hoolaman

How about this?

Well be careful what you wish for! Ships in port are very vulnerable, they are given much lower defensive numbers so if a raider gets through they will likely be killed. Near the front lines they are probably better to come out and fight, even with a few missing HP. You can also use the field orders to set them to attack stronger units or attack all bar transports or whatever.

You should be able to achieve this by setting the field orders to neutral. Aggressive is default and it will cause your units moving towards and attacking any enemy they see.

It's a problem in the other drection too. You cannot area fire into a deep wheatfield because you can't see the ground below. So in a funny way your guys are perfectly safe prone in a field.

LOS is based on the action spots and the height of the soldiers (prone, kneeling, standing). It is not based on individual soldiers. In your first situation, I believe the waypoint LOS hieght is based on the current height of your soldiers, so if they are all prone, your waypoint LOS trace will be done at prone height. When you actually arrive there by a fast or quick order, the LOS height is quite a bit higher and your troops are more exposed. Try using SLOW for the last bit if you want to sneak up to a waypoint. In the second, the LOS is traced from centre tile to centre tile, so unfortunately this is an issue in some of these situations looking down into a valley. It's not very good.

I think anything that can't be directly seen will show up as a <?> If you have a strong <?> as opposed to a faded one, then the good C2 links mean that your HQ unit knows the exact location of that unit, though what unit it is is not displayed to the player. Friendly spotting is more of an annoyance imo. You can still do the same things, just less easily.

Shock force AI is 100% timed scripting, no triggers and no deviations. This is possible because every scenario is saved with a set map and set forces. That causes enough problems in Shock Force, and it would be totally impractical for a game with EoS complexity.

The field orders make a unit actually move in the direction of the enemy, so your stack will be engaged fully whether you like it or not. In my testing, a group's field orders take precedence over any of the field oreders of sub-units or sub-groups. So whatever the main group has for field orders will apply to everything within. I like your thinking though, it would be nice if you could choose for one group to continue on its path while the escort group split off to attack the enemy. The only way to do this is to have them close by following but not stacked together. One feature I'd like to see is a way to actually choose what the default field order is. Kind of like a global setting, since I find I want my units on "none" more often than I want them on "agressive".

Ok I re-read it and obviously you are talking about the subs being spotted by units that can spot subs. That doesn't change my point though. All units have a fairly limited view range, so why should a unit that spots subs in a short range be any different to a unit which spots everything? Anyway, I support the core of your idea. The AI could "know" that your units are there, but instead of flying out in a perfectly judged intercept, they could just be triggered to send out random patrols. After all a human play can guess, judge and extrapolate in ways that would take forever to program an AI to do. A half cheat instead of a precision 100% tactical cheat might be the best way.

I'm sure that one license on one computer will work for multiple installs. It is the unique hardware that eats the license, not a second or third game install. So anyone having compatibility issues can just install a 1.21 version in a different game directory. Shrullenhaft posted a suggested way of just using the old exe recently, but I know from juggling multiple beta installs that it is best to keep one good vanilla install and mess around with a second. Obviously this will only be a problem until the 1.30 standalone patch, so after everyone is patched up you could delete the extra copy.

It just so happens that I just finished playing UK Sabres at Dawn, which our great Paper Tiger recommended to play in something like Iron mode and RT. It's the perfect battle for RT, but being too strict on Iron rules is unrealistic in itself and not very fun. I played it in this way, playing Iron Man but not being too stupidly strict about it, and kind of roleplaying the various HQ units and not gameishly checking the positions of the enemy. It was the most fun I've had in CMSF for a long time. I haven't really played through a full mission in months. I lost btw, but mainly through running out of time.

It might be possible to have the AI cheat strategically, but not cheat tactically. For example, it may launch air or sea patrols when it "knows" there are enemy units nearby, but have it send them in random directions or towards a spotted enemy city instead of the laser precision it has now. StellarRat's idea sounds on the right track, but I imagine since some units can see subs a more universal approach would be required.

Yes this is quite frustrating. Your first vid is about two whole minutes out in the commentary vs the action. I think the second is about 30 seconds out. It's frustrating because it takes a while to realise that the events on the screen are not the same being talked about. Also because I really wanted to see your excellent work as you intended.

I think it is a bit much to say a pilot constrains an aircraft's abilities. After all, even drones are controlled by a human operator, and they are not required to have anything like the 360deg situational awareness or instant decision making that an air superiority fighter does. I think there will be humans for a long time yet. Big money is still going into designs for piloted planes, and not for nothing.

Haha the amphibious part is totally modelled but sadly there is no water for them.

