Orders going missing

[Cavalier]

I am playing using the Grognard settings and appear to have a problem where most of my orders appear to be going missing. Now I understand that messages can be intercepted and that it can take time for my Corps commanders to receive and implement my orders but this appears to be different. I give the orders in the normal way and they appear on the 2D map when orders "tactical plan" filter is selected (ie shows all Corps orders) but when I check later the order has disappeared from the 2D map, the Corps has not moveed and the Corps has a "No Order" recorded against it when I hover over it with the mouse.

Now I could understand that happening occassionally as an Aid de Camps (ADC's) gets lost or killed but it seems to happen more than 50% of the time. Even when there are no enemy within sight and my CinC is very close to the Corps commander receiving the order. It has gotten to the point where I am failing to be able to manouvre an Army of only a couple of Corps into combat before the day is over. I am also receiving next to no dispatches from my subordinate commanders, sometimes only a couple for an entire battle.

It is like all my ADCs have all buggered off and gone to the pub rather than run around the field delivering my orders

Any suggestions or should I just hand my batton in and rejoin the ranks?

[Cavalier]

Ok, things just got weirder. I alt tabbed out of game to make this post thinking it would run in the background. When I got back to the game the day had ended with my forces still out of contact with the enemy. So I gave orders for day 2 only to have all of my units "escape" rearwards off the map. I think my troops have little faith in my command (damn smart fellows).

[FranzVonG]

When you alt-tab, you must put the game in pause (but, onestly, this is true for most of the games).

For the order missing, imho we are still not yet accustomed to the delay of the orders, that could be up to 40 minutes: the interface probably needs a new tool tip, something like "order dispatched" instead of no-orders...

[Hook]

Other people have mentioned excessive delays, far beyond the 40 minutes we'd expect.  I don't know if this is intentional or not.  The lack of dispatches seems odd too.

Make sure delay is set to limited rather than historical.  Limited is the standard Grognard setting. 

If you get a corps commander not responding no matter what you try, might as well let us know.  If you can figure out what's happening, so much the better.  Once it starts happening, do other corps commanders respond?  Can you send an aide-de-camp manually (click on the CinC)?  Anything else odd about the game?

If anyone's ambitious enough, see if you can find out how to reproduce it.  Then, if its a bug, we're certain to get it fixed quickly.  If it's not a bug, then we'll know what to avoid.

Hook

[Cavalier]

I did uninstall the game, rebooted and re-installed it. Orders are now working as expected. I do note in Tutorial 3 OOB though that Napoleon has given Ney the 4 most incompetent Corps Commanders in the French Army (all low charisma and 2 out of 4 low efficiency). Talk about setting me up for failure!

[Casus Bellus]

Hello everyone, first let me say that this is one of the finest, most ambitious, and potentially enjoyable games I've seen. I've been following its development for a long time and I certainly hope and expect it will be an amazing game.

Now for a suggestion. I think a lot of the difficulties experienced have to with the orders/aides de camp/dispatches system. Just imagine the headquarters, with a constant stream of aides coming and going with orders and reports. This is what you need. You send a detailed order, and send it (and ideally you can actually see an aide on his horse leave the HQ and ride to the corps HQ and then other aides riding out to the sub commanders and another with dispatches back to ArmyHQ) then a message comes back, in due time, as to what happened to that order - it was refused, acted on, modified, sent on, whatever. Then another aide arrives - Sir, Marshall Davout reports that he is blah blah position and requests permission to blah blah. The system as it is would be ok if it worked, but the orders just go and then you never hear what has happened to them. Is it a bug? Has the courier been killed? Has the corps commander mutinied? But it could be better if more attention was paid to the aides. They could have names and gain experience, maybe. Just a thought. It's a fantastic game, but at the moment I can't play it, because my orders are ignored. Maybe the world would be a better place if this always happened IRL, but it really kills the game. i'm hoping it'll be fixed in the next patch.

[Casus Bellus]

I did uninstall the game, rebooted and re-installed it. Orders are now working as expected.

Perhaps I should try this.

[AJ]

Casus, if you click F7, select your Corp commander, click orders, you will see the orders he has received, what time he received it, when it should be executed and in the top right you will see the order delay time.
I do like your idea for showing Aide De Camps on the F2 map.  They could be a Red moving Icon delivering orders and a Green moving Icon returning to the CinC. An idea for the future though, there are more important fix priorities right now.

[glaude1955]

I do like your idea for showing Aide De Camps on the F2 map.  They could be a Red moving Icon delivering orders and a Green moving Icon returning to the CinC. An idea for the future though, there are more important fix priorities right now.

It's agood idea !

Yves

[Franciscus]

Now for a suggestion. I think a lot of the difficulties experienced have to with the orders/aides de camp/dispatches system. Just imagine the headquarters, with a constant stream of aides coming and going with orders and reports. This is what you need. You send a detailed order, and send it (and ideally you can actually see an aide on his horse leave the HQ and ride to the corps HQ and then other aides riding out to the sub commanders and another with dispatches back to ArmyHQ) then a message comes back, in due time, as to what happened to that order - it was refused, acted on, modified, sent on, whatever. Then another aide arrives - Sir, Marshall Davout reports that he is blah blah position and requests permission to blah blah. The system as it is would be ok if it worked, but the orders just go and then you never hear what has happened to them. Is it a bug? Has the courier been killed? Has the corps commander mutinied? But it could be better if more attention was paid to the aides.
(...)

Agree completely. SoW: Gettysburg has a fine system of couriers (some pathfinding bugs and others exist still, though), that are actually visible galloping in the 3D map. The amount of fine tweaking of the orders/requests, etc you can do is staggering, and it adds tremenduously to the immersion and the playability of the game. The AdC/messages/orders system in HWLG could learn with that game system.

Regards

[Théodoricus]

I do like your idea for showing Aide De Camps on the F2 map.  They could be a Red moving Icon delivering orders and a Green moving Icon returning to the CinC. An idea for the future though, there are more important fix priorities right now.

I had thought of such kind of improvement a long time ago. It would be fine to have this in the future.

Théo

[Hook]

In SOW, do the couriers still take the exact same route over and over, getting killed each time if that route crosses enemy controlled territory, like it did in Take Command: Second Manassas?  I've sat and watched in the 3D view as courier after courier sets off down the same road and gets killed in the same place each time.  After 10 or 20 of them it gets boring.

The orders going missing is a bug and we're testing a fix now.  There has been considerable improvement in the dispatch system, and now you get an acknowledgment of receipt of orders.

Hook

[AJ]

That sounds good Hook

[Gunner24]

The orders going missing is a bug and we're testing a fix now.  There has been considerable improvement in the dispatch system, and now you get an acknowledgment of receipt of orders.

Sounds like good progress, it must be a PBEM bug as it appears to be ok in solo play ????????.

[Casus Bellus]

You could give the aides different skills: some faster, some safer, etc. If you had the time to do the coding, that is.