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Will infantry be fixed in CMx2


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Or will we have to wait for a new engine? Sorry much as I love these games, the spacing or lack of between squad members is way off. The casualties in cmx2 are much higher than before and can't get close to the kind you read about in combat reports. I've heard the arguments about pushing harder than a real life commander would do, but i don't buy that. You can play as cautiously as you like [ and i tend to do so} it won't help, because as soon as a squad comes under fire it will start taking needless casualties due to this. I'm looking at a battle i'm playing now and every squad member in every squad, is lying toe to toe with one another, and woe betide if there is a tree about as then they will lie on top of one another. It looks wrong and it is, squads get chewed up and there is nothing you can do about it. if you think i'm wrong, have a battle in a wooded area then look at the casualties at the end, most of the dead and wounded will be lying on top of each other stacked up behind a single piece of cover i.e. a tree. The bumping into one another while trying to get into position is another result of this, the ai on the whole does ok, it's just that they can't help themselves and you can't help them as there is literally no where for them to go as the are too many men confined to too small an area. if they were spread out even a little more than present, I think you would see casualties figures drop quite a bit, because from what i'm seeing a lot of the casualties are avoidable and are sustained due to the simple fact that they are just too close.

Cheers.

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Yes, I also understand your frustration playing cautious and still getting Higher Casualties compared to actual Combat Reports...However:

Ok, IanL, the above is your Que to finish :-)

Joe

Edited by JoMc67
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LOL sorry I couldn't resist - that was blank as in because I don't think there is anything to say.

Being serious again...  I am sure there are arguments to be made that spacing and moving single file needs to be improved - many have made them.  I think they have been acknowledged but reading your post really feels like you are making more out of the small problems than is really there.

Regarding stacking bodies:

Well there is one main thing you can do and that is not have overlap between your squads.  I find it to easy to get squads overlapping with each other in confined places.  The Tac AI does  a lot for us but it goes where we tell it to and makes the best of it.

Another thing that will cause that is the enemy's kill zone.  In other words the area where your guys can get hit in the woods is a small slice where the enemy have LOS and LOF.  Therefore as you approach the enemy positions several times your guys all go down in the same small area.  Again for the case you site - in the woods.

The first one we can do something about, the other is just the way things work and sure some game tweaks might make things a bit better but I still think you will see casualties stacked in this situation.

Regarding pushing to hard:

Well, we do. It really is that simple.  It is not about being cautious or not (that just makes the casualties mount faster or slower).  The pushing to hard is all about not stopping the attack in the woods after your lead squads are cut down.  In real life most of the time that happened that would be the end of the attack for the morning while plans were made to get some support or some artillery on line to deal with the problem.  We don't do that we attack again into the same defensive line.

I honestly do not see any game tweaks that have been discussed on these forums by Steve doing much for this "issue" because I think it is probably working pretty well.

Oh and for added fun have you read the recent thread where people were arguing for more accurate small arms fire?  There are people on this forum that say that the current casualty rates are too low and the small arms accuracy needs to be amped up and therefore your (and my) casualties would go up if they got what they wanted.  Kinda makes it impossible to "fix" infantry when there are contradictory fixes being pushed on the forum.

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IanL, I don't think overlapping your squads is playing cautiously. I'm talking about the men in the same action spot, there are too many of them, that was the whole point of my post. I mentioned about pushing too hard I said i don't buy that, because my point is there are too many men in one action spot and no matter how you play you will take needles casualties. Like I said it looks wrong and it is, you did not address that in your reply, you basically dodged the whole point of my post and said I am playing the game wrong and I play unrealistically. as we say in Scotland "Aye right".

Cheers.

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37 minutes ago, IanL said:

yeah, just a little sarcasm.  I know I shouldn't (because I'll just get called names) but with a title like that it was just to hard to resist.  Right up there with "have you stopped beating your wife?"

LO Freaking L :-)...

Yes, and I also tend to agree with your assessment in previous post...

I know there is alot of talk about troops needing to spread out alittle to prevent some casualties...I think in Combat troops tend to spread out a little when advancing, then bunching back up again once reaching a position.

What might be needed is more micro-managing of cover that represent troops ducking, peaking around a tree or house then back again, dodging bullets, etc, etc (since there is no animation for these minor body movements, etc)...BF probably already has this coded in to some degree, but maybe not enough ?