A fast moving tank assault that can get in and smash up the enemy artillery and infantry is the best strategy imo. Remember weak units in a stack with strong units are given little protection, so a bunch of artillery in a stack with dug-in infantry will quickly be killed by a tank rush. You can then use your arty, if you brought it, to soften up defenders so your attacking force doesn't burn off so many HP.

I often play with large or small continents, usually I keep it at 50% land but +/- 10% gives you more or less of a naval campaign. Resources I will tweak in solo mode: More food, less Iron, More Oil, Same Gold. Generally only +/-10% Sometimes I set -10% cities. I've been pushing for more "official" or licensed content in the game, some official maps would be nice. A good map sets you up with an ideal mix of distances and resources.

Artillery is pretty bad at defending against a direct ground attack. If you see a city guarded by infantry and artilleries, smash into it quick with a couple of tanks. Your tanks will move fast enough to take little damage from the arty, and will do enough damage to kill a stack of inf and arty. Yup. Resources are almost always the limiting factor. A few cities tooled up for quick production are very useful especially to pump out ships, but ideally you'll capture such a surplus of food and fuel that you don't have to worry about production. Sounds like you are enjoying the game and are starting to "get it"!

It actually costs food to support a new city, so sometimes not taking a city is the best idea, at least until you have lined up the surrounding food to support it. I think you are right in thinking that the sea resources, especially food are essential, in fact all food is essential, and a large % on the map is fishies in the sea. My general advice is to quickly take as many neutral cities as you can support with a bare minimum of invasion forces (1 tank should be enough), but when your borders meet the enemy, it is a strong naval force that will stabilise the initial front lines. In other words having a standing army of DDay invasion fleets is not worthwhile, send them out to raid the AI players when you know what you are up against. Oh and Brit has posted before that for simplicity and ease of programming the AI does cheat on the Fog Of War. Its ok for me, the human player can anticipate some things the AI can't. Regarding Artillery, if they are in a stack, the way the combat works, their weakness in ground combat will often see them be destroyed. It is best to "lead" your arty with the other combat forces, so in an invasion, land your force inside arty range, but then send the other ground combat force in while leaving your arty behind. The arty will keep firing away and causing damage, but won't get killed trying to raid a city.

I have also been surprised at the short ranges at which you can spot infantry running in the open with FLIR and recon optics. Uncons might be a bad choice for a test though, they get some stealth bonuses based on their ability to blend into the population. Blue units certainly have functioning night vision, and they can certainly fire at vehicle units through smoke, and I assume they can fire at infantry though I haven't observe this. Brown smoke is the multi spectral blocking smoke grenade in game, which is not given to all units but it will block IR optics. If you want a better answer you'll have to post some more specifics or a save game. What ranges? What units? What population density? What terrain?

I suggest trying to deploy troops across a map in the editor to see how they deploy on tiles of different elevation and with different facing. You can instantly place them anywhere you like, and this should give you a better idea of how they should behave when they get there in the game. The "crease" of the elevation ridgeline cuts across the centre of a tile, and on a sufficient slope, troops will deploy in a line across the ridge. So if you slow (crawl) your troops up to a tile that looks about right you can click on that waypoint before they get there then hit "target" to trace LOS from that waypoint like Erwin siad above. Its confusing because the line still traces from the unit itself, but the LOS is show as if it is from the waypoint. I understand your frustration but there is enough feedback in the game to give you a fair idea of what to expect from any given waypoint. Too much easy information on what exactly you can see from any point on the map is also a bit of a cheat. In reality you might arrive on a ridge to find you can't see what you thought you would be able to see. Admittedly seeing what you thought you would see then going further into danger is also pretty silly, but there are simple ways to avoid this.

The tech race is all important. Sending units with even one tech level lower than the enemy will mean you may have to trade three of yours for one of his. Produce money is just a set and forget, you either produce money for ever, or you come back and change it to build units.

"Produce money" is the equivalent of producing no units, better still the money can be directed to research or used to buy more food to support more units. Or maybe build some buildings (factory, shipyard etc) A massive empire can be a bit of a pain to manage, but sounds like part of your problem is getting to know all the control options. That will come in time, unfortunately Brit has not kept up so well with the documentation of all the cool new stuff that has been added. I'd rather have the cool stuff than a detailed guide, but it might make it hard for a newbie. Things like rally points, queuing up move orders that go for multiple turns can make it easier to automatically get things to the frontlines.

Interesting, I'm rather intriguesd how that would work. If I was a possum, I think the 11 rotting possum carcasses might warn me off even the sweetest bait. EDIT: http://goodnature.co.nz.s52206.gridserver.com/news/ Ok it seems I'm giving the possums too much credit. Pretty cool, not really a trap so much as an automatic head crusher.

oops, double