4.0 Infantry AI

[snarre]

Hardradi 
this thing what you talking now is difrend thing. tjust clearing out

[Glubokii Boy]

1 hour ago, snarre said:

they will get upp and continue whit assault order when incoming fire drop down enough. all sou one way to avoid or make them chance move order faster back to quik or assault is make space between move orders (yellow painted area) shorder.... 

Yes i understand that...But unfortunatelly doing that will often lead to another 'problem'  (atleast for me) so if at all possible i try to avoid dividing long/medium AI moves into to many

waypoints. I realice that many of the AI order distances in the scenario i'm currently working on is quite long but fairly long AI moves has usually worked pretty well for me in the past.

If i'm missremembering all about this and these things have indeed been the same in V3.... i appoligize to all for the confusion

I Think the guys from BFC are having a look at my saved games and will let us know if i'm simply over reacting here...

 

The 'problem' i see with deviding longer AI moves into multiple shorter ones is the zig, zag behavior of the AI advance this can lead to.

For example...An infantry platoon devided into 4 teams advancing across a 200 meter long field.

 

- I split the advance into let's say 4 AI moves

- The problem no is that the teams will not maintain their possitions in the advancing formation through all the waypoints and there is no way of knowing what

possition the individual teams will take at each waypoint...They will be zig, zagging across the field...

The team that starts the advance on the left flank might suddenly decide to move to the right most part of the next AI-move across the field and then back to the left

ones again for the next leg....zig, zagging ....Having several teams doing this looks a bit wierd unfortunatelly.

This behavior might not be all that bad if you are using fairly small AI Groups that can advance in a tight Group but with larger AI Groups that preferably would advance on a broader front it can be a problem.

Because of this i try to use somewhat longer AI moves if possible....I seem to remember that this usually worked pretty well (with no/few superlong sneak-moves) but i'm more

and more starting to Think that i might be missremebering this...Not all that many are agreeing with me ...

 

 

 

[Glubokii Boy]

1 hour ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I was writing to @RepsolCBR about the importance of separation between orders, it makes quite a difference. Is that distance related to the maximum length of the bound a squad with an Assault order?

BletchleyGeek

Many thanks for your comments/ suggestions in your PM. It's much apprisated !

I will PM you a more thorough answer later tonight...

Thanks !

[BletchleyGeek]

Hi, I managed to reproduce what I think @RepsolCBR was seeing in his scenario on a byte sized little thing I have made for CMFI (which obviously  still uses v3 of the engine). The scenario can be downloaded here

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/otqdtu1m9drzj4l/AAAi3bvBXBdcP8lObU_BknQMa?dl=0

 I will answer to the "sneaking" thing here, if you don't mind @RepsolCBR.

I have made two videos, on the first video one can see that the forward element of the platoon is crawling all the way to the reverse slope

that happened as soon as the squad I have selected suffered casualties.

The sneaking continues until the completion of the order

when one of the squads, which hasn't been fired upon yet, charges with a Fast order all the way to the manor. It's a stirring sight, those guys where channeling the Rough Riders at Cerro San Juan or something.

 

[BletchleyGeek]

No worries @RepsolCBR, the videos took a bit to make, but I think it is a good thing that everyone sees what you did see. Also helpful for budding scenario AI programmers...

[RockinHarry]

2 hours ago, RepsolCBR said:

...

The 'problem' i see with deviding longer AI moves into multiple shorter ones is the zig, zag behavior of the AI advance this can lead to.

For example...An infantry platoon devided into 4 teams advancing across a 200 meter long field.

 

- I split the advance into let's say 4 AI moves

- The problem no is that the teams will not maintain their possitions in the advancing formation through all the waypoints and there is no way of knowing what

possition the individual teams will take at each waypoint...They will be zig, zagging across the field...

The team that starts the advance on the left flank might suddenly decide to move to the right most part of the next AI-move across the field and then back to the left

ones again for the next leg....zig, zagging ....Having several teams doing this looks a bit wierd unfortunatelly.

This behavior might not be all that bad if you are using fairly small AI Groups that can advance in a tight Group but with larger AI Groups that preferably would advance on a broader front it can be a problem.

