Re: Movement priority
From KB (based on an older similar thread), HTH:
8.3 Intercepting Armies, army movement order
Question:
Numerous times, I have instructed armies of various sizes to move / attack into neighboring provinces, but those armies were somehow preemptively attacked causing my army to then not move. Sometimes the enemy "intercepting" army consisted only of a single unit - a very irritating way to have stopped my army of hundreds.
However, every time I try to duplicate this feat myself - by sending attacking armies against an enemy on the move - somehow my intercepting armies never seem to "catch" the enemy.
Is this an AI bug? Has anyone observed any "rules" which constrict how such interceptions would work? It certainly would change my strategy.
Answers:
-> The order of events in a turn, as described in the manual, provides some hints; e.g., armies going to friendly territory always move before armies going to hostile territory.
If both of you are trying to move into enemy terrain, I've been told the order of army movements is partly random, but is influenced by things like army size and terrain.
-> You've been unlucky. I have used this trick too, and it works just as well against the AI as it does against you. However, in order to "catch" the enemy army, you have to:
|1.) Originate in the same province that the enemy is moving to, and be headed toward the same province he's coming from.
|2.) Either have a largish army or get lucky. The chance of interception is somehow based on the size of the armies, and if both armies are small they can "pass through" each other.
-Max
P.S. BTW, if you really do have an unstoppable army of hundreds, this is a good reason to split them into two or more columns. It's a lot harder for the opponent to stop both columns, even if he knows exactly what province you'll be moving into--then the delayed column just catches up. On the other hand, if your army is NOT unstoppable this invites defeat in detail.
P.P.S. One other possibility--it *might* depend upon which nation you're playing. I know that if two EA nations both attempt to move into an indy province on the same turn, and one of them is Abysia, Abysia will always attack the indies first and will therefore be the defender in the battle.
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