How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport

[Cernel]

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel
In Anniversary and later rulesets you can't send only transports to a sea battle. By the rules "Transports may not attack in a sea battle without being accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value."

Can you give the page? I'm not finding it in the Anniversary rulebook hosted at https://www.axisandallies.org/

[Panther]

@Cernel said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Panther Ah, didn't remember that. I thought that transports were just regular combat units except for taken last and defenceless autoremoval.

So, is it Revised the only ruleset in which you can send transports alone in attack?

In Revised you can combat move a transport into a hostile space but it can't attack. If it survives the defensive fire step, it can retreat,

From the FAQ:

Q. What happens when two opposing transports are in the same sea zone with no other units?
By itself, a transport may not attack. Is there combat?
A. The moving transport can’t attack. That doesn’t mean it can’t make a combat move by itself into a
hostile space. When it does, if it survives the defensive fire step, then it can retreat. If for some
reason the transport isn’t willing to retreat, then it’s doomed, because eventually the opponent will roll a 1.

[Cernel]

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Panther Ah, didn't remember that. I thought that transports were just regular combat units except for taken last and defenceless autoremoval.

So, is it Revised the only ruleset in which you can send transports alone in attack?

In Revised you can combat move a transport into a hostile space but it can't attack. If it survives the defensive fire step, it can retreat,

From the FAQ:

Q. What happens when two opposing transports are in the same sea zone with no other units?
By itself, a transport may not attack. Is there combat?
A. The moving transport can’t attack. That doesn’t mean it can’t make a combat move by itself into a
hostile space. When it does, if it survives the defensive fire step, then it can retreat. If for some
reason the transport isn’t willing to retreat, then it’s doomed, because eventually the opponent will roll a 1.

Yes, that's what I said. So, only Revised, both OOB and LHTR, and not Classic nor Anniversary and later, confirmed (I'm still not finding it in the Anniversary rulebook, but I trust you, just curious to read it)?

[Panther]

@Cernel said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel
In Anniversary and later rulesets you can't send only transports to a sea battle. By the rules "Transports may not attack in a sea battle without being accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value."

Can you give the page? I'm not finding it in the Anniversary rulebook hosted at https://www.axisandallies.org/

Page 31, download the latest version including the clarification here:
https://avalonhill.wizards.com/rules

It is a clarification only, no new rule.

[Cernel]

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel
In Anniversary and later rulesets you can't send only transports to a sea battle. By the rules "Transports may not attack in a sea battle without being accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value."

Can you give the page? I'm not finding it in the Anniversary rulebook hosted at https://www.axisandallies.org/

Page 31, download the latest version including the clarification here:
https://avalonhill.wizards.com/rules

It is a clarification only, no new rule.

How can it be a clarification only if it is not in the original? You mean it is an "errata", then (a rulebook change after print)?

[Panther]

@Cernel Because Krieghund stated at the time the reprint had been issued that the rulebook reprint does not contain any new rules but only rewordings and clarifications.
The rulebook reprint includes most of the FAQ and errata, indeed.

[Cernel]

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel Because Krieghund stated at the time the reprint had been issued that the rulebook reprint does not contain any new rules but only rewordings and clarifications.
The rulebook reprint includes most of the FAQ and errata, indeed.

Well, it can be officially stated so, but in the moment a new rulebook has something like "Transports may not attack in a sea battle without being accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value. ", while the previous one didn't have anything, as far as I can tell, that was telling me that was not allowed, I would call that addition an "errata", or rule change, but, errata or clarifications, that doesn't matter here. So thanks for the clarification or update or whatever it is.

[Panther]

@Cernel said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

I mean, once they are alone in offence and they can retreat, you are free to keep having them killed or retreat any time you want right, without any autoremoval?

Yes. autoremoval applies to defenseless (defending) transports only.

For completeness: In case the battle leaves an attacking transport facing a defending transport only, the option to remain in the contested seazone is given ("transport stalemate").

[Cernel]

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

I mean, once they are alone in offence and they can retreat, you are free to keep having them killed or retreat any time you want right, without any autoremoval?

Yes. autoremoval applies to defenseless (defending) transports only.

