Shattered Retreat Bug or WAD?

[Nuclear Elvis]

See 2x screenshots for reference.
Big fight, playing as formed Russia that had 150K army and 150K in reserves, allied with expanded Austria (absorbed Bohemia and Hungary via PUs already and at ~100k army and 80k manpower at start of war). Fighting vs Ottomans and Tunis, with Ottomans holding 180K army and 40K in reserves at start of war, that Ottomans initiated by attacking Austria (which is a totally separate issue that I see with AI even when Normal/Ironman, for Ottomans to make such a crazy choice to attack us with our numbers).

So, I'm running 50K Army stacks inside Ottomans to help take them down while Austria is absorbing blows with initial sieges against them. I get an opening to move a 55K army stack w/best siege capability and siege-pipped commander into Constantinople to siege-down the Ottomans capitol, and with static Province naming, it is Gallipoli Province just west of Constantinople that also has a fort.

Here's where things go wrong and weird:
- I had taken down capitol Constantinople and then moved to Gallipoli to siege it down also. Ottomans moves in their own 50k stack army on Constantinople and sieges it down in just 2x siege-timer cycles very quickly.
- I won a defensive battle with my sieging army against what was apparently a Shattered Retreat army coming in from Ottomans, but my numbers were reduced from the starting 55K down to about 50k and morale reduced about 25%. The other Ottomans 50k stack army already headed north to get back at Austria, not in sight.
- Ottomans sends in a 40k army that defeats my now 50k Army stack (because morale had been reduced at least 25% from prior battles), and wins in Gallipoli, and I'm expecting to see a Shattered Retreat that pushes me out. But...it doesn't happen.

The weirdness:
- My now-40k stack army proceeds to get wiped down over and over, because the game's AI/code has my 40k stack army moving left and right between Gallipoli and Constantinople with only a 1-province move in retreat, instead of a Shattered Retreat back to Russian territory or captured provinces. Note the zoomed out screenshot - there's not a pathway problem to do shattered retreat back to the Crimea area provinces either Russian held or part of Russia-proper (green provinces).

So, why did Shattered Retreat not occur at Gallipoli and Constantinople? And is this a Bug, because it sure feels like it, for AI to help itself out by forcing a defeated larger Army (as reminder, the Ottomans 40K defeated the larger 50K only due to morale reduction of 50K in first battle). This pinball action was quite annoying to say the least, and the wiping of this Army due to this single issue is going to change the entire war (and obviously - pace of remainder of game if this results in defeat to Ottomans). Seems this isn't Working as Designed (WAD) and is quite a game-changer (if not game-breaker) that this occurs.

The zoomed-in screenshot - was taken after the 3rd time that my formerly 55K army stack was bounced back and forth between Gallipoli and Constantinople, whittled down to a stack-wipe after this fight (I should have taken prior screenshots as the 1-province retreats occurred, looking back at this).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They retook Constantinople, trapping you. It became your return province after you took it. When AI retook it your only valid provinces to move were current province + Constantinople, until you sieged down another fort.

There are some edge cases where the game thinks forts exist while they don't, but in this case it's working as designed. Now don't get me wrong, IMO the design of the years-long fort beta is unhealthy for the game because there are so many edge cases, weird interactions, hidden rules, and obstructed information. But this is an expected/consistent outcome with the (relatively broken) rules we have now.

Edit: yes, it's possible to stack up troops on a mothballed fort to let AI move past it and similarly trap it by maintaining it.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

They retook Constantinople, trapping you. It became your return province after you took it. When AI retook it your only valid provinces to move were current province + Constantinople, until you sieged down another fort.

There are some edge cases where the game thinks forts exist while they don't, but in this case it's working as designed. Now don't get me wrong, IMO the design of the years-long fort beta is unhealthy for the game because there are so many edge cases, weird interactions, hidden rules, and obstructed information. But this is an expected/consistent outcome with the (relatively broken) rules we have now.

Edit: yes, it's possible to stack up troops on a mothballed fort to let AI move past it and similarly trap it by maintaining it.

Really bad Game Design, is what it is. Very silly rules-set to "lock in" on one hand, and then send Shattered Retreats on 2,000 mile journeys in other cases. In EU3 with the single-province Retreat, at least there was consistency.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Shattered retreat was frustrating, but pretty consistent prior to the common nonsense introduction of ZoC forts too. At least it's better now than when ZoC was first added...you could be gravity-welled into a border fort. Declare war, and you could no longer move anywhere but that fort lol.