Because of this i try to use somewhat longer AI moves if possible....I seem to remember that this usually worked pretty well (with no/few superlong sneak-moves) but i'm more

and more starting to Think that i might be missremebering this...Not all that many are agreeing with me ...

 

 

 

Some time ago I at least found some partial solution to get some the AI groups criss cross movements between zones avoided. Works best with smaller AI groups (Plt size) and maps/AI plans that allow for the "T" deployment zone scheme. Does not prevent the shuffling of positions, but units will not move into each others path that much anymore.

Got to test if new "face to" and "retreat" options offer new ways to get a better control on AI group movements between zones.

[Glubokii Boy]

2 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

 

 

 

 I will answer to the "sneaking" thing here, if you don't mind @RepsolCBR.

 

Hello...

Yes, please do so ...

When it comes to discussing 'the sneaking thing' and other post V4 infantry behavior i Think this is the right Place to do it...

When i mentioned that i would PM you a more comprehensive answer i ment in respons to your comments/suggestion with regards to the scenario i'm working on

(force selection, force balans, oob questions, tactics and... what not.)...Much apprisiate your thoughts on these things...Thanks !

General discussions about the AI behaviour is best discussed here for sure...

 

/RepsolCBR

 

[Glubokii Boy]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Some time ago I at least found some partial solution to get some the AI groups criss cross movements between zones avoided. Works best with smaller AI groups (Plt size) and maps/AI plans that allow for the "T" deployment zone scheme. Does not prevent the shuffling of positions, but units will not move into each others path that much anymore.

Got to test if new "face to" and "retreat" options offer new ways to get a better control on AI group movements between zones.

Worth looking into for sure !

Hopefully they will prove to be useful ( in that regard also...)

 

[Glubokii Boy]

2 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

No worries @RepsolCBR, the videos took a bit to make, but I think it is a good thing that everyone sees what you did see. Also helpful for budding scenario AI programmers...

Yes...this looks simular to what i have been seeing...

Thanks for the video

[Hardradi]

Its the first scenario of the Road to Nijmegen Campaign (BNMG), I think it is called Nicoline. It was Elite difficulty level.

That's 2nd squad of 1st Platoon moving ahead in the buildings in the image (split into three teams), from memory I would have used Quick move order to get them there. Its E Company HQ and MMG Team having the difficulty moving using a Quick move order on the right. The rest of 1st Platoon is strung out and advancing along a broad front to the left, some in cover some not.

[RockinHarry]

Interesting to see that the new AI retreat order can also be used offensively (for infantry groups), or to deceive a human player. 

If movement orders are timed correctly and with wind blowing from the rear, you can "retreat" forward and have a nice smokescreen drifting in front of attacking infantry. Only tested with some german infantry and smoke hand grenades appear to be pulled from the standard loadout of HE grenades. Not yet tested if there´s enough smoke grenades to pull of the retreat move more than once.

Did anybody notice that movement bounds for infantry groups in advance and assault mode are possibly shortened in V4.0? IE for an AI group composed of a single infantry platoon, the first bound is 40m (5 AS), with the follow up infantry in overwatch going 64m (8 AS) and then alternating. If the most forward infantry reaches roughly the CC limit range to the Plt. HQ (visual far), then they stop and the HQ moves forward 80m to maintain CC I think. This is for a test situation on a completely open map (day and clear weather) and movement zones 200m apart. Can´t remember if that was all the same pre V4.0, but I think the bounds were somewhat longer. Got to test the same order scheme with some cover and LOS blocking terrain added to the map.

[BletchleyGeek]

41 minutes ago, Hardradi said:

Its the first scenario of the Road to Nijmegen Campaign (BNMG), I think it is called Nicoline. It was Elite difficulty level.

That's 2nd squad of 1st Platoon moving ahead in the buildings in the image (split into three teams), from memory I would have used Quick move order to get them there. Its E Company HQ and MMG Team having the difficulty moving using a Quick move order on the right. The rest of 1st Platoon is strung out and advancing along a broad front to the left, some in cover some not.

