Podcast Stations not playing in correct order

I listen to a variety of podcasts. When I follow shows, set up which episodes to download, etc, I also set up a station to play the podcasts in the order they are released, oldest to newest. The station then shows the correct order - an episode of A followed by an episode of B followed by an episode of C, etc. But when I play the station it plays the first episode of A then jumps B and C and goes to the next episode of A. I can go back and tell it to play B but after it finishes B it jumps to the next episode of B, still skipping the other podcast episodes in the station list.

I have checked to make sure the "group by podcast" button is OFF.

I have tried deleting the station and creating a new one, same problem.

I removed all of the "past" episodes of all podcasts (marked all as played) and started fresh - giving it a few days to download new episodes.

In all cases the station displays the episodes in the order I want them to play but won't actually play them in that order.

It's been several years and several iOs updates and this still happens - even in iOS 18. Each time I give up for about six months and then go back expecting it to be fixed. Luckily I have another podcast app I use that works perfectly.

I just wish Apple's podcast app could do the same.