The above would also apply to Arty to some degree, since I think it should be toned down abit...I know Arty is suppose to be King of the Battlefield, but there are many Combat reports (someone in earlier post mentioned) that talk about troops taking cover when Arty barrage falls, then waiting it out, getting up to move again with no Casualties reported...Rinse and Repeat...Now, it's not to say there will be some casualties before taking cover, or more while advancing.

All the above with Green Troops having less Micro-Managing bonuses, while Vet Troops having more bonuses (savings rolls if you will). 

Anyways, that's my take on it...

Edited by JoMc67
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3 minutes ago, sonar said:

IanL, I don't think overlapping your squads is playing cautiously. I'm talking about the men in the same action spot, there are too many of them, that was the whole point of my post. I mentioned about pushing too hard I said i don't buy that, because my point is there are too many men in one action spot and no matter how you play you will take needles casualties. Like I said it looks wrong and it is, you did not address that in your reply, you basically dodged the whole point of my post and said I am playing the game wrong and I play unrealistically. as we say in Scotland "Aye right".

Cheers.

Well the max number of men in an action spot (8x8m) is typically 5 because most squads break down into teams. The Italians might be an exception, IDK I don't have CMFI.

In any case, I think BF had to strike a balance between having a detailed map and dispersing 5 man teams. They could have chosen to make CMx2 action spots at 10m or larger but then you loose map detail. They also could have chosen to make squads split into yet smaller teams but this makes the game to much of a pain to manage and would not be historically accurate. In the end I think they struck the balance between action spot size and squad dispersal based on the historical team sized that they operated in. Having a single team occupy more than one action spot would have been a terrible choice because then we'd all be complaining that our digital soldiers aren't in the exact action spot that we specified.

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I don't have any problems securing victories agains the AI on the assault with historical casualty levels. When you take casualty levels from the times when an objective that had to be taken, and simply breaking off contact and calling in the heavy arty in an hour or two wasn't an option. When you consider that the actual tempo of a CMx2 game is 3 or 4 times that of a RL action, mostly because of God-like coordination of arms which couldn't, in real life coordinate so well, and partially because of some decisions made by BFC to speed up gameplay.

1: split your squads.

2: if your team is taking fire, either deal with it (suppress the units giving them grief) or sneak or Evade away. Don't just leave them there to be attrited.

3: Suppress, suppress, suppress. You win by fire superiority. Get it and you'll take few casualties.

Just because you "don't buy" the argument that we push our troops harder than the average Company/Bttn Actual doesn't mean it isn't true. Almost none of the engagements we play are "average"; the vast majority involve "pushing for decision" with sub-optimal force advantages, something that certainly occurred IRL, but equally certainly was generally avoided if possible, even with the historically higher tolerance of casualties than in modern warfare.

But most of the problems you're complaining about will be pretty much fixed if you split your squads and keep them, generally, one or two AS apart. It's entirely possible to operate a split-squad platoon with all the squads in C3 with their Leutnant. It's also  not the end of the world if one or two teams need to be out of C3 range.

Most of the remaining issues will be addressed by using shorter movement legs, potentially with pauses at waypoints. Oh, and not trying to fight through woodland, which is simply a tactical mistake, most of the time, and should result in heavy casualties if attempted incautiously against well-placed opposition. Whether those casualties are exactly where they ought to be is much less important than their actual existence.

Are infantry perfectly and exactly represented at the moment? No. There are flaws. Those flaws are exacerbated if you allow you squad to bunch up, which can simply be avoided by good (micro)management.

Two of the biggest flaws, in my book, are the way infantry uses scarce resources (rifle grenades, particularly) without any good reason, and the way troops will crawl to a place that "looks good" for their Face command, but which is actually a death trap, and the subset of that, which is attempting to Buddy Aid in locations that are death traps, because no one shoots at them til they sit up to attempt BA... That last can be mitigated though by crawling the BA unit away, sometimes.

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29 minutes ago, Pak40 said:

Well the max number of men in an action spot (8x8m) is typically 5 because most squads break down into teams. The Italians might be an exception, IDK I don't have CMFI.