Hmmm, that's going to make it difficult to replicate the behaviour. Thanks for the details @Hardradi.

4 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Interesting to see that the new AI retreat order can also be used offensively (for infantry groups), or to deceive a human player. 

If movement orders are timed correctly and with wind blowing from the rear, you can "retreat" forward and have a nice smokescreen drifting in front of attacking infantry. Only tested with some german infantry and smoke hand grenades appear to be pulled from the standard loadout of HE grenades. Not yet tested if there´s enough smoke grenades to pull of the retreat move more than once.

Did anybody notice that movement bounds for infantry groups in advance and assault mode are possibly shortened in V4.0? IE for an AI group composed of a single infantry platoon, the first bound is 40m (5 AS), with the follow up infantry in overwatch going 64m (8 AS) and then alternating. If the most forward infantry reaches roughly the CC limit range to the Plt. HQ (visual far), then they stop and the HQ moves forward 80m to maintain CC I think. This is for a test situation on a completely open map (day and clear weather) and movement zones 200m apart. Can´t remember if that was all the same pre V4.0, but I think the bounds were somewhat longer. Got to test the same order scheme with some cover and LOS blocking terrain added to the map.

Some nice tricks there @RockinHarry, that conjured the image of a magician disappearing from the stage after setting off a smoke bomb  

It would be interesting to see if you can see some difference in the bounding behaviour, Harry. I didn't measure it, but while making the CMFI videos above, I'd say that the AI was already doing what you discuss re: bounding and catching up.

[MOS:96B2P]

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

<Snip> If movement orders are timed correctly and with wind blowing from the rear, you can "retreat" forward and have a nice smokescreen drifting in front of attacking infantry. Only tested with some german infantry and smoke hand grenades appear to be pulled from the standard loadout of HE grenades. Not yet tested if there´s enough smoke grenades to pull of the retreat move more than once.  <Snip> 

IIRC in US units (and I think German) The platoon HQ has a smoke grenade and every squad has two.  If you do the Assault Team split (A-team) first they get the two smoke grenades and use them both at the same time when ordered to Pop Smoke.  They just make a bigger smoke screen than the platoon HQ.  Most Company HQs and some XO teams also have the ability to Pop Smoke.  A team with the ability to Pop Smoke can do so once.  Wind speed plays a big role.  Medium speed can be difficult for smoke screens and more than medium does not work at all for smoke IMO.   

[RockinHarry]

9 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

IIRC in US units (and I think German) The platoon HQ has a smoke grenade and every squad has two.  If you do the Assault Team split (A-team) first they get the two smoke grenades and use them both at the same time when ordered to Pop Smoke.  They just make a bigger smoke screen than the platoon HQ.  Most Company HQs and some XO teams also have the ability to Pop Smoke.  A team with the ability to Pop Smoke can do so once.  Wind speed plays a big role.  Medium speed can be difficult for smoke screens and more than medium does not work at all for smoke IMO.   

From my testing with german infantry, the first retreat move will most the time use up all the smoke grenades (obviously just 1 every squad) and any subsequent retreat move gets usually going without smoke cover. 

I found adding an additional move zone in max assault mode just 1 AS away (infantry will just crawl), gives the retreating (or attacking) infantry more time for the smoke to accumulate and moving away more covered during the subsequent move to the next zone.

So it´s max assault move with retreat option 1 AS, wait 1-2 minutes, then move on to the desired movement zone. Gentle or light wind from right direction as prerequisite off course.

[Peter Panzer]

Thanks to those of you who have documented the infantry hedgerow movement issue potentially exacerbated by v4.  I was excited to purchase the upgrade, however the maps I play on feature the affected terrain type(s) prominently and I’m not willing to introduce frustration into my v3 gameplay, which I am currently enjoying very much!

Is it too early for a consensus to have formed as to whether teams becoming unintentionally detached from their squads in certain terrain/movement conditions is an uncommon “corner case” or a frequent, predictable occurrence?  Does it only happen when teams are joined as a squad or also when they are already split into individual teams?

