ASL Veteran
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Posts posted by ASL Veteran
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4 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
Why not have a "Rainbow Division"? Alexander the Great was way ahead of his time.
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1 hour ago, domfluff said:
You're probably better off with the guns not being assigned to an AI group at all.
If you have a Setup zone defined for an AI group, they will try to spread themselves evenly over that zone.
If you do not have a setup zone defined, but you start them in a deployment zone, they will set up randomly in that zone.
If you start them outside a deployment zone and with no AI group setup order defined, then they will start wherever you put them in the editor.
This obviously means that their positioning won't be randomised each time the scenario is played, but it's still probably a good idea for static defences that need precise positioning, like AT guns.That's not 100% accurate
If you have a Setup zone defined for an AI group, they will try to spread themselves evenly over that zone (provided all the set up zone areas are located within the same Deployment Zone)
If you do not have a set up zone defined, but you start them in a Deployment Zone, they will remain where you set them up
If you start them outside a deployment zone then they will remain where you set them up regardless as to whether you have a setup order for them or not
The only time the AI will redeploy troops at start is if you have them assigned to an AI group, give them a Setup Order that is located within a deployment zone, and also the truppen must be within the same Deployment Zone that the setup order is located.
In other words, truppen will only redeploy within the same set up zone that you place them and will only move at start if there is also a set up order within that same deployment zone.
The main point, with regards to this thread, is that if you want your ATG ammo bearers to be next to the appropriate gun, then don't give them a setup order and set them up next to each other. Yeah, then their locations won't be randomized, but at least they will have full ammo when they fire at the enemy.
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My first thought would be whether the pixeltruppen are confused by the balcony somehow. My second thought for the buildings with no balcony would be to check the ground elevations on the map for those buildings to see if maybe they aren't on entirely flat ground.
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17 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
Here I sit in front of my screen playing CM huge scenario it is 8 am and hopefully finish it at 8pm. Age 71 living of my pension. Young people are welcome to drop in and play against me.
Well you know what they say: We all start in diapers and we all end in diapers
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7 hours ago, Sven said:
I'm not talking a few trees, but areas of woods where shots get through with extreme precision. But, like Vanir said above I guess it's just something we have to accept, even though I feel it's something Battlefront should address.
It depends on what type of tree it is. With the pine trees you can see a surprisingly far way through them, but with the other tree types not so far. It also matters if the tree is on a light forest tile, a heavy forest tile, or just a grass tile.
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IF the western allies did not declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland
IF that resulted in neutral France, Britain, and America along with no Lend Lease
Germany invades the Soviet Union in the Summer of 1940.
No German occupation forces in France, Norway, etc so the full force and resources of the German military were targeted on the Soviet Union standing alone
Italy, Romania, Finland, and Hungary all join the invasion of the Soviet Union (Mussolini wanted to help the Germans in the Soviet Union in spite of Hitler not wanting his help.)
I think that even with what we know now the Axis powers would have prevailed. The wild card in that scenario would be if the Empire of Japan still attacked the US in December of 1941, would Germany still declare war upon the US and thus likely bring Britain into the war as well (not sure what France would do in that circumstance). If so, would Germany simply defend the West Wall and send a few troops to North Africa or would substantial forces be moved west to actively fight Britain, the US, and maybe France or maybe not France.
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3 hours ago, Erwin said:
Agreed. Stalin's policies were intended to drag Russia from belong a feudal agrarian economy very much in danger of being gobbled up by western and Jape (can't say J*p without being called a racist on these forums) invasions.
You could just say Japanese. It's only five extra letters.
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10 minutes ago, Sven said:
So it seems, but why would they want a design where you can fire straight through tanks?
Because the AI can't adjust it's positioning and has very little situational awareness the game has to make what seem like ridiculous situations possible in game otherwise you could have situations where friendly vehicles are destroying friendly vehicles and I don't think anyone would be a fan of that. The Tac AI does a decent job most of the time, but the Tac AI can't evaluate the entire battlefield the way a person does. That's why.
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I don't think I've ever seen a basement big enough to fit an 88 Flak. A garage big enough to fit a Panther is larger than normal too. I have to wonder what kind of house this person had.
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I did make a few tweaks to the scenario and hopefully the new version will be released with the Steam release. I've submitted it anyway so hopefully they will grab it when the time comes. I wasn't overly concerned at first about the set up zone, although I felt it was not ideal I figured it was manageable. I think what might be happening is that many players haven't figured out their course of action by the time the main attack force arrives and thus they are basically sitting in the setup zone rather than executing their plan of attack. That's why I gave the player 15 minutes to play around with the minor recon force prior to the arrival of the main force - in the hope that the player would have a plan of action by then and the setup zone 'problem' would be minimized since the player would be on the move.