In any case, I think BF had to strike a balance between having a detailed map and dispersing 5 man teams. They could have chosen to make CMx2 action spots at 10m or larger but then you loose map detail. They also could have chosen to make squads split into yet smaller teams but this makes the game to much of a pain to manage and would not be historically accurate. In the end I think they struck the balance between action spot size and squad dispersal based on the historical team sized that they operated in. Having a single team occupy more than one action spot would have been a terrible choice because then we'd all be complaining that our digital soldiers aren't in the exact action spot that we specified.

Yes, and that Compromise is what makes BF's CMx2 a good Game System. Overall, I generally have no problem with how the Game plays out compared to RL Small Action Combat...Maybe just a slight change to the Micro-Managing layer is what's needed to come closer to what Sonar is asking for. 

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4 minutes ago, womble said:

I don't have any problems securing victories agains the AI on the assault with historical casualty levels. When you take casualty levels from the times when an objective that had to be taken, and simply breaking off contact and calling in the heavy arty in an hour or two wasn't an option. When you consider that the actual tempo of a CMx2 game is 3 or 4 times that of a RL action, mostly because of God-like coordination of arms which couldn't, in real life coordinate so well, and partially because of some decisions made by BFC to speed up gameplay.

1: split your squads.

2: if your team is taking fire, either deal with it (suppress the units giving them grief) or sneak or Evade away. Don't just leave them there to be attrited.

3: Suppress, suppress, suppress. You win by fire superiority. Get it and you'll take few casualties.

Just because you "don't buy" the argument that we push our troops harder than the average Company/Bttn Actual doesn't mean it isn't true. Almost none of the engagements we play are "average"; the vast majority involve "pushing for decision" with sub-optimal force advantages, something that certainly occurred IRL, but equally certainly was generally avoided if possible, even with the historically higher tolerance of casualties than in modern warfare.

But most of the problems you're complaining about will be pretty much fixed if you split your squads and keep them, generally, one or two AS apart. It's entirely possible to operate a split-squad platoon with all the squads in C3 with their Leutnant. It's also  not the end of the world if one or two teams need to be out of C3 range.

Most of the remaining issues will be addressed by using shorter movement legs, potentially with pauses at waypoints. Oh, and not trying to fight through woodland, which is simply a tactical mistake, most of the time, and should result in heavy casualties if attempted incautiously against well-placed opposition. Whether those casualties are exactly where they ought to be is much less important than their actual existence.

Are infantry perfectly and exactly represented at the moment? No. There are flaws. Those flaws are exacerbated if you allow you squad to bunch up, which can simply be avoided by good (micro)management.

Two of the biggest flaws, in my book, are the way infantry uses scarce resources (rifle grenades, particularly) without any good reason, and the way troops will crawl to a place that "looks good" for their Face command, but which is actually a death trap, and the subset of that, which is attempting to Buddy Aid in locations that are death traps, because no one shoots at them til they sit up to attempt BA... That last can be mitigated though by crawling the BA unit away, sometimes.

This post deserves a sticky honestly.

Edited by Raptorx7
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I have been playing this game for a while , I know all the drills and have heard the arguments. my whole point is there are too many men in too small a space i.e. one action spot and therefore needless casualties are unavoidable . this is the problem, not the way i'm playing.

 

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How many is too many? Generally there's 3 or 4 in an 8x8 spot, if you don't let teams overlap. Yes, there are larger teams (6-man "rump" B-teams, say after you've split 4 Assault and 2 AT or Scout out of a US 12-man squad), but you just don't use those where heavy incoming is expected: they're the firebase team, not the ones getting surprised by a burst of MG42. And they're the exception. Most other squads start smaller and if you pop an Assualt team out, the firebase element is still only 4.

Since I don't experience the grief you are reporting, perhaps you should consider that there is another way of operating the controls of the game which mitigates the limitations of the TacAI and terrain grid, given that I have demonstrated that it is, at least, possible not to have stacks of dead pTruppen where there didn't orter be.

Of course, I still give my boys stupid orders sometimes, and more of them die than is perhaps necessary, because of that, but that certainly comes under the heading of "pushig harder" than IRL.

