Retreating Monster Tanks revealed (monster pictures)

[Hoopenfaust2]

People, stop testing the game and have some fun like Steve,and play the goddam game.

Stop playing ladders.

[ November 28, 2002, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Hoopenfaust 101 ]

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

OK folks... see why I want files to play around with? Now, who can tell me what the TacAI did wrong in these four examples? Who here can tell me what it did right? I would like Redwolf to lead the discussion

My pleasure. Glad you had fun blowing up some tanks

Steve, if you read carefully what I wrote then you will spot that I did not claim this is Russian-specific or specific to vehicles in all situtaions. You will also find that I had isolated tests where the ISU behaved just like in the test runs you did.

What we have here is a little bug that some specific way of the CMBB engine coming up with a target for the Mk IV makes the ISU chicken out. The bug may or may not be connected to the missing red line. Other ways of coming up with the target, other sequences of similar events, lead to the TacAI behave like it is meant to.

The TacAI is fine, this is not a modeling or tradeoff issue, but for some reason one way of coming up with the targets "snaps" it in one tiny place. This is not really a rare event, when I ran this test case three times I had it in two of these.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Bruno Weiss:

The ISU is clearly out in the open. I can't see from the camera angle, but it does not appear to be hull down,

As I wrote above, it must be hulldown. It had a command "move to hulldown" to the Mk IV position and it stopped. Under this command it stops when reaching hulldown.

You can download the savegames to test hulldown status on your own.

[The_Capt]

I think I will throw in with Steve here. His examples show that the ISU can and does get killed.

The veh comd decided to pull back in a couple examples BUT Steve clearly showed this is not common problem. On a PZIV"?" no less.

You fellas realize that jockeying is a foundational tank tactic. One shot..reverse and move up again for another.

You want chess pieces, go the game, but CMBB does one hell of a job of modelling command of cbt troops, far more realistically then CMBO. Perfect, nope but better than the last one.

[Redwolf]

Ok, folks here is what to do.

This discussion will get out of control like the auto-sneak-exhaustion one.

My presense is obviously not required here, my screenshots are clear modulo people who had been tought writing before reading and the savegames are there.

Instead of getting it all over again I hereby declare my absense from this forum for a month and then my vacation to Jan 9th (except I try to explain a scenario in the autosneak thread). I would appreciate if people could send me updates about this issue by mail, especially when it comes to a conclusion.

I am hosting the screenshots and savegames from my home machine and that will stop working. If so, please send mail and I'll make them available.

Thanks

[ November 28, 2002, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Monty]

One week absense of this forum ????

Unbearable for me !!

Goodluck and check 6

( i'm a flightsimmer, we always say GL and C6 )

Monty

[ November 28, 2002, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Monty ]

[The_Capt]

Well if that isn't a case of being handed your hat and walking off in a huff....

First we get the title which suggest a dirty little secret of CMBB units acting as yellow cowards..THEN a Zapruder(sp?) fimlesque run down of the offence...THEN Steve proves quite completely that the example is not and "example" at all...THEN we make sniffing noises and leave.

Well if it means a week of no more "blaming the pool stick", I for one will take it.

[zukkov]

ok i think i've solved the problem. it has nothing to do with the tanks. it's the computer. steve obviously has a braver computer than redwolfs or mine, thus in all his test runs none of the tanks retreated. maybe i should just go out and buy a braver computer! lol..

seriously though, i think steve showed that this sort of behavior does not happen in all circumstances so therefore the argument is not valid. thanks for the reply steve!

[Lindan]

redwolf (and others)

there is a simple thing that I want to add to this discussion.

Variation. Chance.

Most of the fun and the suspension (for me) in CMBB derives from NOT knowing how a turn will turn out.

I try to move all my "pieces" into a position that gives them the best chances to survive/cause damage. Then I watch the movie.

During my time as an active playtester for cmbb I often watched a turn over and over, or load the same savegame dozens of time. Each turn was different. If something consistently looked strange, I discussed it with my fellow testers. Your assault gun backed away from a PzIV. The PzIV could possibly kill it. The TAcAI decided this action for the assault gun because it rolled a virtual "1" for the "courage" variable and it backed off. The point is: the behaviour IS reasonable. But:

In the given matchup it would also be reasonable to stand and put the IV out of existence. This did also happen in that situation, quite often it seems. It depends on courage I'd guess.

But: the better player usually wins in normal sized games, as her tactics optimize the chances for her force.

My point is: CMBB is not about total control. That is what makes it different from chess and very enjoyable for me. And: the better player still wins.

(except when I loose, hehe... )

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

After reading all this, I'm still puzzled on why this seems to ALWAYS happen to Russian tanks and NEVER to German ones ...

IMHO in a ISU-122/PzIVlang fight the PzIV is at a distinct disadvantage, even if he can kill the ISU, isn't it ?

