AI plan doubts

[bodkin]

I'm creating a new scenario where I've setup the red side in certain positions to have there setup zone as ambush 75m. This worked fine until I decided to give them a second order to assault another section of the map in active mode after a certain time.

Now they still stay in their setup positions but attack anything they spot at any range. The setup zones are configured to say exit after 45 mins and exit before 1:20 hours. But as I said instead of sitting in ambush until 45 minutes have gone past they seem to attack anything on the map.

Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

Any help?

[Paper Tiger]

I'm not sure if it's a bug. I never mix the two movement orders 'Exit before' and 'Exit after', I choose one of them. It's possible there's a conflict and the 'Exit before' is getting the priority here so try changing your AI order to 'Exit after' 1:20 hours and don't enter anything for 'Exit before'. I'd be surprised if that doesn't solve your problem.

[bodkin]

Thanks for the advice, I want them to exit the setup zone after 45 minutes, should I set it as 'exit after' 45mins and just leave 'exit before' as 0.00?

[Paper Tiger]

Yes, that should work just fine.

[Cpl Steiner]

Using both does work, because I did it in my "Kurds Attack!" scenario. However I kept the time interval to only about a minute, e.g.:

Obj1: Exit after 2:00, exit before: 3:00

Obj2: Exit after 5:00, exit before: 6:00

Obj3: Exit after 8:00, exit before: 9:00

If I wanted the AI to do several little moves one after the other, I just had them all set to the same times, e.g.:

Obj4: Exit after 11:00, exit before: 12:00

Obj5: Exit after 11:00, exit before: 12:00

Obj6: Exit after 11:00, exit before: 12:00

The above worked fine for me so I'm not sure what the problem is with Bodkin's scenario.

[Paper Tiger]

That's interesting. I am entirely self-taught with the editor so there are inevitably some gaps in my understanding. I thought that these two commands were mutually exclusive. I thought it was about "when do I look at my next order?".

Let's see if I can explain this with an example.

A1] I create a set up zone for a group and give them an 'Exit after 3 mins' command. It will sit in place and not look at it's next order until 3 minutes have elapsed. After 3 minutes, it then looks at it's next order.

B1] The same set up but with an 'exit before' command is meaningless because the group already occupies it's objective and so it will look at it's next order immediately. It's like saying to the unit, "okay, you've done that, now I want you to do this"

Now, let's look at that second objective. Let's place it very close to our original objective, say 1 minute at a walk from the set-up zone. There are two possibilities again.

A2] Objective 2 is given the movement command 'Exit after 5 minutes'. This means that it will move to the second objective and wait there until the game timer reaches 5 minutes. Then, it will look at order 3.

B2] Objective 2 is given an 'Exit before 5 minutes' command. It will move to it's next objective and then look at it's next order as soon as it has fulfilled that mission. So, after about 1 minute of movement, it's already looking at order 3.

Now, let's look at how these work together.

A1 - A2]

The group in A1 won't start moving to objective 2 until after 3 minutes has elapsed. That will only give them 2 minutes to fulfill their order. If they reach their objective in about 1 minute, they will sit there until the clock timer reaches 5 minutes and then look at order 3.

B1-B2]

The group in B1 will move to it's next objective at the scenario start and will have 5 minutes to complete that movement order. Since they'll probably do it in about 1 minute, when the scenario clock hits 1 minute, they'll already be looking at their third objective while group A1 is still sitting in the start zone.

A1-B2]

Group A will wait 3 minutes in the set up zone and then move to the next objective. When it reaches B2, it will immediately look at order 3.

B1-A2]

the unit will exit the set up zone when the scenario starts and then move to location B where it will sit until the scenario clock reaches 5 minutes. Then it will look at order 3.

There's a lot of subtlety built into this system. Just how it takes for them to travel from point A to B is determined by their stance etc so there are a lot of possibilities there.

In he B1-B2 example, if the group encounters some enemy units during it's journey, it knows it has 5 minutes to perform this action so it will take it's time and move carefully, return fire, maybe even a flanking move, etc. However, A1-A2 gives the units only 2 minutes to do the same so it will not be so effective at returning fire, avoiding casualties etc.

So that's how I interpret the order system. Obviously, it doesn't seem compatible with Cpl Steiner's version but his version obviously works too... sigh... ah for a decent manual...

[bodkin]

Thanks Paper Tiger, I need to go and meditate on your words under a waterfall.

It does seem strange that the timers are not set at 0.00 as a default, so what happens when you set 'exit after' for say 5 minutes but 'exit before' is on 1:20 or whatever the default is?

