Venice bridge battle

[alpharomeo]

Hi all,

I'm reposting from the bug report sub-forum because I didn't get any reply there.

My problem is that whenever I'm defending the bridge near Venice (as Venitian player or any faction occupying Venice), on the tactical map, my army gets deployed on the West side of the bridge and the attacking army is deployed on the East side. Now this is still OK if there is just one attacking army, but if the attacker has reinforcement, it is deployed correctly on the West side of the map, with the lethal result of having my army sandwitched between the 2 attackers.

Has anyone seen this and is there a fix for it? I'm playing SS 6.2 M/M, no fancy mods on.

Thanks.

[Loose Cannon]

Most of us have never seen this. So as requested of the previous poster, can you post a save from before the battle starts here. Then someone can download it and figure out the solution. It would be nearly impossible to duplicate otherwise.

[arcanek]

I can confirm this. In my case I was besieging Venice, and Venetian army came behind me and was on the bridge. I attacked him with another stack, so on the world map it looked like :
OOOO
MEMV
OOOO

V is for venice, M is for my stack, E is for enemy and they were on the bridge. In the battle map somehow both my forces showed up from same side, one coming from the southern edge of my side.

[JorisofHolland]

Weird. Never seen this before. But you can try a night attack, or defeat the first force, then run to the other end of the bridge and defeat the second.

[alpharomeo]

Here is a saved game. Just hit end turn. The French will attack with 1 stack from the West. The Byzantine troops will be placed on the West side of the bridge. If you survive this battle, the French will place another stack SW of the bridge but will not attack. Then the Papal states will attack from the NW. Again, the Byzantine will be placed on the West side of the bridge. The Papal states will be placed on the East side, and the French will come from the SW side of the map. I didn't bother to fight it out as it looks hopeless.

Many thanks if you can fix this bug.

[Loose Cannon]

Sorry alpharomeo, I've tried but I can't get your save to load. As the unzipped file is 50% larger then my 6.2 saves I also tried it in RR/rc and a copy with BGR but I keep getting kicked back to the first selection screen.. I'd liked to see a solution maybe someone else can get it to work. Maybe something happened in the zipping process because you unzipped save is bigger than any save I have.

[JorisofHolland]

I shall give it a try then.
Edit: I saw what you mean. Really bad. If you want to win the battle anyway (it's your right, isnt it?) you can use the console and type "auto_win defender" (don't forget to turn it of afterwards) and then autoresolve; you'll win.
BTW: Does this happen at other bidges too?

[alpharomeo]

Thank you for your help JorisofHolland and Loose Canon.

JorisofHolland - No, I think I only get this problem on the Venice bridge. If it helps, I may add that attacking an AI army on the bridge from the East poses no problem as both army are correctly placed.

Loose Canon - I unzipped the file and can run the game OK. My save games started at 2.1 MB in size and have steadily grown to 4.6 MB now. Is that typical?

To keep on playing this game, I retreated my army to the East of the bridge. The French didn't attack me and just occupied the bridge. So I attacked it in the next turn . This is actually OK because I'm outnumbered 3:2 so they attacked me across the bridge, so the battle just turned into a typical bridge defense.

At the end of the next turn though, the French placed a stack to the NW, a stack on the SW, then the Pope attacked from the W. At 3 against 1, I withdrew from that battle and found out that, because the city couldn't hold more than 20 units, some units got kicked back out and pushed back next to the bridge. The Pope didn't bother to attack that half stack but brought in another stack behind him. So now I get to attack the bridge against 4 stacks! Yeah!

I'm still in the process of moving a night fighter general to Venice, BTW, but he may be too late to save the day.

[JorisofHolland]

No he won't be late; not if you can easily win a siege against 4 stacks, leading 1 1/2.

[StyggeKrumpen]

i have seen this too but i think it will only happen when there are more then 2 armys in the battle. playing as venice you will often have to attack 1 Hre army before one more will show up and the bug will kill your battle chances.

[JorisofHolland]

It probably has something to do with the map, if Venice is the only location it happens. Maybe I can take a look into this, but don't expect a solution of any kind.
@StyggeKrumpen: Yes, for if there are only 2 armies there is no problem.

[alpharomeo]

Thank you, JorisofHolland. Hope you can track down this bug. It will make this game so much more playable.

I did try to attack the bridge with 1 stack last night. Sure enough, 4 stacks showed up for defense. I managed to route 3 stacks with enough troops remaining to take on the last stack. Unfortunately, I ran of ammo, so it just sat on the other side of the bridge and shot me into pieces with their crossbows .

[JorisofHolland]

Can't find the bug. The isle is attached properly in map_ground_types.tga and map_heights.tga and the river shows up in descr_features.tga so I can't find it. Did you report it in the Bug Reports section?

[alpharomeo]

Yup, but got no reply. I'm surprised it does not bother more people, since it makes defending Venice pretty tricky.

I don't know if this helps but I noticed that, when my troops are deployed (incorrectly) on the West bank, the units are in column formation facing South, spread along the river and very close to its bank. When they are (correctly) on the East bank, they are in column formation facing North, also spread along and close to the river bank. The AI troops are deployed facing the bridge, and will be in column formation if they intend to cross the bridge.