For completeness: In case the battle leaves an attacking transport facing a defending transport only, the option to remain in the contested seazone is given ("transport stalemate").

Yeah, and, for what I tested so far, the stalemate between offenceless and defenceless always work (wrongly, when you can retreat, as you are not offered the retreat choice, but this is off topic), not requiring the "Transport Casualties Restricted" v3 property to be true, that is another element of inconsistency with the fact that both offensive and defensive autoremovals work only if that property is true, instead, that is particularly nonsensical in the moment the stalemate exists only since v3, while the offensive autoremoval, if you cannot retreat only, exists in Classic, instead (of course, on defence only since v3 too, as before there were no defence 0 units).

[Cernel]

I've also tested that, as long as you have the "Transport Casualties Restricted" property true, if you send only these units:

                <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="catapult" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
                         <option name="movement" value="1"/>
                         <option name="attack" value="4"/>
                         <option name="attackRolls" value="0"/>
                </attachment>

into a territory with only these units:

                <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="wall" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
                         <option name="movement" value="0"/>
                </attachment>

All defending units are immediately destroyed, so there is no stalemate, despite both sides actually having no power (if by power we mean strength multiplied by rolls).

Of course, instead, if these units are sent:

                <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="catapult" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
                         <option name="movement" value="1"/>
                         <option name="attack" value="0"/>
                         <option name="attackRolls" value="1"/>
                </attachment>

into a territory with only these units:

                <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="wall" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
                         <option name="movement" value="0"/>
                </attachment>

Then, they stalemate.

Instead, sending only these units:

                <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="catapult" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
                         <option name="movement" value="1"/>
                         <option name="attack" value="0"/>
                </attachment>

into at territory with only these units:

                <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="wall" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
                         <option name="movement" value="0"/>
                         <option name="defense" value="1"/>
                         <option name="defenseRolls" value="0"/>
                </attachment>

has, in fact, a behaviour I see as inconsistent, as:

• If the attacking units cannot retreat, they are autodestroyed.

• If the attacking units can retreat, they are stalemated, without a chance to retreat (so they cannot actually retreat, but this is the issue of the wrong handling of stalemate).

I think the first case is fine with the rest, but I think that the second case behaves inconsistently, and, to be consistent with looking at attack/defence values, not at rolls, it should never stalemate, but just keep offering me the option to retreat (that I will have eventually to take, to go on with the game).

What I'm guessing is that here there is this inconsistency between the handling of the autodestruction and the handling of the stalemate:

• The autodestruction behaviour, that depends on the mentioned property to happen at all, looks only at the attack/defence values, not at the rolls, to determine if anything is going to be autodestroyed. This, in turn, happens always if we have a defenceless against a non-offenceless and happens only if there is no retreat in case we have an offenceless against a non-defenceless.

• The stalemate behaviour, that doesn't depend on any properties, looks at the units having no attack/defence value or no related rolls (or both), to decide if the units are actually offenceless/defenceless. It happens immediately, also negating your ability to retreat, in this case (this is wrong).

• The autodestruction behaviour is tested, and immediately applied, in case, before the stalemate behaviour, as far as I can tell, thus in a situation in which both the autodestruction and the stalemate behaviours would both happen (due to their inconsistencies), you have the autodestruction behaviour only (I warn you I'm very far from sure on this point, so here I would very much need a developer to confirm or deny this point).

Overall, what I understand, from limited testing, is that the autodestruction and the stalemate behaviours appear like they have been added to the program independently, maybe at different points in time or by different developers, with little concern regarding having them consistent, despite being two highly related matters, clearly. Also pointing out this being merely my higly uninformed judgment (I'm not a developer).

Regarding the fact that the autodestruction behaviour is related to the mentioned property, while the stalemate behaviour is not:

• The fact that the autodestruction behaviour is related to the mentioned property (beside the obnoxious facts of not having documented this at all and that the property is only losely related to it, or arguably completely unrelated, as one would think that is a property for sea units only) is wrong, as this is a v3+ property, while autodestruction existed in Classic, albeit only for offensive units, since there were no defenceless ones, though at least having a property dependency may be good (if documented!), as it allows mapmakers to decide whether to have the behaviour or noth, though a dedicated property would be better (with special reference to the case of having AA only units that are not infrastructures (for example, if I make "aaGun" units that are exactly the same as those of the v5 game, except for the fact that they fire each combat round, then one may want avoiding them being autodestroyed if remaining as the only defending units against any attacking composition also comprising air units) (or a mapmaker may just prefer allowing the strafing of defenceless only unit, as a strategy)).

