Scout getting erratic number of movement points

[beorn]

1.0.0.38

Level three scout in northeast corner of explored area: the movement points read correctly, but the actual number of tiles he can move is only 1. Has been happening, erratically, to this scout.

Zipped savegame: http://www.bemont.net/PERICLES 191 1300 AD.zip

 

[beorn]

Again, in this game. The scout in the northeast corner of the map can have his three moves if he moves in one direction, but not in other directions.

saved game (zipped):
www.bemont.net/FREDERICK%20BARBAROSSA%2048%202120%20BC.zip

 

[Browd]

I see nothing unusual here. I suspect you are not yet used to the new movement and zone of control rules in Civ VI, as compared to Civ V. In Civ V, you could move onto a new tile (any tile, including across a river) if you had even a fraction of a movement point (MP) left. In Civ VI, you need enough MP to complete the move onto the new tile and you generally can't even cross a river (absent a road with a bridge) unless your only move on that turn is to cross the river (and that generally consumes all of your MP for that turn). The Scout has the Ranger promotion, eliminating the MP penalty for moving into Woods or Rainforest tiles, but that's it in terms of promotions.

So, taking this tile by tile:

• The Scout can move 1 tile SE to the Wooded Hills tile, which ordinarily cost 3 MP but with his Ranger promotion only costs 2 MP, leaving him with 1 MP. However, every other tile he can then move to (other than backwards to his original rice tile) costs 2 MP, so he can't proceed any further on this turn.
  
  
• The Scout can move 1 tile SW, across the river to a grassland hills tile -- crossing the river consumes all of the Scout's MP, so no more movement on this turn.
  
  
• The Scout can move 1 tile W (onto the Woods tile), which consumes only 1 MP, leaving the Scout with 2 MP, allowing him to then move either 1 tile SW or W (both grassland hills tiles, using his remaining 2 MP) or NW (marsh tile, also using his remaining 2 MP), or he can move NE up to 2 tiles (sequence of grassland tiles). In any case, he can't cross any further rivers after first moving W, since you must have all of your starting MP to cross a river.
  
  
• The Scout can move 1 tile E (onto the grassland hill, using 2 MP), but the only 1 MP tiles available to the Scout at that point are the two grassland tiles towards the Spearman -- the 3 neighboring hills tiles would cost 2 MP, but he only has 1 MP left.
  
  
• That leaves movement towards the Spearman in the barb camp. When the Scout is selected for movement, you will see three tiles marked with red hash marks, all located adjacent to the Spearman -- those hash marks denote the relevant tiles that are located in the Spearman's Zone of Control and where the Scout could arrive with excess MP (but for the ZOC). Once the Scout enters the ZOC of the barb Spearman, the Scout is essentially trapped for the remainder of that turn. The Scout cannot exit the ZOC, either by retreating to its original tile or moving in a new direction out of the Spearman's ZOC -- the Scout's only movement choice is to attack the unit exerting ZOC (and then only if it has enough MP left to perform that action).

You can see the MP cost of moving onto a tile by mouse hovering the tile and reviewing the tooltip. Note that the tooltip states the general MP cost of moving onto the tile -- it does not take into account any promotions that a particular unit might have that would override the default MP cost. So, for example, the tooltip for the tile SE of the Scout (Wooded Hills tile) shows 3 MP, but the cost to a scout with the Ranger promotion is only 2 MP.

 

[beorn]

Hadn't seen your response until now. I am very surprised by it, but do not remember the particular save game I used as an example.

I am quite used to the new movement rules. However, game after game, I get the occasional scout that does not have proper move options. Typically, the scout can move in one direction just fine, but in another direction the movement is incorrectly limited. I thought this was a well known bug, since I see it over and over (and never with other units).

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I have an Android app, called Guide Civilization VI. Under "Tips and Tricks", Gameplay, The Map, "The cost of movement", it describes queueing movement. I'm not absolutely sure Civ VI movement is implemented this way, but it is definitely how it was defined to work by Civ VI's designers.

For example, if the Scout has one MP left and you want it to climb an adjacent hill, right click on the scout and move the cursor over the desired hill (in the Scout's tile, there will be a circled 1 -- scout location end of this turn, and over the hill there will be a circled 2 -- scout location next turn) and release the right click to set your movement command. The Scout will not move this turn, but it will add the banked 1 MP from this turn and take 1 MP from its next turn, moving the Scout onto the hill with 2 MPs left! If you don't use your left over movement points in a queued movement command you will definitely lose any left-over MPs.

So queuing Scout movement even longer can result in what appears to be erratic movement, if one doesn't understand how queued movement works in Civ VI. For example, a Scout moving over a long sequence of hilly terrain will alternate moving 1 hill (uses first 2 of 3 MPs) and then 2 hills (uses 1 banked MP + 3 current MPs) and then the cycle repeats.

So, assuming one doesn't understand queued movement in Civ VI, and the Scout is one of the few units with 3 MPs, only the Scout would seem to move erratically.

 

[beorn]

Came up with another save game which might explain the problem:
www.bemont.net/MVEMBA%20A%20NZINGA%2094%20550%20BC.Civ6Save

Scout in the extreme north. The scout has all three moves remaining, no past queue involved. Blue outline shows that he can move three tiles to the southwest, through 1 movement tiles. But only one to the west or northwest.

Turns out there is an invisible river blocking the way, at least it's invisible on my screen. I only know because mousing over the tiles, I see it labeled as a river. Could be something weird with my rig, but if it is by design, I'd strongly disagree. Rivers should be visible on the map -- even if they are ice.