How to know what are the real orders of a unit ?

[JFG]

Hello,

Just a suggestion (in case of it has not been already mentioned) :

I am sometimes surprised by the reaction of some units (regiments or even corps) : they do not move as foreseen ...  or they move as I didn't give any order. Everybody have seen topics on it for example about artillery support. Also, recently, I give an order to Lannes to support Victor on its right and all the Lannes' corps went on the left on Victors' corps.

I do understand that my  orders will not fully be executed because of the actual environment of the units or due to the their "profile" (i.e. sometimes, they will do what they want or do not want to do as in the reality !).

Sometimes, it is also because I gave wrong orders ...

Anyway, could it be interesting to get a mode (for example in conscript mode) where we would have the possibility to know what decision these units have really taken and why.

As an example (may be unrealistic one ?), imagine I gave an order to a cavalry regiment to reckon a zone but this unit decided to attack a unit rather to obey to my order : I could see in a report (something like a debug mode) ...

Decision to attack an infantry unit at proximity at 9h55
Order to reckon a zone arrived at 10h00 : order postponed due to the priority of the previous action

Then, if I see that, I will have only to wait for the first attack.

On the contrary, if the report is :

Decision to attack an infantry unit at proximity at 9h55
Order to reckon a zone arrived at 10h00 : order not taken into account due to the priority of the previous action

I will know that I will have to give the order again (or to another unit).

Up to know, we don't know if the unit reaction is normal, erroneous due to a wrong way to give the order ... or even due to a bug.


Hoping my suggestion is not to silly ...

[Franciscus]

I agree wholeheartedly. The feedback to the player is one of the things that need improvement, IMHO. And not only regarding orders, but also the whole dispatches could be much better. It may be just me, but I find myself disregarding dispatches (I am only playing in conscript mode, mind you), not only because they usually seem wrong (losses 0, all spotted corps moving away from the dispatcher, objective achieved when it does not seem to be the case), but also because they are not user-friendly.
Again, it maybe just my fault, but it is very annoying to see the icon of dispatches blinking, clicking on it and going to F2, not being clear who really sent the dispatch, and just by moving the mouse the text goes away and it is not easy to know who or what was the dispatch I was trying to read. I know there is one ledger (one of the F keys, I do not remember now which and I am away from my computer ATM) that gives a list of dispatches, but the whole process is cumbersome and could use some improvement.

Regards

[Gunner24]

Up to know, we don't know if the unit reaction is normal, erroneous due to a wrong way to give the order ... or even due to a bug.

Agreed, this is a frustrating thing, NOT knowing why things are not going as you expect, is there a logical reason ?....if so, what is it ?.....is it a bug ?.....you have no idea if using FOW settings. 

I'm finding things tend to work well in "conscript" mode but not in FOW, in one PBEM game with FOW settings the CiC has had NO aides for over 4 hours !.....is that a correct action in FOW, or a bug ?.....I have no idea, in another the CiC has aides but the whole army is stopped, refusing all orders to move, again, is this correct because of FOW, or a bug ?.......funny thing is these kind of things DON'T seem to happen in conscript mode - which makes me think that perhaps FOW is working, but something is set to make it almost impossible to have an "enjoyable" FOW game.

[Hook]

in one PBEM game with FOW settings the CiC has had NO aides for over 4 hours !

How do you know the CinC had no AdCs?  Did you check the AdC count on the CinC info card, or did you just get an empty menu when trying to give orders to a corps commander?

The CinC starts off with 3 AdCs plus 3 AdCs per corps commander.  If you have 5 corps, the CinC should have 18 AdCs at the beginning of the game.  Each order to a corps commander reduces the AdC count by one until that AdC returns, which takes maybe 30 minutes. 

You can get an empty corps command menu if all the regiments in that corps have been given independent orders.  In this case you only have a couple of possible orders including Rally All Units.  If all regiments in the corps have been reassigned or destroyed, you don't even have those options.

Hook

[Gunner24]

How do you know the CinC had no AdCs?  Did you check the AdC count on the CinC info card,

Yes, it said zero.

or did you just get an empty menu when trying to give orders to a corps commander?

Yes again.

You can get an empty corps command menu if all the regiments in that corps have been given independent orders.

 
That happened without all the Regiments having independent orders.

This PBEM game started with me giving the Corps deploy orders to move them forward a short distance, which they did, after that no aides, no orders, no movement, no action of any kind for 3-4 hours, if this is how FOW is set to work and is working correctly then I'm sorry to say there's no enjoyment in it !.

I had an OOB with four large Corps, after the first 30 minutes or so NOTHING whatsoever happened - as far as me be able to "do" anything.

The same thing is happening in several other PBEM games, so for now it's conscript mode for me.  There's no pont in a FOW system that has you sitting at a pc screen unable to do anything.  As the first posts says, is it working correctly , or is it a bug ?.  I sure don't know.

[AnkLrd]

Gunner, if its not a bug, the game already becomes unplayable when the game options :  orders arranged to delayed and delay of orders to historical ...at least for me! These two options really effect whole game process...a lot!

[Gunner24]

You may be right, I have been thinking the same thing, as it all works correctly in conscript mode it might be that the FOW settings are simply to difficult to be playable - no one wants to spend hours sending files back and forth when there is nothing they can do becasue the "system" is saying the whole army must remain stationalry for some vague unlnown reason.

[JFG]

Just a precision : I am only using the conscript mode (I have not a sufficiently good level up to now to use more sophisticated, realistic ... and harder modes )

 So, it is not a problem of delaying orders or FOW. It is only to be sure how my orders have been taken into account by the AI. Something like an acknowledge receipt of my orders

[Hook]

Oh yes, back to the original topic.

In Conscript mode, if a unit is doing what you ordered within 2 or 3 minutes, then the order has been accepted.  If a regiment is busy doing something else (like attacking or being attacked), they will ignore new orders.

You can check the orders by pressing F8 and selecting Orders then Tactical Plan and it should show you what everyone is doing.  This is described in the tutorials.

If you select a regiment, the last thing it started doing is displayed in the message area in the bottom center of the screen along with the amount of time that has passed since then.  A corps will show similar information there, and more complete information on the unit info card on the right in the 2D view.

Hook