Nobody never reported that though... :confused:

[Nolloff]

In the Yellow-livered IS2 thread I´ve given examples of retreating Germans (seen with my own eyes, on a German computer, in Germany).

Cheers

Nolloff

[Rick614]

Steve, (and all)

Thanks for a great game. Would you please remember to relax today and eat some turkey.

[Bruno Weiss]

Well...Really! My opinion having been challenged, I'll fix ya's. I'll just go and declare that I refuse to bestow upon this forum any of my infinate wealth of tactical knowledge for the remainder of today. You can all just suffer then. So there!

[ November 28, 2002, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: Bruno Weiss ]

[Cull]

redwolf (and others)

there is a simple thing that I want to add to this discussion.

Variation. Chance.

Most of the fun and the suspension (for me) in CMBB derives from NOT knowing how a turn will turn out.

Exactly. This is what I've tried to point out (mollify people with) in other, similar threads. The beauty of the game is that it models the randomness and choas of combat, which is exactly right, as far as I'm concerned. I've said it more than once....this is art, not science. IF it were possible to definitively say that a given specific example (such as redwolf's) was wrong, that wouldn't change my opinion of the overall game at all. Bizarre things occur, (sometimes seemingly impossible things), decision-making by humans in combat is nearly random at times, and you never know what's gonna happen. CM does a fine job of recreating that, and I for one like the lack of control that it imparts.

I see two distinct aspects of the game. One is the AI and all it's variables (art), and the other is armor penetration values, weapon ranges, etc (science). This one falls into the former, and I will always fall back on how the game works overall in that regard. On the other hand, if we could demonstrate that a T-26 was getting kills regularly against the front armor of a Tiger, we would have a science issue to discuss.

That's my perhaps over-simplified "world-view" of CM. If you always want a right or wrong result (or even the most probable one), you'll never be satisfied with the game.

Oh, and while I'm babbling....someone mentioned die rolls earlier. How many of us old boardgamers were pissed off when we rolled, for example, the old dreaded double sixes in Squad Leader? "WHAT?! My HMG failed to kill your squad in the open at 1 hex?! That's garbage!" CM gives us far more cobinations of results than a pair of dice ever could, and hooray for that.

Ok, I started to ramble on about probability, but I'm already losing my marbles...... :eek:

Happy Thanksgiving, by the way, to everyone who's into that kind of thing!

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Jack Arilliac:

If you always want a right or wrong result (or even the most probable one), you'll never be satisfied with the game.

Jack, you and Lindan took the words right out of my mouth. I think much of the griping that we've seen in this thread and others in the last couple of months is by people who don't understand this variability and unpredictability of outcome in the game. It seems to me IMHO that they are saying that some things should never, never, never—cross my heart and hope to die—ever happen. But things like that do happen in real life, which is what CM attempts to simulate. People behave in irrational ways. Equipment malfunctions. SNAFUs happen. Sometimes they happen more than we think they should. Yeah, well...I don't know about your life, but mine has sure as hell been like that.

One of the greatest lessons I've learned from wargaming is that you gotta play the odds. Meaning, you plan on the expectation that in the long run things are going to work out more or less the way the odds say they will. But you also have to plan that in the short run, anything can happen at any given point. That means that you have to plan for your first plan not working. You may have to conduct a withdrawal under fire when you were expecting to conduct an attack. Life can be hard that way, and so can CM. But I hope you will agree with me that the adversities we suffer on the monitor screen are relatively minor.

Michael

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Lindan:

redwolf (and others)

there is a simple thing that I want to add to this discussion.

Variation. Chance.

Most of the fun and the suspension (for me) in CMBB derives from NOT knowing how a turn will turn out.

That's the smartest damn thing I've seen on this forum in days. And I'm including my own posts in that assessment!

Thanks for expressing it so clearly Lindan, I think (hope) you are in the majority on that one.

[Olle Petersson]

Regarding the original question I guess there's a spelling error in the ID'd German AFV; It shouldn't read PzKw IV but Tiger IV.

The Tiger IV isn't too well known, but did make a few appearances on the east front, as can be seen on the pictures below...

Now if I were the commander of that Soviet assault gun and came across one of these , I'd surely retreat!

Cheers

Olle

[ November 28, 2002, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: Olle Petersson ]

[Major Jerkov]

LoL!11!

[aka_tom_w]

First off..

Happy Turkey Day (and NFL) to the YANKS!

This comment has been largely overlooked:

"One other thing. I have a sneaking suspiscion that Redwolfs example may well have seen the ISU122 reverse even if it had caught out a Stug III F/G where the Pz IV was. Based on my experience with the IS 2's, reversing behaviour seemed to occur even if you catch an enemy Assault Gun with its proverbial pants down with a flank shot. It seems the computer code acknowledges that the gun on the Stug III can kill it even if it will take a month of Sundays for the enemy Assault Gun to be able to traverse first to get a shot off. If you can confirm this is not the case & the game engine allows for catching out enemy "fixed gun" AFV's then I'll accept that.

