Soldiers vs a frustrated Rebel

[Brf]

I made up an odd shaped island that Tropicans have a hard time navigating. I had one rebel who decided to attack one of my farms....The trouble was he had a mountain range and water to walk around to get there, so he eventually gave up and went back into hiding. On the other hand, my soldiers must have been tipped off and they are not giving up. All seven soldiers and both generals have spent the last 10+ years walking around in the farm, trampling down all the cornstalks.  As you can see from this picture, there are three more soldiers without arrows on the left and a soldier and general on the far right. The general is stepping on one of two soldiers that just died of starvation because they are not going home to eat.

[Fidel_of_the_internet]

HA HA HA HA HA HA STUPID STUBORN SOLDIERS

[Fidel_of_the_internet]

Idea pay then nuthing and they wont complain kick them out of their houses they wont know

[Coconut Kid]

Since this post is on the "Bugs and Suggestions" board, I take it that this is considered an example of an error in programming.

My observation leads me to believe that Soldiers do NOT fight on until all Rebels are dead only. If not in Jail or Dungeon, Soldiers / Generals cease combat activities when:

• They, individually, turn "chicken" and leave the combat zone
• All the Rebels are dead, OR
• All living Rebels have turned "chicken" and have left the combat zone

Possibly the "bug" in the program is the failure to "shut-down" the Rebel Attack notification when he (the frustrated Rebel) eventually gave up and went back into hiding before he ever entered the combat zone.

It seems strange that the Rebel would "give up" (turn "Chicken"?) before reaching the combat zone.

If I understood him correctly, Diego_de_la_Vega was commenting on Soldier's deaths AFTER Rebel attacks were over/finished. But perhaps I read too much into his post and missused it to try to make a point. Therefore, I have deleted those posts. His post, for what it's worth, is here:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=2873.0

 

[Brf]

My comment was that while the soldiers are fighting, they are ignoring their health. Once the battle is over, they may not have enough time to get food or healthcare before they drop dead from their own neglect.

[Brf]

Post 1-of-3

OK..... I did a little experiment with an island set to level-1 difficulty (one notch above sandbox).

Here is the picture of the island......

I put all the stuff on the left-hand island and a dozen rebels on the right-hand one. There were an armory with three generals and two guardposts and palace with a total of ten soldiers.

In December, 1952, my rebels decided it was time to attack a guard station. Of course they could not reach it, but the soldiers gathered anyway.

[Brf]

Post 2-of-3.

As I was watching one soldier, I noticed his hunger-bar go down about half-way and then suddenly go back to 100%, as if he had stopped home for a meal. The tooltip attached to "household meals" claims that when they get hungry they have to stop at home for food or at a marketplace... I thought maybe they made a special exception for soldiers, so when they are fighting rebels they have access to the household food even when they are fighting.....

Here you see my first soldier casualty. It claims he starved to death. You can see his household meals at zero.

[Brf]

Post 3-of-3

As I watched a married soldier, I saw his household meals increase when his wife stopped at a farm for food, and his household meals decrease when his hunger-bar went back to 100%, so I thought maybe I understood abit of the programming.....

....but then, I noticed alot of unmarried soldiers with zero for their household meals were still getting their food from somewhere..... Their hunger-bars would jump back up to 100% even though they had zero household meals.

Here you can see one of the unmarried soldiers. His meals were appearing out of thin air. When the "attack" finally ended in 1959 and everyone went home, all of the unmarried soldiers were at zero household meals and still alive.

 

[artemais]

Huh...weird.  So am I correct in interpreting that the only conlcusion at this point is that we cannot draw a conclusion?

[Brf]

Huh...weird.  So am I correct in interpreting that the only conlcusion at this point is that we cannot draw a conclusion?

I believe your conclusion is correct.

It appeared my soldiers were getting their food from nowhere...  Then... how did the two or three die from starving to death?

Are soldiers special, in that only they can get food from nowhere? or is this food thing just a scam and nobody can really starve?

I think I need to do a few more tests.....

[Brf]

On your questions.....

The rebels were stranded on an island without buildings. Therefore they had no food. I did not monitor the rebels during the "attack" -- I was concerned only with the soldiers. I do not know what event caused the end of the "attack".

I will need to run this simulation again and watch more of the game, rather than concentrating on the soldiers. I suspect your speculation is correct that soldiers are not using up food-stores. I also suspect -- as you do -- that the soldiers that died, might have been marked for death already, and the game just used the most convenient, lowest, need-drive for that soldier.

[el_malo]

Holy Canned Sausage Patties (caked with lard)

Are we talking about K-Rats here 

I thought C-rats were bad enough.

I know why the soldiers died of starvation... they got the ham & mothers 

[Brf]

Well... I must say I am as baffled as ever.

This time, instead of "attacking" a guardpost, they "attacked" the armory. The battle started late in 1952 and lasted much later, until 1964.

Once the "attack started", the food page showed that 0.9 meals were eaten and 0.4 were skipped. I am assuming this was the single soldiers, because when the married ones ate, the "household meals" number decreased, indicating that the food was indeed eaten.

I have supplied a picture of a rebel's needs page.... and the needs of the same rebel over a year later. As you see, they do not change, therefore I assume a fighting rebel can only die from "old age".

I was not lucky enough to capture a good status of a soldier before he died.... Incidently, different ones died this game, and the first one didnt die until 1958. The single soldiers that I noticed were alive with zero household meals all had "10" for their food importance on the second status page.... I dont know if this is a cause or an effect.....

When the attack was "over" there were still 6 rebels left.... so they didnt all die. Maybe the "attacking" ones all died though....

[Coconut Kid]

Standard Food Handling

Senor Ruina wrote on October 26, 2002: "This leads me to the following conjecture: all meals in Tropico are 1/30 of a load. Food is always taken from farms in sets of 6 meals or 12 meals."

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=5694

This leads me to speculate a couple of points:
1} There is a miss-match (lack of a timed default) in the Rebel Attack Resolution algorithm with allows the army to go into an endless loop when the Rebels withdraw in an unexpected way.
2} The loop is not actually "combat" so the soldiers lose their needs protected status which is a by product of combat.

We have no extended observation of what Rebels do between attacks. We know that they move around. It is probably reasonable to speculate that their needs meters are frozen\suspended and that they do not rotate through the normal "modes." When an attack is triggered, they run to the site and become subject to the Rebel Attack Resolution algorithm.

For the army members, they proceed in a normal rotation through the "modes" between rebel attacks. When an attack is triggered, they leave their current mode, run to the site, and become subject to the Rebel Attack Resolution algorithm.


It is this Rebel Attack Resolution algorithm that we don't understand. There is something wrong with the logic because Haemimont changed it for T3 -- and botched it up more, at least the animation. (They have the two sides journey to the site and wait around until everyone has arrived before the combat begins. Their resolution is a simple strength point match - i.e. the stongest side at the time the attack is triggered, wins. The combat animation is meaningless because the result is already determined.) We can speculate that the normal needs are either suspended or it is expected that a nomal end would be reached in a reasonable time and no timed default would be needed.

Brf's observation of unmarried army members with zero household meals having their food needs meter reset; and also observing "stuck" army members dying of starvation indicates problems with the 'resolution algorithm.'

There is another important gap in our knowledge of the needs meters, specifically the "rest meter." If the unit is frustrated in entering a residence\home during the rest mode or is frustrated from entering the rest mode -- what happens? Is there a default reset or does the unit die? If the unit dies, what is the cause of death? I guess it is randomly selected from the list used for the normal termination date.