On 1/2/2017 at 10:23 AM, sburke said:

Last item - if you are concerned about an upgrade install the new version in a different install.  Keep a CM3.0 folder and a 4.0 folder if you are that worried.  Personally I am with Holman.  BF will fix it IF there is a problem and IF we provide some concrete examples.

I am willing to try this.  Is there a guide explaining how to create multiple installations of the game somewhere?  After doing so, do you simply create a v3 and v4 shortcut to the respective exe.’s to launch the version you want to play?

[BletchleyGeek]

2 hours ago, Peter Panzer said:

Thanks to those of you who have documented the infantry hedgerow movement issue potentially exacerbated by v4.  I was excited to purchase the upgrade, however the maps I play on feature the affected terrain type(s) prominently and I’m not willing to introduce frustration into my v3 gameplay, which I am currently enjoying very much!

Is it too early for a consensus to have formed as to whether teams becoming unintentionally detached from their squads in certain terrain/movement conditions is an uncommon “corner case” or a frequent, predictable occurrence?  Does it only happen when teams are joined as a squad or also when they are already split into individual teams?

I am willing to try this.  Is there a guide explaining how to create multiple installations of the game somewhere?  After doing so, do you simply create a v3 and v4 shortcut to the respective exe.’s to launch the version you want to play?

Hi @Peter Panzer,

the issue which I have confirmed - sort of - only happens when you're:

1. Going through a "rabbit hole" through tall bocage,
2. issuing the move order to the whole squad.

So if you go for teams, you should be mostly okay. Also, if the "disconnection" doesn't happen before you save the game (or at the beginning of the 60 seconds of a WEGO turn) and the "forward" team actually separates, the game is able to recover from the problem, cancelling your move order. Which is helpful.

The issue described by @Hardradi hasn't been confirmed as a potential bug just yet, and I do remember discussions regarding "wandering pixeltruppen" issues similar as those described by Hardradi coming up with the 3.0 upgrade or perhaps earlier than that, usually related to units entering into the "Panic" morale state. Those discussions should be easy to find, but I haven't had time to put my mind to it. As with so many debates in these forums, perhaps the discussion never got to a conclusion by somebody providing hard data.

One possible explanation for Hardradi's observation is that morale status is tracked by the engine behind scenes on a per soldier basis rather than "team" or "unit" basis, and the morale status we see on the UI is an "aggregate" of the actual morale status of the components of the unit.  Hence what we were seeing was that some of his guys had still to get their stuff together, kind of WAD at the mechanics level, but not so WAD at the gameplay level.

So I would say that you're missing out by not upgrading, tbh, especially if you own other families as well, where hedgerows are rare or just don't happen in existing campaigns and scenarios.

Having two versions of CM working in parallel is very easy for CMBN, in Windows, since it doesn't use the two tiered folder structure of CMFI and later. Just create a copy of your current CMBN installation folder next to it, and change its name to something more informative than "Combat Mission Battle For Normandy - Copy", like "CMBN v3.12". Then you can install 4.0 on top of the original folder, and still enjoy 3.12.

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by BletchleyGeek

[sburke]

2 hours ago, Peter Panzer said:

Thanks to those of you who have documented the infantry hedgerow movement issue potentially exacerbated by v4.  I was excited to purchase the upgrade, however the maps I play on feature the affected terrain type(s) prominently and I’m not willing to introduce frustration into my v3 gameplay, which I am currently enjoying very much!

Is it too early for a consensus to have formed as to whether teams becoming unintentionally detached from their squads in certain terrain/movement conditions is an uncommon “corner case” or a frequent, predictable occurrence?  Does it only happen when teams are joined as a squad or also when they are already split into individual teams?

I am willing to try this.  Is there a guide explaining how to create multiple installations of the game somewhere?  After doing so, do you simply create a v3 and v4 shortcut to the respective exe.’s to launch the version you want to play?

doh Bletchley already answered.

Regarding other titles like CMFI etc, I do the same for them as well.  It works very similarly to CMBN, you just have a shared documents folder where all your game files are kept.  I actually prefer the directory format of the later games, it offers a little more flexibility.

