ZoC is still a mess

[TheMeInTeam]

My extremely rough and most likely wrong guess is that you had a smaller stack enter from Khandesh to Marathwada, and a bigger stack enter from Desh or Bijapur. I'm guessing the bigger stack can siege either Marathwada or the capital fort if their return province is Pune, or if the capital does not have an extra fort then you could walk straight through and have their return province be the capital. If you then combine both stacks at Marathwada it would reset the return province to the capital. Or something along those lines.

That or the Marathwada fort was mothballed so you could walk straight through.

Is your tooltip covering another fort?

Tooltip isn't covering another fort.

You managed to list two of the other ways the illegal move is possible (unit shuffling from origin point, immediate move to take advantage of mothball). The latter is important; any move order issued that is valid will stay valid even after the fort is created. That opens up additional possibilities:

1. Fort was constructed after the move order (not likely, but possible)
2. Troops with no movement restrictions at present (exile) ordered past for then clear exile, orders still valid.

In addition to the one I missed above, the possibility that I straight up got military access in Vijay and just landed there, and yours we're now over 4 different ways to allow for an otherwise illegal-appearing move.

bbqftw did something similar to this in another thread...and none of those arguing in favor of the fort system could answer his questions either. The more one actually understands the rules, the more obvious how broken they are. And yes, that means there are conditions where AI can ignore your fort ZoC, because there are conditions the player can do this also...

 

[macd21]

bbqftw did something similar to this in another thread...and none of those arguing in favor of the fort system could answer his questions either. The more one actually understands the rules, the more obvious how broken they are. And yes, that means there are conditions where AI can ignore your fort ZoC, because there are conditions the player can do this also...

Here's the thing: it doesn't really matter if no one can explain a particular move, because most people don't care. Most people accept that sometimes forts stop movement and sometimes they don't. No one can be bothered figuring out what the rules are, because they're too complex, and when you do know them it doesn't help that much, because there's too many variables. And yet people keep on playing the game (and buying the DLC).

And, again: Yes it would be great if they implemented a better system. But they can't, so we're stuck with this one.

 

[Sauron44]

The problem is not the fort rules themselves. Those are complex but understandable.
The problem is, that the game allows you to break them, sometimes even without much effort.
TMIT's example is not possible when following the rules.
Just fix the bugs and most irritations will disappear.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The problem is not the fort rules themselves. Those are complex but understandable.
The problem is, that the game allows you to break them, sometimes even without much effort.
TMIT's example is not possible when following the rules.
Just fix the bugs and most irritations will disappear.

Not true. Reshuffling armies to change which ZoC applies is 100% by design and within the rules. Same with the mothball one and walking in through Vijay obviously. Exile walking not so much.

All of these were programmed into the game as a way to handle special cases, and for some there is no fix other than changing the rules.

 

[Canute VII]

What zoc documentation?


Yes, ideally we’d have a nice, simple system that worked like this. But Paradox have been trying to come up with just that for years and the current system is still the best they could come up with.

Maybe the first step to a better system would be a definition what the system should accomplish, if it actually does accomplish this, if it is plausible and has a vaguely historical precedent in reality.

My guess is, the current system would fail this test.

 

[rinehime]

Tooltip isn't covering another fort.

You managed to list two of the other ways the illegal move is possible (unit shuffling from origin point, immediate move to take advantage of mothball). The latter is important; any move order issued that is valid will stay valid even after the fort is created. That opens up additional possibilities:

How is unit shuffling a valid answer for your puzzle? That just changes the Return Province and your RP is clearly Baroda which should make the capital inaccessible. I think the same thing applies if you have military access through vijay - w/ the RP @ Baroda, your outside the 2 province range to reach the capital.

The exiled armies / original-valid-orders-not-updating solutions make sense though.

ZOC reminds me a lot of the Speed-Quality-Cost triangle. The features you'd like are some-sort of ZOC, the ability to move to forts from ZOC, the ability to leave the way you came, not having to siege down every single province, etc. Pdox came up with a solution that seemed like it would work, but the implementation and interaction with mil access/pathing/etc. created way more edge cases than they realized or tested against. The opaqueness and emergent properties of the "simple rules" are a bad design and something should be done, but most of the suggestions I've seen either don't address all the desired features or fail to think through the implications in a concrete game-mechanics / code-implementation manner.

 

[Sauron44]

Not true. Reshuffling armies to change which ZoC applies is 100% by design and within the rules. Same with the mothball one and walking in through Vijay obviously. Exile walking not so much.

All of these were programmed into the game as a way to handle special cases, and for some there is no fix other than changing the rules.

