Detailed explanation of the Overrun Mechanic Request

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KnyazSuvorov

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Jan 19, 2021
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Would it be possible for someone to explain in detail how the overrun mechanic works?

My current understanding is that it is composed of two potential situations:

1. Encirclement-like situation: when you have the only tile connecting your forward-tile to the mainland being captured before your retreating from the prior tile troops get there.

2. Pure overrun when your troops have a head-to-head battle tile vs tile (no encirclement from any side). and where somehow the losing troops get overrun without an encirclement.

Could anyone explain the mechanic in case #2(non-encirclement overrun)? What pre-requisite circumstances allow this to happen?

I haven't seen many recently but I clearly remember they were present in prior versions especially if you rushed with high-speed troops.
 
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I believe you did not read the bolded part, so I will underline it to be more clear:

Could anyone explain the mechanic in case #2(non-encirclement overrun)? What pre-requisite circumstances allow this to happen?
I read it.

Overruns happen when you capture the territory the enemy is retreating to, before they get there.
 
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I read it.

Overruns happen when you capture the territory the enemy is retreating to, before they get there.
I've seen overruns pre-Man The Guns when you didn't need to encircle enemy troops to have them overrun. AKA when you did not need to capture territory the enemy is retreating to

I am asking about non-encirclement overruns first and foremost
 
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I've seen overruns pre-Man The Guns when you didn't need to encircle enemy troops to have them overrun. AKA when you did not need to capture territory the enemy is retreating to

I am asking about non-encirclement overruns first and foremost
I dont really know what you are referring to with non ecirclement overruns. There are encirclements and there are overruns.

Encirclements are when the enemy doesnt have somewhere to retreat to, when they are told to retreat.

Overruns are when the enemy retreats, but gets caught by advancing forces.
 
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I dont really know what you are referring to with non ecirclement overruns. There are encirclements and there are overruns.

Encirclements are when the enemy doesnt have somewhere to retreat to, when they are told to retreat.

Overruns are when the enemy retreats, but gets caught by advancing forces.
Non-encirclement overruns: when the retreating force still has a retreat path available in a friendly tile/province, but still gets destroyed despite being near full strength by advancing enemy forces.
 
I don't know the exact values but it has to do with division speed. What I've noticed is that overruns tend to happen a lot more often if you have air superiority, the enemies walk slower if you got air superiority.
Also, sometimes the enemy division will just retreat to another bordering province. Maybe the overrun ONLY happens if they have no provinces to retreat at all? I got to pay more attention to that. You can take the province an enemy is retreating before they get there, but it's not always the case that they get overrun.
 
EU4 has a stackwiüe mechanic of killing enemy armies that have under 1/10 your size, if I remember correctly. I don't think there is any such mechanic in HoI4.

If it happens that a division is directly destroyed when on 0 org, even if they have strength left aswell as a possible retreat path, then this is a bug that sometimes happen.

Unless we are talking about different things. Whats Corpse Fool means is: You defeat an enemy, they start retreating into a province back, you mobile force arrives in that province before the retreating enemy does. Theoretically they still could have either another retreat path or a further retreat path, but they are locked on that path and killed by overun. Although I noticed in NSB that the retreating forces simply start an offensive battle against the arrived mobile forces, and then are simply killed by that.

Note that this mechanic only comes into effect when you come from the same diretion as the force retreat from. Meaning if you defeat the enemy and they start retreating into another province. And you take that province by another attack from the side, then the retreating enemy simply picking another route, since they are path is just blocked and not their path overrun.
 
Non-encirclement overruns: when the retreating force still has a retreat path available in a friendly tile/province, but still gets destroyed despite being near full strength by advancing enemy forces.
That is just... an over run.

I modded cavalry to have +600% speed rather than +60% speed, and it worked exactly like I thought it would. I attacked the front line, the enemy had multiple places to retreat to when they lost. I continued pushing towards the tile they were retreating to, and then they got overrun. Because I captured the province they were retreating to. Because that is what an overrun is.
 