It's somewhat better than that now, but it's still not in a good place.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

Shattered retreat was frustrating, but pretty consistent prior to the common nonsense introduction of ZoC forts too. At least it's better now than when ZoC was first added...you could be gravity-welled into a border fort. Declare war, and you could no longer move anywhere but that fort lol.

It's somewhat better than that now, but it's still not in a good place.

The Dev's and PM (Johan?) for EU5 need to rethink the entire Retreat process in total, along with that ZoC stuff. What I also found odd after discovery - that ZoC is still in effect even if you just lost a sieged enemy fort (if enemy retook it) with only 100 garrison, as if a recently sieged back and forth place would retain the same power to control the region around it. Also, that Breached Walls immediately return as if brick layers used magic to replace all that material. Breached Walls should have had a timer based on the level of the Fort, with level 1 forts requiring less time to rebuild a breached wall than a level 6 fort, and that the fort would retain a breached wall status the entire time, which - one could then throw in the ZoC issue in a layer on that, so that ZoC isn't in effect if recently sieged and/or breached walls still exist (i.e. a timer against ZoC's effectiveness based on related game play).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What I also found odd after discovery - that ZoC is still in effect even if you just lost a sieged enemy fort (if enemy retook it) with only 100 garrison

It's worse than that actually. ZoC creates effect roughly instantly. You can maintain a mothballed fort and it will start exerting ZoC with literally no garrison. You can test this yourself, pause and declare a war vs target with mothballed fort. Your can move units past it. Unpause for one day and you can't, even in same month.

It's definitely due for a rework, IMO over several mechanics that received attention first. But it would heavily impact the game and likely introduce lots of new bugs/issues, so I can see why they don't want to do it especially right now.

 

[Terixis]

ZoC is just a needlessly complicated, inconsistent, and unintuitive system. Going back to every province having a fort would be painful with the province density we have now, however. I highly doubt there are any changes or replacements planned at this point in EU4's lifecycle but it'll be interesting to see what they go with for EU5.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

What is especially annoying, given this game as a "Strategy Game" - you can't effectively plan your moves ahead of you with so many uncertainties. From my OP, that Army of mine was wiped after 7-8 back and forth runs (I even tried to right-click into Russian territory for one of the fights, but - to no avail), and it wasn't a "known" that I'd be restricted walking into what adds up to a "trap" in the game's current ruleset. So, instead of Austria and myself/Russia taking down Ottomans and getting a couple provinces each, instead AI/Austria quick-ends the war and gives over the targeted province of theirs that Ottomans had sieged down, even though the war was only 30-40% in favor of Ottomans, but AI thought it best to end, probably because I didn't have the same Army numbers in their metrics (that back and forth drained nearly 20K of manpower also due to high rates of refill at 50% over the many turns in that dance). So, suddenly Ottomans is over 200k Army, and Austria now only fields an 80k Army, and the Normal/Ironman game is totally botched. Can't just "go Easy Mode" for a few years and catch back up - it's an Ironman game. Yeah, I know - it's supposed to be harder/riskier, but I like taking the risks in the face of knowns, not unknowns or mystery rulesets/quirks. Very annoying, entire game is botched (8-10 hours of gameplay ruined from one ZoC event?).

I enjoy risky games in EU btw, although I played more EU3, but I'd take a 1-2 province HRE nation and try to eek out small victories and find a breakthrough to become dominant in HRE and then Colonization. In Normal/Ironman that was only about 10% of games that would work out in my favor instead of being Bohemia or Austria-wiped. So I'm ok with losing in the face of tough odds. But, this is different, this is losing to the odds of the rules of not-so-easily-understood game dynamics coming into play. I can see why players get frustrated with EU4.

I think the Game Developers have themselves fallen into a trap - believing that Complexity in itself is valuable for a Strategy Game, but Complexity that isn't useful nor logical doesn't add up to "fun" - it's just an annoyance, especially the type that is a "Game Over" event such as that.

ZoC should have been designed so that there's always an Exit, even if it's a single-exit the exact way you came in. One could argue - if you're able to walk in, you should be able to walk back out the same path, because the regional power wasn't so strong to repel you in the first place, right? Anyways, I may as well fire up a new game...