I think I've addressed the issue by planting a whole bunch of the biggest trees available in the editor - they are probably about twice as tall as the ones currently there. Even so some of the TOWs still get in there somehow, but it should be minimized to the point where it should be acceptable for most players. It does look a little funny to me, but it's all I could think to do. I also anticipated the Bradley down by the river situation and modified the American setup accordingly. It's still possible for the American player to do that, but it's an even less probable thing for someone to think to do with the way I have redeployed everything.
I also made a few minor adjustments to the American AI and reduced their combat power ever so slightly - probably not even noticeable for most players. I also made some modifications to the Soviet briefing in an effort to help steer players in the right direction if they are not familiar with Soviet equipment / capabilities or perhaps newer to the game. I increased the time by ten minutes as well.
I've had scenarios panned before so it's nothing new. You can't make as many scenarios as I have if you have a thin skin. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't. Hopefully the modifications I've made will result in fewer complaints. I typically try not to comment in scenario threads except for maybe a single post or two, but I was a little surprised and confused by some of the reactions that players were having when playing this scenario. My honest reaction was 'what the heck are these guys doing?' I'm thinking that most of the frustration was the TOW into the setup area when they can't spot what's hitting them. If you are unsure of what your course of action is and stuff is 'spontaneously combusting' I can definitely see someone getting aggravated by that. Hopefully now if a player wants to sit in the deployment zone for thirty minutes while they determine a course of action it will be safer for them to do so.
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From what I recall, the concept of the Panzer Brigade was born out of experience on the Eastern Front. It was found that the Panzer Divisions would generally operate by forming battlegroups since the distances were so vast and it was difficult to form continuous defensive lines with the limited manpower available. The motorized infantry would form a sort of 'anvil' type battle group with all the StuGs and ATG assets and they would be tasked with holding important terrain strongpoints while the tanks would form up with the armored infantry battalion to form a mobile strike force or 'hammer' which would move around to various spots and aggressively initiate combat with Soviet forces that were moving about. Someone then got the idea 'well if the mobile battlegroup is so effective, why don't we just create some new formations that are just the armored battlegroup bit and shed the motorized infantry bit.' In that way it was probably hoped that the Germans could get the most bang for the buck in terms of how their limited resources were allocated and thus they would be a sort of pocket panzer division with all the 'good bits' that formed the mobile strike force.
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Maybe we could get Ric Flair
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18 hours ago, MikeyD said:
I'm surprised nobody's brought up the entirely bedazzled T34-85 tank in the Blackpink video 'Ddu-du ddu-du' (the title is meant to represent gunfire, BTW). No Blackpink fans in your area?
The shopping bags hanging on the gun are a necessary addition to any tank that looks like that.
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No doubt the Bob Semple will make its way into this thread at some point
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If you just started the scenario then the map size is probably the driver for the file size. Number of units will be a factor as well especially if all the units are doing something - which I suspect is the case. I was going to add something else, but I'll just leave it that - don't want to ruin your game lol.
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15 hours ago, Geoff-Ludumpress said:
I've just started this as Soviet but am disappointed. Long range shooters can shoot straight into the setup zone. There is no artillery option to pin the shooting elements (artillery) until your reinforcements arrive. I doubt that a force attempting to cross into hostile territory would not have artillery or air support up front. Yes BTR can swim and navigate the forest but its just not realistic. The reinforcement come as one large drop and are automatically in LOS to enemy.
I think this scenario should be altered. My suggestions are....
- Map is great but I would change the footbridge to a wide bridge - options for the tanks
- consider a longer map edge so incoming units are not in direct LOS to pre-sighted AI.
- Full width setup zone, right to edges of map.
- reinforcement come in smaller groups e.g. 1 BTR platoon, then a tank squadron etc.
Sorry you are disappointed. Some points
It was not my intention to have the setup zone in LOS of the TOWs. That was an accident of how the map was originally blocked out. You can read about that in the designer's notes. When you block out a map in Google Earth (this is a real location btw) it isn't always possible to determine where units can see and I thought that entire edge was safe since it's behind a slight rise in the terrain. Turns out that it wasn't. The area behind the edge of the map towards the Czech border is all open farmland so extending the map wouldn't make a difference - the TOWs just shoot too far and the map was already pushing max size. It's also very difficult and awkward to extend a map after you have made it and I wasn't going to extend the map another 1000 meters east. We also didn't have a lot of time to finish these things.
The setup zone originally extended all the way across the map edge but since the TOWs hit the entire map edge except the northernmost portion it would have been even worse if the setup zone was extended. It is what it is. The TOWs don't start to spot stuff in the setup zone for several minutes and if you stick close to the trees you should be okay. Not ideal, but there wasn't much I could do about it so it is what it is. Once the map is completed the die is mostly cast.
