tank_41

I will bet my $1 bill here that within 6 months, we will start to see many CM clones on the market. Both traditional turn-based and real-time based game makers are looking very hard at the success of CM and wonder what they have to do to catch up with the new standard set by CM.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jarmo: It's still the best wargame around. Until CM2. I assume, many of the problems will have to wait until that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Jarmo, I completely agree on this. Although I have posted many negative things on CM, I personally emailed a thank you letter to BTS to thank and congradulate them on this piece of art

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Preacher: Question: What result do you expect when 4 PzIVs stumble into an ambush by 4 Sherman 76s? Similarly, what result do you expect when a Tiger drives in between 2 ambushing Shermans at close range? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Good question! Then what result do you expect when a stuart stumble into an ambush by 1 Tiger at close range? However, why can Stuart choose to back-off and retreat while Tiger has to be doomed. BTW, I am using the example where the first shoot from these ambushing units missed. During the time of reloading, I think Tiger should have plenty of time to decide its course. In terms of PzIVHs and Shermans shoot out, if you tries it, you see they exchange rounds 2 to three times. Again, plenty of time to decide to back off. [This message has been edited by tank_41 (edited 07-26-2000).]

I decide to start a new topic on this, because as you read on, you will see that I am bringing up a new topic although it is related to my original post "AI cheat in CM". First, let me say that after numerous testing, I have to change my mind and agree with most people here that computer does not cheat in TacAI. So, sorry for all the confusions I created. However, the testing does reveal many drawbacks in CM's TacAI system and these drawbacks are part of the reasons that led me initially think computer is cheating, which I will explain in the end of this post Before I go on, I want to say one thing: Please dont flame. These are merely some suggestions that could potentially make CM better. Now, into the topic (BTW, I am gonna talk about tank only as I dont test infantry that much) I think that the TacAI system depends too much on the static part of unit, and fails to bring in the dynamic flavor of the battlefield. Here is what I mean by static part, for example, a stuart vs Tiger, or a Sherman 75 vs Panther, or a PzIH vs a Pershin, etc. In all these examples, the decision is pretty much clear most of the time (unless of course, your stuart catchs a Tiger in its rear). However, when dealing with dynamic of the battlefield, the TacAI system needs lots of improvement. Here are three typical scenarios: 1 Shouldn't strong units (whiling facing weaker opponenets) also consider retreating in some case? On one of my experiments, I have 2 Shermans 75 ambusing along a road side (with 1 on each side) 100m away from the road. I put an Elite Tiger close enough, but outside of the LOS of the shermans at the beginning of the turn. This setting makes sure that Tiger moves into ambush point unprepared. I tried this setting 5 times both from human and computer, and never seen Tiger back off after get ambushed. It turns the turret and trying to pick off the Shermans but the attack from both left and right side side are just too much for it. Someone may argue that TacAI may not have enough time to react, but in this case, sherman's first shoots are either missing or bouncing off, and should give Tiger pretty of time to react. What I am trying to say here is that yes, Tiger is much stronger unit than Shermans. But at the close range, with attack from both side, and with a much slower turret, shouldn't Tiger consider to back off first? 2 Shouldn't equal units also consider retreating sometimes? I tried the setting I described yesterday, that is, having four PzIVHs moving along the road, and 4 Sherman 76s ambusing from left side (about 250M away). This setting is different than the previous one because you have eqaul amount of tanks in both side with similar performance (PzIVH is slightly better), and ambusing is from one side only. In this case, all computer and human controlled units would turn to their left and engage the Shermans. The result, 90% of the time, all PzIVHs are wipped out. Sherman's loss is usally 1 or 2, and sometimes none. I tried this setting with PzIV on the ambushing side, and had the similar result, ie, Shermans would turn turrets to enagage and get wiped out. My point here is: Yes, PzIVH should not be afraid of Sherman. But after the first and second PzIVHs were sent into flame, shouldn't the rest two decide maybe retreating is the only alternative at the moment? 