Please read this entire scenario before responding. I'm 95% through lvl 84 so I have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Situation: my coalition member moves all current units to his capitol, Washington DC. Shortly after, a few cities build a few more units. Capitol has 24 units present 18 of which are infantry, there are about 7 other units scattered in a like number of provinces. He then goes idle and my relationship moves to Right of Way.

Shortly after, maybe 1 day, he returns to active. He then shares map with me. I see he has 6 units in capitol, all infantry, and the other units that were around are still all scattered about, roughly 7 units in 7 provinces.

He isn't at war, his units aren't on the ocean, or in another country, or anywhere. 18 units vanished. I check newspaper, he hasn't fought anyone, no casualties show, nothing anywhere. I check through 3-4 days worth of articles. I'm legit perplexed. Where did, or where could have, his army gone? I simply have no idea.

It's been 3 days, I still have shared map, I have not seen them anywhere. I asked him about it but no response. Did the devs sneak in a way to disband your own units?

well, he has 20 units now total. Which is less than the starting unit count. And he has not been in any wars at all. Also, he has a lot more of the 'scattered' total now, only 7 units currently in DC.

huh. ok. I've just never seen that before. I've only gone idle a few times, and I've returned most times, and never had it happen to me either.

Yeah I think it was day 6 or 7, he was USA with no enemies, all the units that vanished were not anti tank, all the units produced in the scattered provinces were anti tank, units that vanished were in washington DC, it was 18 units that disappeared. let me think.

he had 18 infantry, 4 aa, and 2 armored cars. pretty much his entire starting army. when he came back he had just 6 infantry in the whole country (all still in DC), no aa and no ac. could have been 3 and 3 AA/AC. Plus the AT still in the provinces that produced them. and the starting int, but that was up in boston, where the starting airfield is. My memory isn't 100% on all of this but it was odd enough I really tried to remember. oh and there was no blast report from a nuke and no telltale nuke crater anywhere near DC.

Paper also doesn't have any large naval vessels reported as being built either, and even now at day 11 no one has a lvl 3 naval base anywhere on the board. i don't think lvl 1 or 2 cruisers could have killed 12 units in about a day on a normal speed map, especially since that early on there wouldn't be time to have made very many. So a naval cause is highly remote.

There was no rebellion or revolt, all his provinces are still his, nothing in the paper about it. His morale was about normal for a country not at war in the early stages of a match.

So... must be the aliens.

I will continue to be curious as to what actually happened though.

(match number 3143361 if you are curious too...)

Sorry, double checked my facts. there is one lvl 3 naval base, my other coalition member's. she hasn't built a single naval vessel the whole match though, nor moved beyond her borders in sweden. Right up until this morning when she went idle.

Yep. My point is, it was impossible for there to have been planes nearby to have done this. no carriers could have been produced before hand, not enough time for a substantial enough air force to have been built, only about 1 day of time I couldn't see the units.

Same match, another player went inactive. I was at war with him at the time. I took a province that had 6 units in it, but they were not on the province center. I left them, and moved on. No one else is anywhere near those units. 2 stacks, 1 stack a single infantry. other stack 1 light tank, 1 aa, 3 infantry.

Those units are slowly disappearing. First the single infantry was gone, plus the light tank and AA, leaving just 1 stack of 3 infantry. Now it is down to just 1 infantry. there are no other units anywhere nearby, USSR isn't at war with anyone but me. (france) USSR has exactly 1 unit remaining, and 2 provinces remaining.

and of course, nothing shows up in the newspaper. no fighting, no rebellion/revolt, he isn't at war with anyone but me.

Spain is the only other active player on the board, and he is taking English colony provinces in africa. (europe road to war scenario). We have an uneasy truce, with a pretty solid maginot line at our shared border.

Is there some coding about number of provinces and number of units for an AI? What is going on? I know units from countries that have no provinces all disappear, but is there a gradual reduction as the number of owned provinces drops to very low? Perhaps having to do with them not being on a province center?

I sent a plane to observe the road they were on, all the way to the province center at its end. My ally, Sweden, owns it. Sweden's units occupy the province center, and at the time of the observation had 100% health. 2 infantry units stationed there. No USSR units anywhere along the road.

There isn't anywhere else for them to have wandered off to. Either my province center or Swedens are the only options.

Its done now though. I took the last USSR province. All USSR units are now removed from the board.

Thank you for keeping an eye out Vorlon.