[Paper Tiger]

Yeah, a pretty wordy post, sorry. I was in a bit of a hurry when I typed that up. I have no idea what happens when you try to use both. Obviously, Cpl Steiner's method works for him too. If you apply my logic to his method, I don't understand how it could work so perhaps everything I wrote above is rubbish.

The above method DOES work for me though. I don't have time to do experiments with the AI just now as I'm very busy with my own creative project.

[Cpl Steiner]

The manual is extremely badly written on this point but I worked out the method I use above through trial and error and by applying some basic logic.

If you go into the editor and look at the default settings for say "Blue Plan One, Group One, Setup", they are:

Exit After: 0:00

Exit Before: 1:00

This is for a completely blank scenario, i.e. it is what BFC decided was an appropriate default.

This tells me that the way it is designed is as follows.

"Exit After" is a "wait" condition. In other words, it says "wait here until the scenario clock reaches this value". The default for the "Setup" order is "0:00", i.e. don't wait any time at all before moving out.

"Exit Before" is a "go" condition. In other words, it says "leave this objective before the scenario clock reaches this value". The default for the "Setup" order is "1:00", i.e. leave the setup objective before 1 minute of game time has elapsed.

In practice I think this will result in the unit waiting where it is for a minute and then moving out, which funnily enough is precisely what some people reported was happening in scenarios, i.e. they thought it was a bug.

I have to say, I don't really understand the logic of having two types of condition when a single one would do. A simple "wait until" condition would have been a lot less confusing.

It would be helpful if someone from BFC could explain this a bit more as I freely accept my method may not be what was intended.

[Cpl Steiner]

Here is an update to my post above.

I did a little test in the editor by placing two buildings down, fairly close together, and setting one as the Setup zone of a couple of Red units, and the other as the "Order 2" objective for the Red units. I left Exit After as 0:00 and Exit Before as 1:00, i.e. the default values. I then placed a Blue recon humvee a couple of hundred metres away to observe.

Here are the results:

One of the Red units started firing on the humvee from the windows of the setup building and the other Red unit immediately left the building to move towards the "order 2" building. In other words, there was no delay whatsoever in Red leaving the setup area with half of the force that started there. I was expecting neither unit to move out until a minute had elapsed.

The covering unit eventually moved to the order 2 building also, but not until at least 1.5 to 2.0 minutes had elapsed. In other words, it was happy to fire on the humvee a bit longer and miss the "exit before" deadline, if only by a minute or so.

What does this all prove? I'm not sure. For one thing, it seems that "Exit After" may have precedence over "Exit Before", as one of the units moved out towards the second building immediately.

One possible way the two values might be designed to work would be to provide you with a time slot, rather like you might have on a college time table, during which the order will be carried out. In other words, if you want the AI to carefully and methodically approach an objective, using covering fire etc., you could say "Exit After 0:00, Exit Before: 5:00". This would presumably give the AI 5 minutes to get to the second objective using fire and movement tactics. The first units would start moving out immediately but the last ones could wait 5 minutes before moving out.

I hope this makes sense. Some interesting possibilities for scenario designers!

[birdstrike]

AI plans still confuse me to some degree, but here's some of my observations:

If I use a "exit after +0", "exit before +5" and put a waypoint on the other side of the map, there is no chance the unit will get there before. let's say 10 minutes. So, even if the next order would state "exit after +5" and "exit before +10" they could never make it there in time, and will continue immediately to the next WP as soon as they arrive at the waypoint.

And if some units arrive at the second waypoint at +7 and some later. The units arriving at the waypoint earlier seem to wait for the others to arrive before moving on, even though they are over the "exit after +5" order.

[Paper Tiger]

Cpl Steiner

I see your logic now and it could work the way you're describing. But your example is missing something to make sure that your test is properly set up. What are the parameters, 'Ext before X', or 'Exit after X' of your SECOND objective? In my example above, those two timers control the timing of the units movement TO that second objective.

For something so fundamentally important to scenario design, the manual's vagueness on this matter is almost unforgivable.

birdstrike

yeah, it seems that a group needs a certain critical mass to arrive at the objective before it will start moving to the next order. I've no idea how much that might be though. These commands only tell the computer to TRY to reach the objective in the time specified.

[bodkin]

Thanks for everyones replies, but I'm still vague on my original example. Paper Tiger has solved my problem but still if I wanted a unit to wait at a certain zone until a certain time and then try to reach another zone in a certain time I'm still confused.

Say I wanted a unit to wait at their setup zone for 10mins on ambush before trying to get to their next zone (order 2) in 15mins on assault.

