Stupid battleplaner, stop moving my troops away!

[Wyrm]

I just lost Narvik during my Operation Weserübung. It was well secured by 2 infantry and one mountain division. The rest of Norway was slowly getting under control.

Suddenly, the bloody battleplaner AI decided I needed ALL the troops securing Narvik in Bergen for some unknown reason, so suddenly when I take a look, Narvik is re-captured and my troops are on ships on their way to the port in Bergen.

WTF?!?!?

I suppose it has something to do with how they try to man the front-lines after capturing territory, and I have one army assigned to the operations in Norway and a plan to split them between Oslo, Bergen and Narvik in order to quickly secure those ports and ferry in reinforcements.

Well, so much for that. Now I have to move from Bergen and Oslo northwards to secure Trondheim and Narvik. I was hoping to have a two-pronged advanced from both the south and the north to squeze Trondheim from both ends and secure Norway that much quicker.

Shouldn't the AI prioritize holding ports while conducting a naval invasion?

Frustrating...

 

[excaleranth]

Say you make one battleplan for an army, then you make another battleplan and assign the army to that battleplan. When the second battleplan is completed, it disappears and they automatically get assigned to the first battleplan. This sounds like what happened to you, they conquered everything in norway and got reassigned to the other battleplan. You must delete your older battleplans if you don't want units to get automatically assigned to them.

The AI will prioritize holding ports if that's what you tell them to do with the Garrison instructions. You can also manually put them into those ports without any battleplans.

 

[Wyrm]

I only had one battle-plan... or technically I had one plan for each port I wanted to take and a set part of the army assigned to each landing. I did NOT think they would just board transports and head over to the next beach, leaving their primary target exposed.

I'd rather they just hold when they have done their part of a plan.

 

[excaleranth]

I only had one battle-plan... or technically I had one plan for each port I wanted to take and a set part of the army assigned to each landing.

Was each plan assigned to the same (one) army? If so, they all want to do all of the battleplans. You need to make separate army's each with their own battleplans in order for them to stop once they accomplish their objectives.

 

[Wyrm]

Was each plan assigned to the same (one) army? If so, they all want to do all of the battleplans. You need to make separate army's each with their own battleplans in order for them to stop once they accomplish their objectives.

I will keep that in mind, but it seems quite unintuitive to assign troops to specific parts of a plan and then have them automatically re-assign themselves to other parts of the plan

 

[Jorlem]

I will keep that in mind, but it seems quite unintuitive to assign troops to specific parts of a plan and then have them automatically re-assign themselves to other parts of the plan

This mechanic is what reassigns troops that close and finish off an encirclement back to the main front, so it makes sense to me.

 

[Smiles_]

I've also experienced the shifting when the front line gets bigger (due to advances for instance), people running away from a hotly contested area to fill in a gap somewhere else. I ended up removing some troops from orders and manually positioning them quickly when I came back to the front to check on it.


Smiles

 

[Wyrm]

I think ctrl+H will be used more frequently during these types of operations for me.

I think I will go back to my pre-invasion save and try again

 

[Aries666]

I only had one battle-plan... or technically I had one plan for each port I wanted to take and a set part of the army assigned to each landing. I did NOT think they would just board transports and head over to the next beach, leaving their primary target exposed.

I'd rather they just hold when they have done their part of a plan.

This is a problem I have also noticed when doing naval invasions. It's not unique to naval invasion just more likely. The reason is that once an order is complete and there is no longer a front line the AI will assign those troops to another order that that army has.

This could easily be avoided if after an invasions those troops automatically make a front.

 

[Meglok]

I just lost Narvik during my Operation Weserübung. It was well secured by 2 infantry and one mountain division. The rest of Norway was slowly getting under control.

Suddenly, the bloody battleplaner AI decided I needed ALL the troops securing Narvik in Bergen for some unknown reason, so suddenly when I take a look, Narvik is re-captured and my troops are on ships on their way to the port in Bergen.

WTF?!?!?

I suppose it has something to do with how they try to man the front-lines after capturing territory, and I have one army assigned to the operations in Norway and a plan to split them between Oslo, Bergen and Narvik in order to quickly secure those ports and ferry in reinforcements.

Well, so much for that. Now I have to move from Bergen and Oslo northwards to secure Trondheim and Narvik. I was hoping to have a two-pronged advanced from both the south and the north to squeze Trondheim from both ends and secure Norway that much quicker.

Shouldn't the AI prioritize holding ports while conducting a naval invasion?

Frustrating...

Even garrison command can't be trusted to hold an important location due to the way it prioritizes VPs in garrison provinces. And some ports don't have VPs.

I have learned it is MUCH safer to just detach divisions and leave them unassigned in important locations until things are calm. That way the damn battle planner can't override my plans.

 

[Kaosium]

Even garrison command can't be trusted to hold an important location due to the way it prioritizes VPs in garrison provinces. And some ports don't have VPs.

I have learned it is MUCH safer to just detach divisions and leave them unassigned in important locations until things are calm. That way the damn battle planner can't override my plans.

I do something similar, when important objectives are captured I detach appropriate units from the capturing force and assign those units to what I call 'Garrison Command'--An Old Guard Defensive Doctrine Field Marshal who has all my garrisons all over the world assigned to it.

 

[Wyrm]

This is a problem I have also noticed when doing naval invasions. It's not unique to naval invasion just more likely. The reason is that once an order is complete and there is no longer a front line the AI will assign those troops to another order that that army has.

This could easily be avoided if after an invasions those troops automatically make a front.

They DO make a front after invading. The problem, I belive, is that all invasions create small pockets, each with a front and those fronts are treated by the battle-planer as ONE front, so it reshuffles troops along it, and port-access allows the AI to do this.

 

[Johnny Cash Flow]

I know this post is old, but I was having the exact same issue while playing recently, so I wanted to share another answer.

What I found, after about an hour of yelling at my computer, was that the ARMY GROUP commander's (aka "Field Marshal") orders are also followed by individual divisions. So just because your individual army may not have an immediate order, if you have a field commander with orders, then the individual divisions will resort to those orders when given nothing else.

Here's an example of the issue that I was having:

Using the following hierarchy because I don't want to get confused with the jargon:

Top - Army Group - Led by a "Field Marshal"
Middle - Army - Led by a "General"
Individual - Divisions - Led by God and Country

Playing U.S.
Island hopping towards Japan.
Finish up defeating an island and my troops immediately decide to attempt to return to the U.S. mainland or Hawaii.
[Insert hour long yelling here]

What I had found was that I had assigned, early early on, my ARMY GROUP a garrison location on the West Coast and Hawaii. Having forgotten all about it, fast forward several in-game years and entering into WWII, my DIVISIONS were resorting to the forgotten commands of the top ARMY GROUP's Field Marshal to establish a garrison area in these rear locations.

Before you throw your computer out the window, insure you RIGHT CLICK on the ARMY GROUP's trashcan ("rubbage bin" for you non-freedom-loving individuals across the Atlantic), so that you remove anything previously assigned to your Field Marshal, which you may have forgotten.

Hope this helps the next sorry sap trying to learn this game.

Cheers.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

Thanks for the advice. And great first post!