There is no artillery with the starting force because it's supposed to be a recon force. The artillery comes with the main force because that's the attacking force. I don't see an issue with that. The air support is addressed in the briefing.
The footbridge is a footbridge because it seems like that's what it is in the actual location as far as I could tell. There was another bridge farther north but that part of the map was removed during the creation process - you can read about that in the designer's notes
The reinforcements come in one batch (actually three batches) because of the 1 hour 30 minute time limit. If they come in smaller bunches then you have less time to use them. We also have a limit of seven reinforcement groups IIRC and I had already used three of them. The time limit could have been extended, but then people see the longer time and skip it so you can't just put a crazy long time limit on everything. You have to balance what you are doing.
The river is not an obstacle for the infantry. It is only an obstacle for the tanks and the tanks are almost irrelevant to your chances for victory. There are plenty of hints and tips in this thread if you are having trouble with this scenario. After reading some of those you shouldn't have much trouble. You can also try it as the American side if you think it's too difficult as the Soviets.
I think it's pretty obvious that the main issue most have with this thing is the setup zone and, it is what it is. We didn't have a lot of time to finish these things (I barely finished it in time - many other scenarios done by others were never completed). Extending a map after it's created is very difficult and awkward and extending the map east wouldn't have made a difference since it's all open and modern weapons have range close to infinity as compared to map sizes. Maybe planting a few more trees in the area in front of the setup zone would have helped, but then it would have been more difficult to pass through those trees.
A lot of scenario design involves making decisions in the planning stages. Blocking out your map. How big do you want the map to be? Where do you want the edges to be? What can see what? Often times you are doing it by looking at the terrain in 2D in Google Earth and you can't always get a decent picture of what it looks like in 3D until you finish it, and by then it's too late. Once you finally get to the point where you have toys on the map shooting at each other it's basically too late to alter the map without a lot of work (reblocking the map in Google Earth and creating a new overlay and then putting the overlay against the completed parts of the map with all the correct distances - and it's difficult to go back to Google Earth and get the elevation exactly the same as when you first blocked out your map and made your overlay.) When the map was made I thought the entire approach from the set up zone to the mid point in the highway was safe, but when it turned out it wasn't there was nothing I could do about it. I restricted the set up zone to the area behind the trees and put most of the reinforcements there because they would be coming up the highway. If during testing more complained about the setup zone I probably could have had everything come in north behind the mountain, but then no doubt someone would be complaining and wondering why everything is coming in behind the mountain and not on the road.
I'll just put this one in my lemon pile and move on. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. There is no way to know how it will play out once it's in the wild.
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5 minutes ago, EvilTwinn said:
Capt, I'm going to have to disagree with you to some extent here. While you're certainly correct that in many such fights your artillery is going to be dragged in many directions, I don't think that's enough rationale to make this feature unrealistic. If an artillery unit was given to your direct support, or you are the brigade or even possibly division main effort, there is no reason in the world why you couldn't have artillery missions waiting for a specific go word, especially on the attack. But even on the defense, having an Final Protective Fires mission ready and waiting to go without having to have it all spotted or making a wild guess with how long it'd take for the TRP to call in would be a serious jump in capability. As it stands, FPF can't even really be modeled in CM in a useful way, and one can't go on to pre-registered attacks on enemy depth following an initial mission without extensive TRPs covering practically the entire map.
tl;dr, The fact that they often might not be realistic doesn't completely obviate the times that they are completely realistic.
I agree with this 100%. I really hate the TRPs and wish that we could pre plot sections of the map for possible fire missions, although I would probably suggest that the size of the target area be a little more standardized rather than the free form way it works now. Hopefully artillery can get a rework in the future although I doubt that it will be something that is done for CM2. We will probably need to wait for a future version of the game before something like that comes to pass if it's something possible to add.
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34 minutes ago, FogForever said:
I am down to 27 minutes left in this scenario. I suspect I will probably get some sort of victory but I would rank this one as similar to some of those really difficult Black Sea scenarios. If you stick up your head, it gets shot off.
Spoilers---
Down to 27 minutes and I still have not been able to use vehicle firepower whether tank or BTR. Every attempt has resulted in destroyed vehicles. I have managed to take out all the M60s and Bradleys with my ATGMs but one Bradley...hopefully. Also there could still be an effective M-60 somewhere. However then I discovered masses of infantry dragons and at least one dismounted TOW. I believe a minimum of 6 dragons. Far more than I would expect from a platoon of infantry. I have taken out several dragons with infantry and artillery but I am also running out of artillery. At this point, there is still at least one dragon and one dismounted TOW covering the bridge and possibly one other dragon. Mortar fire is no guarantee of a destroyed ATGM. I hit one behind a wall fairly heavily with mortar and spotted again later and not one casualty. So basically I have resigned myself to an infantry advance from the left ridges to the objective and it has to from my left. I did get an infantry platoon across the bridge but then discovered a dismounted HMG with flanking fire on the far side of the bridge. There is also an AGL which should be able to put firepower into that same area but hasn't yet. Without vehicle firepower that platoon can't neutralize that HMG or the AGL if it opens fire. I will put smoke on those two identified ATGMs and try to rush some tanks across the bridge and hopefully find some dead ground not covered by ATGMs but I don't have high hopes and time is running out. But if I can get a couple tanks across and keep them alive, even with only 15 minutes left, they could help tremendously. So the main assault will be infantry on my left and they have a lot of ground to cover and the last Bradley and possibly an M-60. This is, IMO, a high difficulty scenario and how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy a very tough challenge.