If I have setup zone as 'exit after' 10mins and 'exit before' 15mins it seems the ai unit will go into assault mode from the start, how can this be done?

Who's on first, what's on second, I don't know is on third...etc

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by bodkin:

Say I wanted a unit to wait at their setup zone for 10mins on ambush before trying to get to their next zone (order 2) in 15mins on assault.

The following should work based on a brief test I just conducted.

Setup:

Ambush (75m, 150m, whatever).

Exit after 10m.

Exit before: 15m.

Order 2:

Assault.

Exit after: anything (won't affect order 2).

Exit before: anything (won't affect order 2).

[Paper Tiger]

Well, I've been trying some experiments with the situations I'm working on just now and it looks like Cpl Steiner is right guys. Looks like I'll have to rework ALL my AI plans to take account of this. This could make a huge difference to my campaign. Thanks for bringing this up man.

[Frankster65]

Bump for reference. Thank you gentlemen.

[Frankster65]

Got another question to add to this and please forgive the stupidity of it. Here goes...

When you guys talk of setting up and "exit after" command...lets say for order 3, does that mean that the time frame is based on total minutes from when scenario started or minutes counted from time unit reaches the order 3 zone?

In other words, if I have a 45 minute long scenario and I want to have the unit leave the order 3 zone for order 4 zone, do I set the "exit after" time in minutes based on the count from beginning of game or based on count from when the unit actually reaches order 3 zone? Do I make sense here...hell I'm confusing myself again.

[LongLeftFlank]

Yes, each order must provide the scenario clock time counted from the START of the scenario. A tiny bit annoying since the scenario clock counts DOWN when you're playtesting, but you get used to it.

I believe if you leave "zero" time in both entries for a given order, the AI will execute this order and then attempt to execute the subsequent order immediately. But I don't trust this to happen so I usually just zero out the final order.

[Frankster65]

Yep, makes sense. I've been play testing a small test scenario and watching how AI work with respect to my plan. I think I'm starting to understand this and getting the hang of it.

[LongLeftFlank]

Note that when you have an AI group consisting of multiple units, setting an interval of a few minutes between the EXIT AFTER and EXIT BEFORE commands means that some units will move earlier and some later -- the wider the interval, the wider the spacing (you don't get to control which ones, alas, unless you assign them a different AI group). In theory, that means some units can provide overwatch for the movers if their LOS allows it.

In practice, I've found you need two mutually supporting groups with overlapping series of orders. This can get very complicated but delivers pretty good results if you plan it carefully. Like many people, I'd love to have a "trigger" event and not just time-based, but what exists is workable.

[hoolaman]

The question in the original post was about troops ambush orders in setup not working when they have more orders than just setup.

Yes this is the case and I believe it is a bug. Obviously this has been a bug for a very long time.

[LongLeftFlank]

As I continue to work spasmodically on the AI "mobile" insurgent forces for my epic historical scenario USMC Ramadi: Relief of JOKER 3, I thought I would document a few learnings for the benefit of others by updating this old but useful thread rather than starting a new one.

It's a real pity there isn't a decent compendium of AI how-tos, dos and don'ts or at least a sticky "AI orders" thread at the top of this subforum. You can't even search for "AI" since it's under the word count limit.

[LongLeftFlank]

If an AI Group includes some units that are already on the map and others that appear as reinforcements, the reinforcements will NOT execute any orders IF the on-map units have already "exited" setup mode and started executing orders. The reinforcements just sit there and ignore all orders, even ones which commence subsequent to their arrival.

If the on-map units haven't exited setup mode (i.e. the Exit After time is later than the reinforcement arrival time), all units will execute the order string normally.

[LongLeftFlank]

I noted this in another thread, but I add it here for the benefit of others since it took me a while to figure out.

If an AI Group consists of only a single unit (whether created that way or owing to casualties), it will not execute an ASSAULT or MAX ASSAULT order. Moreover, it will ignore all further orders in the chain (i.e. become static for the rest of the game).

Single units will always obey ADVANCE, QUICK or FAST orders.

[MikeyD]

There's AI orders and AI orders. Some scenarios the input "Exit After/Exit Before" times are sequential, others they remain at the default 0:00/1:00 times. With the default numbers the AI will do each task in sequence until interrupted, then who knows what'll happen after that! Importing reinforcement into a default 0:00/1:00 AI orders sequence is problematic because they show up at minute 15:00 while the final AI order was supposed to have ended at 1:00. If reinforcement instead show up at 15:00 and the next AI orders sequence starts at 15:01 then everything should work properly.