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That is just... an over run.

I modded cavalry to have +600% speed rather than +60% speed, and it worked exactly like I thought it would. I attacked the front line, the enemy had multiple places to retreat to when they lost. I continued pushing towards the tile they were retreating to, and then they got overrun. Because I captured the province they were retreating to. Because that is what an overrun is.
Ok let me clarify: the attacking troops capture 1 province in total over the course of the operation, and to be clear: do not capture any more provinces than just 1, yet trigger an overrun of enemy units(when they are not encircled neither originally nor subsequently). How does that happen? What's the trigger?
 
I read it.

Overruns happen when you capture the territory the enemy is retreating to, before they get there.
I believe you also need to have taken their original province, so if A is retreating into B you need to take both A and B, and A before B. If you take B first they get into another combat and end up retreating into C if available.
 
Ok let me clarify: the attacking troops capture 1 province in total over the course of the operation, and to be clear: do not capture any more provinces than just 1, yet trigger an overrun of enemy units(when they are not encircled neither originally nor subsequently). How does that happen? What's the trigger?
If this happens, it is most likely a bug.
 
If this happens, it is most likely a bug.
@Bratyn

Can you please confirm that the "Overrun mechanic" cannot be triggered unless:
A) Enemy troops are retreating after a defeat from "Province 1" into a friendly province("Province 2")
B) Friendly troops capture "Province 2" before retreating enemy troops arrive to it
C) There is no other alternative path to retreat from "Province 1" that retreating enemy troops can get redirected to

?
 
@Bratyn

Can you please confirm that the "Overrun mechanic" cannot be triggered unless:
A) Enemy troops are retreating after a defeat from "Province 1" into a friendly province("Province 2")
B) Friendly troops capture "Province 2" before retreating enemy troops arrive to it
C) There is no other alternative path to retreat from "Province 1" that retreating enemy troops can get redirected to

?
You can test it yourself. Switch off the AI, tag switch countries to set up troops, declare war with nodiplo, and attempt overruns. You can also use 'op' to take land without units.
 
You can test it yourself. Switch off the AI, tag switch countries to set up troops, declare war with nodiplo, and attempt overruns. You can also use 'op' to take land without units.
Why would I want to test it myself? There has to be strict criteria when it can be triggered, and that's what I'm curious about.

I've seen non-encirclement overruns before, so I know they exist. But I don't know why they happened, which is what I am trying to find out.
 
Why would I want to test it myself? There has to be strict criteria when it can be triggered, and that's what I'm curious about.

I've seen non-encirclement overruns before, so I know they exist. But I don't know why they happened, which is what I am trying to find out.
I haven't been able to reproduce it myself. I figured if you replicated the conditions you saw it in, we'd know why.
 
I read it.

Overruns happen when you capture the territory the enemy is retreating to, before they get there.
They also happen without capturing the territory the enemy is retreating to, before they get there.

This scenario is possible:
  1. Attacker on province A routes defender in province B.
  2. Defender in province B retreats towards province C (owned by defender).
  3. Attacker moves into province B, but does *not* move into province C.
  4. Defender is overrun anyway.
I believe OP is asking what conditions make this scenario possible. It seems nobody knows. Perhaps it is a bug, but if so it is quite old. Not that a bug around as old as the game itself is a surprise with HOI 4.

I haven't been able to reproduce it myself. I figured if you replicated the conditions you saw it in, we'd know why.

The problem is that there doesn't APPEAR to be a good reason this occurs. However, I have definitely also observed it, both against my own units and against the AI's units.
 
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It's not really a dev's job to go bug hunting like this.
As a former QA I'd recommend to play with frequent auto-saves and make a bug report with a save file from just before this issue happens if you somehow manage to reproduce it. That way the devs can hook directly into the code and see what's going on and decipher why it might be happening.

Also, just to be clear: An overrun doesn't care if there are any other connected provinces under your control nearby. If the enemy overtakes your retreating units and captures their retreat destination your armies will get wiped with an "Overrun!" message.
 
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