Depending upon the casualties for both sides, it's possible for the Soviet to win just by crossing the bridge. It's also possible to lose after crossing the bridge but there it is.
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11 minutes ago, AttorneyAtWar said:
Its also extremely unrealistic for a spotter to have to constantly correct a fire mission they just fired at a position, CM has many abstractions relating to artillery that aren't completely accurate. And every time you delay a fire mission for a certain amount of time you are pre-registering a fire plan, especially if you use multiple batteries that you have available.
Keep in mind the CM has multiple eras and if you are only thinking in terms of modern, then you should probably adjust your thinking because we are also talking about WW2 Soviet field artillery. A Fire Plan in the context of CM would be something that was pre planned and pre registered prior to the start of an action / scenario / battle / whatever. A Fire Plan is not 'created on the fly' by the player as he calls for FFEs during the course of a scenario. Now, if you are calling a previous FFE as a 'Fire Plan' then yeah, maybe you should be able to call another fire mission on the same target if the battery is still available because they would still have the coordinates and the spotting rounds would have been already used, but that's not a Fire Plan in the context of something like the British created prior to attacking at El Alamein. It would be helpful to use 'Fire Plan' in the context of the traditional meaning of 'Fire Plan'. In the context of CM 'Repeat' is certainly something that could be argued, but at the same time since CM has no Fire Plans then the At My Command would still not necessarily be appropriate because the battery, not being assigned to a Fire Plan, can be assumed to have other missions to perform other than waiting for a player to repeat an FFE sometime within the next hour or something. Hopefully artillery can get a rework in the future some day, but at the moment an At My Command artillery order is unlikely to be implemented sorry to say.
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15 minutes ago, AttorneyAtWar said:
I work in a brigade level TOC as a fire control specialist and I can assure you that "At My Command" is absolutely something we train with, one of the battle drills I did a few months ago involved it. Also "waiting for Fred" is extremely common for any fire mission, an FCO will always give the order to fire as far as I know, fire missions do not just go off whenever the guns are ready unless its an immediate suppression/immediate smoke mission. I understand that on a fluid battlefield you want your batteries to be flexible, but if we are talking main effort here holding a platoon of howitzers for 20 minutes is not crazy or unreasonable if the situation dictates it.
There may very well be instances within the context of an overall pre registered fire plan where the 'At My Command' order / mission might be appropriate (assuming a battle goes to plan). However, CM doesn't have any pre registered fire plans in the game and the game has no context for any sort of 'At My Command' set of orders so if you just added that order without the context of a pre registered fire plan you would be adding something to every fire mission that isn't going to be representative of reality under all circumstances.
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They should eventually toss the demo charge themselves if you just leave them to do their own thing. Targeting might actually confuse the pixeltruppen in some cases.
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Variable extra time is not dependent upon scenario size. It's strictly a function of whether or not the scenario designer added it or not. There is a small scenario in CMFB where the scenario is 15 minutes long with 15 minutes of variable time added, for example.
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6 hours ago, AttorneyAtWar said:
In the artillery world we have many different "modifiers" we can add on to a fire mission to tweak it for whatever the situation requires. One of the most common is "at my command" which is exactly how it sounds. The guns will range in on a certain spot (adjust if necessary from a spotter, if TRP or known point this shouldn't be required) and wait for the FDC's fire control officer to give the order to fire the mission. Right now in CM all we can do is add a certain amount of time until a mission starts which isn't always desirable. I figured this might be a reasonably simple change that would be a major improvement for artillery.
That would be great if a battery is solely dedicated to support your particular unit, but in the case of divisional artillery that is unlikely to be the case since multiple units may need access to that asset. If the player can just have the divisional artillery sitting around waiting for twenty minutes for the player's unit to begin the FFE then some battalion at another (off map) location might get overrun because the artillery is just sitting around waiting for Fred to finally call his fire mission in.
CM diversity update from UK MOD
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
Even funnier than that is Steve is a dead ringer for my brother in law - retired contractor / carpenter in West Virginia. Incidentally my brother in law's name is ... Steve. No I'm not making this stuff up.