Reshuffling changes the Return Province, so u cant use that to make your move legal and both of your other examples fall under the "move is illegal but you can make it anyway because it was legal when you ordered said move"- exception.
The last one is a bug in my book.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Reshuffling changes the Return Province, so u cant use that to make your move legal and both of your other examples fall under the "move is illegal but you can make it anyway because it was legal when you ordered said move"- exception.
The last one is a bug in my book.

You can run unit up through Vijay --> reshuffle --> bypass fort. Admittedly this is ruled out by my selecting the stack in question so you can see the return province, but it's still a method to make an otherwise invalid move possible.

The opaqueness and emergent properties of the "simple rules" are a bad design and something should be done, but most of the suggestions I've seen either don't address all the desired features or fail to think through the implications in a concrete game-mechanics / code-implementation manner.

Few will want to go back to carpet sieges, but that fort system worked. Implementing restriction where you can't pass fort to fort and making forts less expensive is probably the best bet. Anything else and you're going to get edge cases in a system the original game wasn't built to handle. Capping #forts (scaled on states? Development? Not sure) would make that still much less painful than carpets.

If desired, you could still make them radiate -devastation and rebel occupation stuff if it turns out it's needed.

 

[Glen_Runciter]

I'll just put this here: https://imgur.com/a/1RSNt.

This system is horrible. This is, quite simply, NOT how army movement should work in any strategy game.
This ruined the game for me when it got implemented, but I gave it another chance a few days ago, because I used to LOVE EU games, but no. It's unplayable for me.
I honestly can't understand how the hell can people enjoy a game where you almost have no control over your armies.
This really feels like one of those cases, where people (after buying 32 DLC-s) feel to invested to stop, and admit that it's ruined.

 

[Sauron44]

How should the army move then?

 

[Glen_Runciter]

How should the army move then?

Really?
This is how you attack?
Well, INTUITIVELY, maybe?
By having a TRANSPARENT rule set?

Are these basic ideas really, honestly so surprising to you?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How should the army move then?

In a way where the rules are presented clearly, and if you look at a picture of the map you should be able to tell where the armies can go if you know the rules. All of them.

 

[Sauron44]

The only shorter way goes through Braunschweig, want that as default path?

 

[Glen_Runciter]

The only shorter way goes through Braunschweig, want that as default path?

Are you actively trying not to understand my point?
Because what you've just said is extremely clearly wrong.

 

[Sauron44]

There obviously is a fort in Hessen, so what I said is true. (with the fort rules in mind)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There obviously is a fort in Hessen, so what I said is true. (with the fort rules in mind)

This thread well-established the rules are broken in both the literal and general design sense. It's a little silly to be saying this on page 5 without acknowledging that .

 

[Sauron44]

This thread well-established the rules are broken in both the literal and general design sense. It's a little silly to be saying this on page 5 without acknowledging that .

I do acknowledge the ways they can be broken, none of which apply here.

 

[Glen_Runciter]

This is what every conversation about this issue ends in.

One side is simply incapable to understand that just because something works as it was designed to work, it's not neccessarily a good system.

That fort in Hessen should never, ever mean, in any rational system, that I should have to take a detour in this situation.
Look at that map. Look at Münster. Look at Hessen.

If there is an army in Paderborn, it shouldn't magically be able to trick the defenders of the fort by quickly skipping to the other side of the border.
He should be either able to enter deeper into enemy territory, or he shouldn't.

This system could maybe make sense, if forts were positioned BETWEEN provinces, or something like that.
A fort between Paderborn and Münster should lead to situations like this, but a fort in whatever third province shouldn't.

 

[Sauron44]

How do you siege forts between provinces?
Where do you build them?
What happens when you want to build a fort on a straight?

I can see why people think the current fort system is bad, but that does not mean paradox made a mistake in keeping it.
Simply because no overall better system has been invented yet, or at least none I am aware of.

Another example:
Democracy is also a really bad system, but it is still better than anything else we came up with until now, so we're stuck with it.

 

[Dominion]

This is what every conversation about this issue ends in.

One side is simply incapable to understand that just because something works as it was designed to work, it's not neccessarily a good system.

The other side is incapable of understanding that all alternatives presented so far have been worse, but the fact that we get regular updates of them trying to implement a new system is a sign of them working on it, telling us they are very aware of ZoC being suboptimal in its current form, which apparently isn't enough so why not call everyone else a stubborn idiot with too much experience in the game (however that's supposed to be an insult is fleeing me) leading to a stalemate and dozens of pages without any progress.

Look, I can randomly insult a whole group of people as well AND use a valid argument at the same time WITHOUT contributing in any constructive way.

What a rare occurrance in ZoC discussions.

How about this: It's not good, but I had to learn how it works because there were failed attempts and I've accepted the fact that it isn't going to change soon.
However, multiple attempts at improving it means they are aware so I can sit back, learn the current one, understand it (including most of its flaws) and play the game until they're finally able to come up with something better.