3 I haven't tried this but I have seen it before, and some other people also posted this: Shoudn't a gun damaged unit take a more precautious decision on the battlefield? A Panther with its gun damaged is vulunrable to even a Stuart. But when was the last time you see this Panther firing a smoke and retreat? So, I think the TacAI system in CM is somehow pre-calculated like A retreat when facing B, and not vice-versa, etc. I hope it could be improved to a more dynamic one and make better judgement. Finally, I think the reason I initially though computer was cheating is simple: while playing Germans, with this pre-calculated TacAI, you would hardly see any retreat movement from German Panzers. Even a PZIVH is not afraid of the enemy (on a static sense) most of the time (The only exception is perhapes Pershing?), why would a Tiger, Panther, and KingTiger? But from my part, I have seen many situations where I think my tanks should take a more evasive move (sort of like those "weaker" Ameicans tanks), but instead they take a stand and fight course. So, that gives me a wrong impression. [This message has been edited by tank_41 (edited 07-26-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn: "1 So, when you say "they faced 4 Shermans" that simply isn't telling us enough. Were those Shermans Sherman 75s OR were they Sherman Jumbos. I suggest you try this same test with two US forces. One force will be Sherman 75s ( the AI Pz IVs will stand and fight). You simply aren't conducting the tests properly IMO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> They are Shreman 75s. OK, I am willing to try it again, and this time I will set up a scenario myself like this: I will put 4 PzVHs on a road with Victory Point right in front of them about 1Km away. I am going to put bocage along both road sides so that PzVHs have no other way but going straight forward. I will put a hill 300 M away to the left side of the road and park 4 sherman 75s on the reverse side of the hill at the start of the turn and put a vitory flag just right on the other side of the hill so that Shermans would move to the top of the hill and happens to see the PvIH collumn down the hill on the road. The idea of this set up is that, prior to the start of a turn, whoever controlls PvIHs has NO IDEA ABOUT the presence of the Sherman 75s, and I would assume the natural movement order AT THE START of the turn can be nothing but a hunt or move order. Let's assume it's hunt mode. This way, we can test how TacAI reacts given the SAME EXACT ORDER at the beginning of a turn. I will try both side for at least 10 times and issue a report later. Any suggestions or comments about this experiment? [This message has been edited by tank_41 (edited 07-25-2000).] [This message has been edited by tank_41 (edited 07-25-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Blackhorse: Guys, Play the game against an experienced human via email, and you'll see the exact same behaviors... It's pretty cheesy to blame your inexperience on the AI's cheating. Just because you may not know "how" to give orders in the best way yet does NOT mean the program cheats.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Blackhorse: I may be new to this thread, but I have been playing wargames for almost 10 years. I have played almost all WWII related computer games: WIR, COS, TOAW, TacOps, etc you name it. I may not be that familiar with CM's sophiticated system in detail, but I am not that stupid to just issue a fast ordering movement to my Tiger into the smoke and charging onto the VB. When I played CC on the internet, I beat my human opponents 8 of 10 times. Now, after reading some other posts yesterday and I went back and did some further experiments and I found that: 1 While playing like Americans, my tank does start to back off or fire smoke for about 50% of the time. So, it does seem that TacAI takes into consideration of weak vs strong tank issue. However, the tactical movement of my Allied tanks is still far less intelligent than that of computer controlled ones. I have seen many many times that a computer controlled shermans to fire a smoke, disppear off LOS, AND REAPPEAR, fire a shot, and then disappear again. Yet, I rarely see this kind of sophicated movement by my tanks unless I specifically order them to do so. 2 I also played German with some PzIVH. In this case, the firing smoke and retreat type of movement is even less likely to occur. In one specific scenario, a PzIVH platoon (4 of them) were caught by 3 to 4 shermans from the left side from about 400m away, all my PzIVH were in hunt mode and unbuttoned. I tired this setting 10 times, and only three times I saw 2 PzIVHs retreat back off from the LOS, all other time, they were trying to turn its turret and engage the enemy. Of all the engagement that occured, 70% of the time PzVHs lost the battle. I think the computer controlled PzIVHs under same situation might have back off much more often. I really suggest you guys to really go ahead and set up some situation like what I described above and try for yourself.