Unfortunately I have no proof so I acknowledge that it's hardly going to convince anyone that the code should be changed but I'd love to hear from anyone that may have experienced similar behaviour, especially when ambushing enemy Assault Guns.

Regards

Jim R."

I would say this point is Crucial the Tac AI "should" take into account which plate or aspect of the opposing tank they are firing at, not just the size of the main weapon it is packing. (oooh its got a BIG gun, aaah Run Away!)

I should test this but I have not, (however)

(I justed tested this and found that an ISU122 will back away from a "clean" StuG flank shot even when the StuG is engaged with another target, in my limited experience)

if this is true......

"Based on my experience with the IS 2's, reversing behaviour seemed to occur even if you catch an enemy Assault Gun with its proverbial pants down with a flank shot."

Then the tacAI is not, or cannot "think" or account for or "be brave" and take the shot when confronted with the flank shot againt armour it "knows" it can defeat but instead the TAc AI says "Oh CRAP! that AFV is packing a BIG gun and it can kill me... I gotta pop smoke and back outa here ASAP!"

If the tac AI cannot take into account the aspect of the opposing tank that it is firing into and cannot determine that a turretless AFV is NOT a threat from the flank aspect (OK, I know that can turn on a dime, but hell if you catch one buttoned with its "pants down" while it is engaged with another friendly tank you "should" be able to get at least a few shots off) then perhaps we can put this Tac AI behaviour on the wish list for the CM II re-write.?

So how about a tweak on the list for v1.02 that allows the tac AI to take into acount the "pants down factor" when catching turretless AFV's with a shot to the flank or rear?

Again Enjoy the Turkey! In Canada we have to wait until Dec 25 for our next fix

-tom w

[ November 28, 2002, 11:33 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Brian Rock]

I agree with those who say that the luck factor is a major feature of the game. For deterministic outcomes I play chess. Just as badly as I do CMBB.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Thanks aka_tom for bringing that up again. I have a sneaking suspiscion that the game doesn't take into account the "pants down" factor for Assault Guns and the like but if Steve could clarify then that will settle the matter.

Regards

Jim R.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Thanks aka_tom for bringing that up again. I have a sneaking suspiscion that the game doesn't take into account the "pants down" factor for Assault Guns and the like but if Steve could clarify then that will settle the matter.

Regards

Jim R.

Hi Jim

You are more than welcome , I tested it last night in an all armour hotseat (I played both sides) QB featuring turreted and non turreted tanks on both sides. I found that mostly the Russian tanks backed away from the German tanks, but the german tanks did not fear the Russian tanks in this example. I should figure out how to post the scenario save game files. If any one is interested I can email the save game start file out to you. It is not a conclusive test by anymeans, the parameter and the test vehicles were good but NOT ideal to test out this issue.

So Steve, can you comment on the "pants down" factor? Is is possible to code the tac AI in CMBB with the ability to "think": "Oh OH! Juicy Flank/Rear shot on turretless AFV MUST NOT BACK AWAY, (invoke nerves of Steel modifier AND) Take shot to K-KILL enemy AFV!" ????

-tom w

[massimorocca]

One of the strangest thing in the game is that units sometimes prefer to live and not to die. Very,very strange behavior

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

Originally posted by Nolloff:

In the Yellow-livered IS2 thread I´ve given examples of retreating Germans (seen with my own eyes, on a German computer, in Germany).

Cheers

Nolloff

Yes but IIRC they were Med tanks (PzIV/StuGIII)... And we're talking of Sov heavies, IS/SU-100 being more akin to Tigers/JgPzV than to PzIVs ! Did anyone see a Tiger retreating from a IS-2 or SU-100 ?

Those have enough punch to go through any of its armor plates (and could nearly exit through opposite side.. ) !

[aka_tom_w]

"So Steve, can you comment on the "pants down" factor? Is is possible to code the tac AI in CMBB with the ability to "think": "Oh OH! Juicy Flank/Rear shot on turretless AFV MUST NOT BACK AWAY, (invoke nerves of Steel modifier AND) Take shot to K-KILL enemy AFV!" ???? "

I mention this because it would seem (at least to my simple way of looking at this) that any gun or AFV that has the opportunity to take a shot at the rear or flank of any AFV should be OVERJOYED (Tac AI wise) with the chance to get a shot into any aspect of the enemy AFV that has a greater chance to penetrate than a frontal shot.

Can the CMBB engine accomodate a TAC AI modifier to account for the "caught the turretless AFV with his pants down" factor??

-tom w