So why has fort movement blocking been disabled for AI Countries?

[FrogCrusher]

Yes, but what exactly is the problem? Again: How do you expect anything to change if you don't at least say clearly what the problem is?
Also, to my knowlegde, almost all 'problems' come from the return province. But you can't really do without that, so simply complaining that it is 'broken' won't help.

There were many suggestions to built a fort system without return of province concept, so actually we could do without that.
You want an example? You don't siege a fort by being on the fort province but on a ZoC province and clicking an action button (such as drilling) to start the siege. You can't move to the fort province itself or to any other ZoC provinces. You can go anywhere else.

 

[tobias.mb]

@TheMeInTeam
Sorry, I think you misunderstood me a bit. First of all let me say: I agree with you, that the fort rules should be better explained and better represented in the game. Also some of the Fort rules cause problems in my opinion. Especially the 'reorganising armies' and 'valid movements at the time work, even if they become unvalid along the way' are very confusing.
I'm not claiming, that I have a solution or even that I understand them all perfectly. In fact this is precisely the biggest problem in my opinion: Since the Fort rules aren't fully explained anywhere, most people seem to not understand them completely. And the only way to remedy this is to explain them, whenever a 'WTF Fort rules' thread pops up on the forums.

The problem is self-evident to looking at the picture.

That's not what I meant. I wanted to say: Point out which Fort rule allowed this movement, why it could be used in this (arguably unintended) way, and what could be done to fix it.
The first step to getting enough people to complain about a problem is to explain the problem to these people, so they also understand it!

But I also don't seriously expect repeating it to cause a different outcome in terms of changing than previous attempts.

Again, the goal isn't only to complain to the devs, but also to explain the problem to other players. If enough people complain about a problem, it will eventually become a priority.

No, to be specific I am pointing out that people claiming the rules "work" in some capacity don't know the rules, making the claim that the rules work awkward.[...]I want as many people to hate on the broken fort rules as possible

Yes, however just saying "you don't understand the rules, but I do" won't help. There is undoubtedly a lot of confusion about the fort rules. Others can only complain about the rules, after they understand them.

 

[Gratak]

Mothballed forts not blocking ZoC is by design.

This war is against Sind, so mothball option is only possible via alliance with Gujurat but it is indeed something that could allow what we see. In this case that isn't what I used; the stack depicted first moved into Bengal to kick them out of this same war, so the fort in question has been fully maintained for > 1 year. Gujurat is neutral in this war, but does allow access.

Other common possibilities, if the return province isn't shown:

- Hisn Kayfa lands in Vijayanagar, marches north into the fort, then back into Ahmadnagar (not bypassing a ZoC, but makes the ordered move possible). Return province would be to the south.
- Hisn Kayfa lands 1 regiment in Vijayanagar, runs into the fort. Hisn Kayfa moves 29 regiments from the north by land and merges them onto the side with the 1 stack, alowing them to move to Ahmadnagar (but no longer to return to Gujurat, unless they use another army from the North to merge again).

Much less likely:

- Fort under construction completed after move order was given.

What actually happened:

- Move order was given in spite of the forts existence and full maintenance because it was valid at the time.

We're up to 5 already, but I might be missing more. This is not what a decent mechanic looks like in a strategy game. Players play this incessant little minigame constantly or they get surprises since if it's not a reorganization move-through trick, the AI will find the pathing sometimes. The AI will (usually) not pull what I did to ignore this fort.

Ok sorry. With "mothball bug" I actually meant the "ZoC doesn't affect old orders". That covers almost all of your explanations... The Vijayanagar explanations can't be as we see the return province is in the north... So yeah. Only one explanation.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ok sorry. With "mothball bug" I actually meant the "ZoC doesn't affect old orders". That covers almost all of your explanations... The Vijayanagar explanations can't be as we see the return province is in the north... So yeah. Only one explanation.

ZoC also doesn't impact orders executed while exiled, and that's much more soundly in bug territory.

 

[Gratak]

ZoC also doesn't impact orders executed while exiled, and that's much more soundly in bug territory.

Well but it exactly the same issue. Validity of orders is checked only when given (and ignoring any changes that are bound to happen on the way). Though I agree that the result is more grave on the exile part. Would love a fix for this that also makes sure game doesn't do impossible orders (exiled going into friendly territory and back to enemy again). Would make retreating after wars so much easier...

 

[bbqftw]

ZoC also doesn't impact orders executed while exiled, and that's much more soundly in bug territory.

that's actually genius, I think we can even merge armies into the freshly unexiled army as well for ultimate ZoC disregarding