Oh, one potential confusion you seem to be under: it doesn't matter how cautiously you push, you're still pushing "to conclusions", and deciding that "today" wasn't a day for conclusions was something that Commanders could, and often did, do. Doesn't happen much in CM. 95% of the time, if a commander developed the situation that is placed in front of us in a CM game, he'd tell his CO "We've had a look and it's at least dicey, if not a no-go" and 95% of those times the higher-up would accept the assesment of the officer on the ground, contact would be broken and no further advance required. We play the remaining small percentage of the encounters that provided the majority of the "pointy-end" casualties of the war. So expecting a few combat-ineffectives* after a half day (90 CM minutes) of intense combat at the Battalion level is a bit of a stretch.

*Taken from my recollection of an account from (I think) a Company commander of a Brit infantry formation which spent a day going pretty much nowhere because there were lots of Germans about: they were under fire sporadically for a whole day, but everyone was seeking cover, not charging forward, so, mostly, they spent the day with their status text saying "Cowering" or "Moving" under Slow orders. Great gameplay, that'd be, no? But they took a couple of killed and some wounded (red base and yellow silhouette kind) in all that time, because they weren't pushing to conclusions.

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How many is too many? Generally there's 3 or 4 in an 8x8 spot, if you don't let teams overlap. Yes, there are larger teams (6-man "rump" B-teams, say after you've split 4 Assault and 2 AT or Scout out of a US 12-man squad), but you just don't use those where heavy incoming is expected: they're the firebase team, not the ones getting surprised by a burst of MG42. And they're the exception. Most other squads start smaller and if you pop an Assualt team out, the firebase element is still only 4.

Since I don't experience the grief you are reporting, perhaps you should consider that there is another way of operating the controls of the game which mitigates the limitations of the TacAI and terrain grid, given that I have demonstrated that it is, at least, possible not to have stacks of dead pTruppen where there didn't orter be.

Of course, I still give my boys stupid orders sometimes, and more of them die than is perhaps necessary, because of that, but that certainly comes under the heading of "pushig harder" than IRL.

Oh, one potential confusion you seem to be under: it doesn't matter how cautiously you push, you're still pushing "to conclusions", and deciding that "today" wasn't a day for conclusions was something that Commanders could, and often did, do. Doesn't happen much in CM. 95% of the time, if a commander developed the situation that is placed in front of us in a CM game, he'd tell his CO "We've had a look and it's at least dicey, if not a no-go" and 95% of those times the higher-up would accept the assesment of the officer on the ground, contact would be broken and no further advance required. We play the remaining small percentage of the encounters that provided the majority of the "pointy-end" casualties of the war. So expecting a few combat-ineffectives* after a half day (90 CM minutes) of intense combat at the Battalion level is a bit of a stretch.

*Taken from my recollection of an account from (I think) a Company commander of a Brit infantry formation which spent a day going pretty much nowhere because there were lots of Germans about: they were under fire sporadically for a whole day, but everyone was seeking cover, not charging forward, so, mostly, they spent the day with their status text saying "Cowering" or "Moving" under Slow orders. Great gameplay, that'd be, no? But they took a couple of killed and some wounded (red base and yellow silhouette kind) in all that time, because they weren't pushing to conclusions.

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Hey.I'm looking at  the battle I'm playing right now and in a lot of teams {not squad} there is at least two men, lying on top of each other, are you telling me that is realistic? Stop telling me how to play the game, I know how to play it, you are not telling me something I don't already know thanks I have read about Huertgen, that is not the point, i am not talking tactical decision making. I am talking about needless casualties due to the fact that there are too many men confined in too little a space i.e. one action spot. I don't know how to post screens or I would. 

Cheers.

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I find that the Recon squads of 2 teams of 3 men seem to spread the best. If the teams are split up the 3 men team will doa fair job at spacing in a single AS.

But in general I agree that they seem to like to get a bit too close in full size squads; I have had 2 guys happily getting jiggy mid battle, it looks a bit silly.

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13 minutes ago, sonar said:

Hey.I'm looking at  the battle I'm playing right now and in a lot of teams {not squad} there is at least two men, lying on top of each other, are you telling me that is realistic?

Cheers.

That I definitely agree with, in those cases you get two or more soldiers "morphed together" and that shouldn't be happening.

