Voidbringers never attack if you park one(1) singular, low tier unit outside of their spawn.

[Underestimated]

I posted this exploit earlier but it never got any views so I guess it got lost. All you have to do is park a tier 1 unit outside of whatever spawns voidbringers, attack and then retreat with it. Any army spawning outside of that spawn will go docile and stop attacking. On top of this, if you have any tactical ops with disintigrate you can whittle down their defenses turn by turn with a single tier 1 soldier.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Hey Underestimated, thanks for your report but please follow the Bug Reporting Template and provide a save in which your issue is reproducible.

 

[Underestimated]

Hey Underestimated, thanks for your report but please follow the Bug Reporting Template and provide a save in which your issue is reproducible.

Steam, windows 10. The last time I played the game was after the hotfix in which the first hotseat hang bug was fixed. I'm just copying and pasting the save from my other report here, as well as the info.

One line summary of your issue

There is an easy exploit in which any AI army spawned from any given voidbringer spawn doesn't know what to do when it's spawn point is attacked by a single retreating stack each turn, so it staysput by its base and never goes out to attack, thus rendering it irrelevant.

What platform are you running the game on?
Steam

What operating system do you use?
Windows 10

Which version of the game are you running?
I'm pretty sure it's up to date. The last time I played was after the hotfix that fixed the initial hotseat hang bug was released. It's still the most recent one when I check the update news on steam: "Diplodocus Update Hotfix 2 v1.302"

What expansions do you have installed?
Revelations, invasions.

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
I was underprepared for the voidbringer invasion on my last game, and I found an exploit that keeps them from attacking. I have a single tier 1 unit outside one of their spawns, which previously was producing armies and sending them to attack my sectors. I attack with my tier 1 unit, use an operation with a chance of disintegrate on their heavy units, and retreat.

I've been doing this for several turns now. The voidbringer army that usually spawns from that camp stays put and never attacks anything anymore, not even my tier 1 infantry army that's sitting right outside of its base. So one exploit is that you can effectively cheese the voidbringers by doing one late game op each turn on their armies, and another exploit is that all you have to do to stop the voidbringers from attacking you entirely from any given spawn is park a single tier 1 unit outside of their base, attack and retreat with it each turn (I'm not sure you even have to do an op or do damage to get this to work) and they just keep their army parked there.

I also realized that this particular method of cheesing the AI could be used to clear structures early on, which could throw off the balance in multiplayer games and lead to people needing to do this in order to be competitive. A solution to that would be ensuring that AI's occupying a structure have significant health regeneration, to counter early game op damage (I haven't tested it so maybe that's already the case.) As for the earlier situation with the voidbringers, resurgence and a healing boost could be the answer. Units killed by disintegration could get resurgence, although it's hard to narratively justify that change (and giving all voidbringer units resurgence under more broad conditions could end up feeling overpowered.) The AI could also be tweaked so that it isn't so quick to passively defend its spawn point against a smaller armies in it's sector, instead opting to attack.


Have you tried verifying your files?
All files validated successfully.

Steps to reproduce the issue
The attached save is the game in which I've been using this strategy. It's a hotseat game--so to reproduce the issue end the Assembly player's turn, and look at the northernmost shakarn base. The voidbringer spawn is there. To reproduce the issue, play the game, and every time the shakarn player's turn comes around, go to the northernmost base and attack the voidbringer spawn there with the vanguard infantry, and retreat. You'll see the army spawned by that particular spawn point never moves, and never goes on the attack. I'm also pretty sure this exploit will work with any voidbringer spawn, and as they're all over the map it wouldnt be hard to reproduce with any of them.

Attach DxDiag (PC) or System Info log (Mac)
I'm away from my home pc at the moment and using my mac to write this, so I can't attach relevant system info at the moment.

Attach screenshot / video
Not sure how to do a video and not sure how to capture exactly what's going on in the form of a screenshot

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Hey Underestimated, thanks for the update. I'm trying to reproduce it but I'm seeing the behaviour you describe, so maybe I'm not targeting the correct stack. In the screenshot are we attacking Stack 1 or Stack 2?

 

[Underestimated]

Hey Underestimated, thanks for the update. I'm trying to reproduce it but I'm seeing the behaviour you describe, so maybe I'm not targeting the correct stack. In the screenshot are we attacking Stack 1 or Stack 2?

It looks like I attached a save file from further back than I thought. I thought that I attached the most recent one where this was already going on, so it looks like I messed up in the initial report. In any case, this is the correct area. I separated one vanguard infantry to attack stack 2, directly on the spawn. I defend the first combat round, then use an op, then retreat. I either killed stack one when I was doing this and then a new stack appeared to replace it, or they retreated stack 1 to defend the spawn. It ends up parked next to the spawn stays there, I guess to defend, but it never does anything because in battle I retreat. So it essentially gets locked there for as many turns as I need to prepare an army.

 

[Underestimated]

I figured out how to take video, but it's too large to attach. I get attacked on my main base, but the stack in question that came from the northernmost spawn is docile. From the point in the save I'm attaching now, I can play two turns and beat the spawn entirely using the dimensional instability op on the present voidbringers, because it never attacks me. You can see how much I've whittled their armies down so far.

If one does this to every voidbringer camp in their territory, they can essentially keep the voidbringers under control and never get attacked. It's tedious, but a very easy exploit that easily can throw off the balance of multiplayer games in the late game.

So basically, a voidbringer army will never attack if the spawn it originates from is under attack, which makes it very easy to lock them down and control them like this.

 

[Underestimated]

I'm uploading the video to youtube, here's the link:

As you can see, the army that spawned from this particular pawn point never does anything during the ai turn phase, it just sits there to defend. As a result, they're harmless. I get attacked to the south, but not by the army that was created by the spawn point in question--however one could stop that army to the south from attacking through the same method--attacking the spawn point it's linked to and retreating. You could do this to every voidbringer spawn point in your territory and never have to worry about them. You can also see I've been doing this for several turns in a row, as I've whittled down their numbers significantly, so it is repeatable and a reliable exploit. When attacking, you don't even need to use an op or do damage--all you have to do is attack and retreat. I've tried it both ways and either way, the voidbringer army that came from that spawn never does anything--it's just locked down.

edit: I played around with the file some more, and I found that if I choose to send my lone soldier back to my base without attacking/retreating, the army spawned from that spawn point leaves to attack other structures in my base, at which point if I attack the spawn again with my lone soldier the battle is instantly resolved, as there are no voidbringers present. This also feels like a strange AI glitch.

It seems like if there are no voidbringer's on the main stack defending a spawn, one should automatically generate, to prevent this strangeness from occurring, but this is just a small tangential glitch.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

So I started writing this yesterday but wanted to wait out the video.

The 4/3 stacks are the Spawner Defenders, the 6 stack is the attacker. The Defenders never move and never attack, they are stationary stacks that protect the spawner just like marauder Spawners. What is interesting is that here killing the Voidbringers using Dimensional Instability does not clear the rest of the stack. This is unlike the attacker, where killing the Voidbringers using the Dimensional Instability actually removes the thrall (on all units).

I did a little test with moving (as I see your edit also mentions) and the Attacking stack does move when the unit is in a different position. I think the Attacking stack recognises the two others stack and expects them to initiate when they actually can't. The first and foremost thing that needs resolving is the Spawner not clearing thralls when all voidbringers have been taken out (by operations), cause then this situation should no longer occur.