempt to intercept them with your own 12 tanks one thing that can happen is your tanks follow the opposing stack in to the city you were trying to protect. This would be fine except when this happens, because your units are in your city, it causes your tanks to play the defensive role.

I've lost huge stacks of tanks this way and it isn't intuitive at all for you to think that dragging your troops to attack the opponents would ever result in you defending.

Napisao Gigglin, 26.01.2011 at 23:40

Not sure how to explain other than an example.

If you see that there is a stack of 10 tanks about to hit one of your cities and attempt to intercept them with your own 12 tanks one thing that can happen is your tanks follow the opposing stack in to the city you were trying to protect. This would be fine except when this happens, because your units are in your city, it causes your tanks to play the defensive role.

I've lost huge stacks of tanks this way and it isn't intuitive at all for you to think that dragging your troops to attack the opponents would ever result in you defending.

No, your tanks are not on the defensive. If any of your units participating in a battle attacked the opponent, all of your units will be attacking. With both forces attacking, it means the sides take turns attacking/defending. In your city, however, you will always be defending.

I agree it's a bit fickle but luckily it seems to be heavily based on luck so it's hard to abuse. I always mix in a few inf with my tank stacks (about 25%) just incase of things like this myself.

*wow, late again to reply.

Napisao Ivan, 27.01.2011 at 02:05

No, your tanks are not on the defensive. If any of your units participating in a battle attacked the opponent, all of your units will be attacking. With both forces attacking, it means the sides take turns attacking/defending. In your city, however, you will always be defending.

I think you misunderstand what I am saying, I know that if you are in your city you are always defending, that is the issue. If you send a stack of troops to attack someone but they attack a city you follow them in to that city and automatically defend, just as you said. However tanks are almost useless at defense and you wind up losing a stack of tanks that could have easily attacked and reclaimed the city next turn. I would never send my tanks in to a city to defend however the game forces this to occur.

Well the simple solution(for now) is to just hold off a turn and attack the city next turn. But yeah I've seen what you're talking about occur.

Napisao Fgw_wolf, 27.01.2011 at 11:34

Well the simple solution(for now) is to just hold off a turn and attack the city next turn. But yeah I've seen what you're talking about occur.

Obviously that is, but holding off can cause a city producing 150% of it's income to drop to 50%

Napisao Gigglin, 27.01.2011 at 11:42

Napisao Fgw_wolf, 27.01.2011 at 11:34

Well the simple solution(for now) is to just hold off a turn and attack the city next turn. But yeah I've seen what you're talking about occur.

Obviously that is, but holding off can cause a city producing 150% of it's income to drop to 50%

Thats true, but we don't have much of a choice at this point. If they could change the coding though to register the tank attack on the units first as a separate battle then if the tanks were wiped out the force would continue with whatever it had left to attack to attack the city. But currently that would only happen if you put your tanks directly in the path of the attacking units, I hink.

Honestly I would just be happy that if the tanks don't intercept they don't move at all.

This has happened to me too but i thought it was bad luck. I believe before the resolution was that the two armies alternated defending and attacking should this not still be the case?

Napisao specter, 28.01.2011 at 17:57

This has happened to me too but i thought it was bad luck. I believe before the resolution was that the two armies alternated defending and attacking should this not still be the case?

Everywhere except in a city, if you wind up in one of your city your units will be defending regardless.

Exactly one should get an attacking turn in between the defending turns, or atleast until the units they sent to attack are dead.

Yes can you please at least change the system regarding intercepting attackers. In many games I've seen people (especially Sky Menace and Master of Stealth users) hop from enemy city to city knowing that they'll always be on the attacking, and therefore advantageous, side as long as they move first. I've seen stacks of bombers do this too. This could be fixed in two ways in my eyes:

1. Let city battles commence in two phases: Attack (Attackers vs units which tried to intercept the attackers) and Defence (Remaining attackers vs the units in the city at the time, and units which enter the city).

2. Make units alternate attack/defend as in unit vs unit battles where both units attempted to attack eachother. This has inheritant problems, i.e. 1 tank tries to intercept a stack and ends up with the entire city Infantry attack/defending resulting in a loss.

Napisao Gigglin, 27.01.2011 at 12:13

Honestly I would just be happy that if the tanks don't intercept they don't move at all.

I would tend to agree. The fact that this doesn't happen, combined with the fact that units in a city always use def means failed intercepts lead to massive loss of offensive units (marines, tanks, etc).

If this is on purpose then so be it, but if it is unintended consequence maybe they can tweak it.

Napisao Gigglin, 27.01.2011 at 12:13

Honestly I would just be happy that if the tanks don't intercept they don't move at all.

We could do that, it's the easiest solution so far. So, in case the units combined attack is more than its defence, it will never follow his target into the city, is that the desired behavior?

I think what he meant was if the attacking units have a higher priority than the intercepting units, the intercepting units won't follow the attacking units into the city. If the priority is the same or lower the intercepting units should succeed and the attacking units won't move.

I think the key is that Intercepting units should never be used as defense in a city (unless they came FROM that city)

Kinda makes no sense if because the tanks moved AFTER the invading force that somehow they'd get to the target city first and be there to DEFEND against the incoming army...I mean, if they had time to get to the incoming city, shouldn't they have had time to intercept the other forces???

So the safest result is to have the intercepting forces end up outside the city if they didn't intercept (of course they could STILL lose if the following turn they get targetted first.....)

Maybe we should simply evaluate it at two points he attacks the city if he wins the intercepting force now becomes the invading force. Also if the city is retaken during the same turn there should be no lose to the cities income.

Having a unit participate in 2 separate attacks in 1 turn may be beyond the capabilities of the Afterwind Engine as it stands right now....

Napisao n00less cluebie, 03.02.2011 at 16:57

Having a unit participate in 2 separate attacks in 1 turn may be beyond the capabilities of the Afterwind Engine as it stands right now....

That's correct, unfortunately.

Napisao Amok, 03.02.2011 at 11:18

Napisao Gigglin, 27.01.2011 at 12:13

Honestly I would just be happy that if the tanks don't intercept they don't move at all.

We could do that, it's the easiest solution so far. So, in case the units combined attack is more than its defence, it will never follow his target into the city, is that the desired behavior?

I think yes.

It seems like the best solution so far. go for it