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38 minutes ago, sonar said:

Hey.I'm looking at  the battle I'm playing right now and in a lot of teams {not squad} there is at least two men, lying on top of each other, are you telling me that is realistic? Stop telling me how to play the game, I know how to play it, you are not telling me something I don't already know thanks I have read about Huertgen, that is not the point, i am not talking tactical decision making. I am talking about needless casualties due to the fact that there are too many men confined in too little a space i.e. one action spot. I don't know how to post screens or I would. 

Cheers.

Ok Sonar, I'm have Scott's-Irish myself, and other half Italian...My Temper is nowhere near yours, lol.

On a more related note:

I wonder if having two troops on top of each other-or-next to and touching each other make that much of a difference...I think the way CM handles the Bullet Trajectory is more based on the overall Action-Spot Cover with a better Savings Roll for the actual type of Cover the individual trooper is in...You might be better off having two troops on top of each other (especially behind a Rock/Tree) ?...But, still not sure about this. 

Edited by JoMc67
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1 hour ago, womble said:

Since I don't experience the grief you are reporting, perhaps you should consider that there is another way of operating the controls of the game which mitigates the limitations of the TacAI and terrain grid, given that I have demonstrated that it is, at least, possible not to have stacks of dead pTruppen where there didn't orter be.

No, that's not it.  He already said he is doing all the right things and it is the game that is broken.  It is not him it is the game.  The only thing I am confused about is how the other guys that insist that small arms fire accuracy is way to low and our troops should be dropping an enemy solider with every bullet fired under 300m reconciles with this.  How can the game be broken in opposite ways?  But I know that it is because they said so.

 

1 hour ago, womble said:

Of course, I still give my boys stupid orders sometimes, and more of them die than is perhaps necessary, because of that, but that certainly comes under the heading of "pushig harder" than IRL.

No, no we are trying to get BFC to give is perfect pixel troops (tm).  Stop undermining us :)

 

Just in case anyone is confused: the above comments by is a pile of sarcasm.  No doubt it will be perceived as a pile of something else by others :D

1 hour ago, womble said:

Oh, one potential confusion you seem to be under: it doesn't matter how cautiously you push, you're still pushing "to conclusions", and deciding that "today" wasn't a day for conclusions was something that Commanders could, and often did, do. Doesn't happen much in CM. 95% of the time, if a commander developed the situation that is placed in front of us in a CM game, he'd tell his CO "We've had a look and it's at least dicey, if not a no-go" and 95% of those times the higher-up would accept the assesment of the officer on the ground, contact would be broken and no further advance required. We play the remaining small percentage of the encounters that provided the majority of the "pointy-end" casualties of the war. So expecting a few combat-ineffectives* after a half day (90 CM minutes) of intense combat at the Battalion level is a bit of a stretch.

A great example.

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So I clearly need more sleep and am being a bit punchy so no more silliness - :)

Here are a few screen shots from an AAR that I may never write with some comments on each:

So lets start off with one that looks kinda bad actually.  This is probably the worse I have seen. Keep in mind that this screen shot is at 20x magnification so you can see the JadPanther over by those buildings. OK so "see" is a bit of a stretch but that is what it is getting strafed if I recall. Given that it is 20x magnification those guys are not really as close as it seems.

032SomeBunching.jpg

 

Typical squad in the woods.  My only complaint is they are pointing all over the place.  To give them a break they did just run away from that mortar barrage the were just about to walk into so they are allowed to be a bit disorganized.

044InTheWoods.jpg

 

Again looking pretty good to me.

046AgainLookingGood.jpg

 

I am sure there have been instances where guys were right next to each other but it is just not the regular thing so - what can I say.  I'll leave it there with the pictures doing all the talking.

 

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Well I don't know about how bullet trajectory is modelled i just know that, that's the way they lie and thats the way the die. Sorry if I sound a little irate but I think I have been very clear in what i am posting about, frustrating when an answer to a specific question is met with repeated posts about how to play the game.  spacing lllll   s p a c i n g l l l l l. Thats what is causing the problem, men lying shoulder to shoulder or on top of each other. IanL please drop the condescending tone that you adopted from your first reply. I've been member of the BF community since 2003 and usually find the experience to be helpful and informative, if I bring up a concern about an aspect of the game i'm not looking to start an argument with anyone or make them look foolish I am doing so because I like the game and want it to be the best it can.

 

Cheers.

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