• The fact that the stalemate behaviour is (as far as I know) universal, makes sense to me, despite the fact that stalemate exists only from v3 onwards, but this is only because you didn't have both offenceless and defenceless units before then, which cannot be assumed for v1 and v2 custom maps too, of course, in the moment mapmakers can have defenceless units too, if they so wish. However, I would have a custom property for this case too, so that mapmakers may decide the matter sperifically for their games.

Practically, the program only looks at the attack/defence values, not at the actual powerfulness of the units involved, as far as the autodestruction (but not the stalemating) of non-infrastructure units go. I definitely like this particular behaviour, and suggest the stalemate one being harmonized, the same way, as it allows mapmakers to manage the matter as they wish (by making units offenceless/defenceless because of 0 value itself or because of 0 dice, depending if they want stalemate or autodestruction), so I'd like to fully document it in pos2, to make it more of something supported, or even intended, rather than just existent.

Also, I've tested that the autodestruction behaviour happens after AA attacks (this means you cannot retreat from defenceless if all non defenceless were killed by AA offensive attacks, while you can if they were killed normally (though this last behaviour, that I actually like too, is contrary to the intended rules (that open for the, in my opinion, strange possibility of removing your non defenceless units to impede your enemy retreating), as already reported by @Panther in the program's repository)).

[Cernel]

@Panther said in How do you make a unit autodestroyed if alone without being an infrastructure or a transport:

@Cernel
In Anniversary and later rulesets you can't send only transports to a sea battle. By the rules "Transports may not attack in a sea battle without being accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value."

Also, I find this rule (I'm calling it rule, not clarification, because, if we remove it, I cannot see how it can be inferred in any logical way, from anything else) quite unclear, for a series of reasons, namely:

• "attack in a sea battle" makes me think that they can be in that sea battle, also alone (like they can in Revised), just cannot attack, which is already assured by the fact that their attack value is 0.
• "with an attack value" is not making sense with the fact that the unit is given as "Attack: 0", meaning "0" is a value too (then, they should have written "Attack: -" or something like that) (how is the number 0 not a value?), mostly meaning they should have said "with a positive attack value".
• "accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value" is not clarifying that cargo doesn't count (I know it's realistically obvious, but still).
• "accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value" makes me think that the unit must "accompany" the transport in its movement, meaning that they must enter the sea zone together, as a single group of unit (thus from the same sea zone), and it feels like it is excluding the case of units that start the turn already into that sea zone (as they are not moving at all, it is hard to immagine them "accompanying" anything).

This said, I'm fairly certain that what the rule means is that I'm allowed to move any transports into a sea zone with no ignorable units as long as at least one other air or sea units with attack value of 1 or more are ending their movement into or not moving out that same sea zone (no matter if the transport entered from a zone and the other units from some other zones), but just pointing out that I feel this rule is not noob proof, and it is clear only if you are already fairly into the game, in my opinion.

[Cernel]

@Panther Actually, there would be one thing I'm not completely sure, based only on the wording of "Transports may not attack in a sea battle without being accompanied by at least one unit with an attack value.":

If I have a transport that starts alone in a hostile sea zone (say, there is an enemy battleship), am I obliged to move it out or send a positive attack value sea/air unit into, or can I let the transport die, not moving it out nor moving anything into?

If we would take the phrase literally, what should happen is that the transports stay there and do "not attack", substantially ignoring the battleship, but this is clearly absurd, thus we can safely exclude interpreting by literal logic meaning.

But does that mean that I am obliged to take actions so that the transport will not attack alone?

[Cernel]

@Cernel If so, I believe this would be the only case in all Axis&Allies history in which I'm forbidden from doing nothing during a movement phase.