A different Road marching issue

[garyknowz]

When dealing with Hooker's initial attack, I noticed that most of Meade's division and various batteries brigades refuse road marching order. Can't seem to figure out the cause. What am I missing, and/or has anyone else noticed this? Thanks!

[Martin James]

Yes. I first noticed this a few weeks ago. I even found they will not use roads in the brigade movement tutorial. Troops will still use roads if I go through the courier message window, but not if I use the toolbar button.

I think one or two others in our MP group have also experienced it. Never had this problem before.

Martin

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Martin James wrote:

Yes. I first noticed this a few weeks ago. I even found they will not use roads in the brigade movement tutorial. Troops will still use roads if I go through the courier message window, but not if I use the toolbar button.

I think the problem you are seeing is a bug that was previously fixed in the 1.3 version but reintroduced in 1.4. There is a work around if this is the problem you are having. The problem is that when you give an order to move by clicking on the battlefield or the command map and then using the toolbar to set the formation and road use, the regiments will first go to the location of the brigade commander and then start marching to a road and their destination. So if the brigade commander is some distance away from his troops, they will march cross country to get to him. Then they will go to the nearest road and march to their assigned destination.

The work around is this: 1. order your troops to their location just as you always do. 2. Now select each regiment and issue another 'Use Roads' order. When the regiments get the second use roads order, they will stop marching cross country and march to the road and then on to their final destination. They will bypass the extra step of going to the brigade commander. This bug also explains why regiments make some bizarre maneuvers in battle when you order the entire brigade to a new spot. They have to go to their brigade commander first.

The work around is not very elegant, but it does work. I reported this when version 1.4 was released, so hopefully the next patch will restore the proper behavior.

[RebBugler]

Thanks for bringing this up, thought something was amiss as I was designing a scenario this week with lots of road marching...this WILL be re-fixed with patch 1.5.

[Martin James]

Sounds good. Many thanks.

Martin

[Saddletank]

MTG - rather than clicking every regiment to use roads I just click the 'use roads' button again with the brigade commander selected. That seems to work.

[RebBugler]

MTG

Got this in Mantis but for some odd reason I can't replicate it now. Experienced it before but not now when I need an example. Could you please get a save that I can test and submit? Thanks

[garyknowz]

Martin James wrote:

Yes. I first noticed this a few weeks ago. I even found they will not use roads in the brigade movement tutorial. Troops will still use roads if I go through the courier message window, but not if I use the toolbar button.

I think the problem you are seeing is a bug that was previously fixed in the 1.3 version but reintroduced in 1.4. There is a work around if this is the problem you are having. The problem is that when you give an order to move by clicking on the battlefield or the command map and then using the toolbar to set the formation and road use, the regiments will first go to the location of the brigade commander and then start marching to a road and their destination. So if the brigade commander is some distance away from his troops, they will march cross country to get to him. Then they will go to the nearest road and march to their assigned destination.

The work around is this: 1. order your troops to their location just as you always do. 2. Now select each regiment and issue another 'Use Roads' order. When the regiments get the second use roads order, they will stop marching cross country and march to the road and then on to their final destination. They will bypass the extra step of going to the brigade commander. This bug also explains why regiments make some bizarre maneuvers in battle when you order the entire brigade to a new spot. They have to go to their brigade commander first.

The work around is not very elegant, but it does work. I reported this when version 1.4 was released, so hopefully the next patch will restore the proper behavior.

I'm not sure if it's the same bug. The regiments completely ignore the request altogether, as did the brigade commander. I also noticed it in the Mansfield Scenario. I chose a spot far up the East Woods road so they'd be sure to take it. The two regiments responded, while Gen. Gorden and the rest of the brigade ignored the repeated request and marched through the woods parallel the road. I tried the command at the regimental level in addition to the brigade level command with no luck. I'm not sure why some obey, and others don't. Ultimately, I manually created waypoint to and up the road for my stubborn units.

And it's only around that particular road (west fork in East Woods) where I've noticed this issue. Quite bizarre.

[SamSmith]

Yes, I've noticed the same issue in the same spot on the map. I could be wrong about this, but I think that under the hood of each map the road networks are highlighted as a set of waypoints that units will snap to if ordered to use roads. The Antietam map is missing a batch of these waypoints right around that fork. There is a similar gap in the Crampton's Gap map, too. It can really play hell with HITS games!

[Little Powell]

We are aware of the few road issues on the Antietam maps. We haven't figured out the best way to patch the map packs at this point but it will be addressed again in the future.