Edited January 6, 2017 by sburke

[IICptMillerII]

3 hours ago, Peter Panzer said:

Thanks to those of you who have documented the infantry hedgerow movement issue potentially exacerbated by v4.  I was excited to purchase the upgrade, however the maps I play on feature the affected terrain type(s) prominently and I’m not willing to introduce frustration into my v3 gameplay, which I am currently enjoying very much!

I would highly recommend getting v4. If this minor apparent bug is the only thing holding you back, I can assure you that you will not regret purchasing v4. I've been playing v4 across all CM titles that have it now since it came out, and I've only experienced the bug twice in all that time. Its very minor. Plus as discussed by others you can have a fresh install of the game running v4 and retain an old copy still on v3 if you feel the need to go back to it. Win-win essentially. 

[sburke]

Just a quick note.  I appreciate all the files sent.  I don't think I need more samples for the team cohesion issue.  I have some pretty good ones demonstrating the behavior.  If I get asked for more I'll come back here and request em.  Thanks to all you who sent them, very helpful.

[Peter Panzer]

BletchleyGeek

Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed response - very helpful and much appreciated. I do tend to carry out the infantry aspect of the game almost exclusively via team maneuver.  Given my style of play, this issue may not be so troublesome after all - just as you mentioned.

sburke

Thanks for the dual install tip. I own CMBN and CMBS (Win), both have been installed to their default directory locations using their default directory names.  To make sure I understand...

Basically, I just create copies of each of the root Combat Mission folders for each game within their existing default locations and rename them along the lines of "V4" and "V3."  The difference for CMBS being that I need to create and rename two root folders vs. CMBN's one - "Combat Mission" within "Documents" and "Combat Mission Black Sea" within "Program Files (x86) > Battlefront."

When I install each respective V4 upgrade, point the installer to the newly created V4 folders for each game.

Is that it?

Using this multi-version structure, are newly saved game files placed within each version specific "Saved Games" folder in "Documents" (i.e. V3 saved games are found within each game's "V3" "Saved Games" folder and the same for games saved while playing with V4)?

Thanks again to you and BletchleyGeek.

CptMiller

I think you are right - I am intrigued by the new infantry spacing, corner peeking and as a mapmaker, the 3D object cloning tool offered in V4.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Peter Panzer

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Peter Panzer said:

sburke

 

Thanks for the dual install tip. I own CMBN and CMBS (Win), both have been installed to their default directory locations using their default directory names.  To make sure I understand...

Basically, I just create copies of each of the root Combat Mission folders for each game within their existing default locations and rename them along the lines of "V4" and "V3."  The difference for CMBS being that I need to create and rename two root folders vs. CMBN's one - "Combat Mission" within "Documents" and "Combat Mission Black Sea" within "Program Files (x86) > Battlefront."

When I install each respective V4 upgrade, point the installer to the newly created V4 folders for each game.

Is that it?

Using this multi-version structure, are newly saved game files placed within each version specific "Saved Games" folder in "Documents" (i.e. V3 saved games are found within each game's "V3" "Saved Games" folder and the same for games saved while playing with V4)?

 

I typically do not copy folders.  I'll usually just run the installer and point it to a different location (I keep copies of the full installer so it doesn't take more than a couple minutes - keep in mind during testing I may run the installers a dozen times so I am pretty used to it.) 

For CMBN your saves will go to the specific games file folder for that install.  For everything else it will go to the shared documents folder so name your saves in a way that you'll know.  Your v4 version will be able to open anything, the v3 version will not see the v4 saves.

[Peter Panzer]

sburke

Got it - thanks for your help and all you do to improve the game for us!  I’ll buy the update this weekend and give it a go.

[user1000]

ai automatically formed line at top of ridge

 

[General Jack Ripper]

5 hours ago, user1000 said:

ai automatically formed line at top of ridge

Now isn't that a pretty sight. A whole line of M1's ready to spit lead.

[Cobetco]

21 minutes ago, SLIM said:

Now isn't that a pretty sight. A whole line of M1's ready to spit lead.

well almost a whole line, there was that one guy who was backwards.... probably mooning the Germans. But there is always one guy without fail in any real life situation who doesn't get it (its usually me) so i'll give the 4.0 AI as pass on that.