ALERT! SPOIL INSIDE! I dont buy this experience level much. Here is a perfect example in VBT scenario and I urge everyone here to try it: In about the 2nd or 3rd turn into this scenario, you should be able to move Wittman, argulably one of the best tank commanders in WWII, into the outskirt of the town. Most likely, enemy tanks have laid down the smoke and hide outside of your LOS. Do this experiement, order your Wittman move directly through the smoke so that it faces numbers of enemy tanks all of the sudden, I am willing to bet my money here (as I tried many time myself) that Wittman would never back off into the smoke to avoid exchanging fire with 3 to 5 tanks at the same time. The end result is mostly likely a dead Tiger on the road On the other hand, about into the 10th turn into the scenario, German would get 3 Tigers and a PzIVH, and Brits getting a bunch of Shermans plus a few deadly FireFlies. If you park you Tigers right under the victory flag, they will go on and exchange fires with Shermans and FireFlies. Note now that computer-controlled FireFlies would lay smoke, hide, and reappear back to shoot at your Tigers. At this very scenario, the tactical reaction from one of the best tank commanders at the time (Wittman) can not even match up against a few panic brits 3rd rated crews. [This message has been edited by tank_41 (edited 07-24-2000).]

"A lot depends on the quality of your crew. What was this particular tank crew's quality?" Like I said, it is not just one incidence. But since I play German most of the time, I assume they are mostly regular to elite tank crews. I haven't play Americans that much. Could it be possible that the TacAI for German panzers is less flexible than that for Americans?

KillMore and others: I know my infantry troops often seek covers under heavy fire (controlled obviously by TacAI, which is great), but.... I seldomly see my tank doing this. 99% of the time, my tank would turn over its turret and react to the threat by firing back (we assume the first shoot by enemy missed), and it hardly ever thinks that perhaps retreat is a better alternative.

I know there is a TacAI in the system, but how come my tank never back off from the threat? Does computer-controlled AI have a more sophisticated TacAI than human player's? Also, the situation I described does not just show up in the street fighting. I have seen enemy tanks, for countless times, disappearing from my LOS and hiding into houses, trees, hills, etc while fired upon, but never seen my tanks taking the similar action. Somehow, I just feel the TacAI in my side is so much dumber than computer's.

After playing 15 or so scenarios in CM, I now come to the conclusion that the computer AI does cheat and the cheating gives computer AI an unfair advantage over human players. We all know that CM breaks the ground in terms of mixing up the real-time and turn based style of playing. Each turn represents a mere 60 seconds real time. You issue the command before the turn and you can watch the action via various movie play back options. Sounds great! But I found that the computer AI does not just issue the command at the beginning of each turn, but also modify the movement, fire order, etc for each unit based on what happened during the turn. Here is a typical example to demonstrate this I was in a street fight, and put one of my Tigers in a T section street, with its gun pointing at the intersection, hoping to ambush any enemy tanks passing by. Now, a sherman controlled by AI did show up, offering my Tiger a great side kill opp. However, the first shoot by the Tiger missed. To my amazement, the sherman immediately backed off and disappeared from my LOS. Has anyone followed me so far? The point is that the computer AI realized that, during the play of the turn, it was attacked from the side, and issued the order to back off to a safe play (out of my LOS). This has to be a inter-turn decision as the AI has no way of knowing the presence of my Tiger prior to the start of the turn, when it makes the movement plot. Dont tell me that AI is smart enough to enter a move order immediately followed by a reverse order just to scout the area. I have played this situation many times and I can see AI doing this only at the intersection where it got ambushed. On the other hand, if the Sherman were in my side, and I ordered it to enter an ambushed area, the best it would ever do is to turn it turret and hope to have a chance to fire back, but never back off. tank

ACTOR, I ordered my copy the next day I played demo. This is a dream coming true. If they can further improve the 3D graphics, I can even make a "saving priavte ryan II" out of this and break the weekends box office

Hi As suggested by some of you, I went back and id a search on this AI targeting issue (ie, a tank may choose to target some infantry 1000m awasy while there is a known yet out of sight tank 300m ahead). I want to suggest a very simple scheme to fix this problem. And as you can see, this is a solution already being used by many other wargames while dealing with opp fire. Why dont we set a range option three type of targets: Hard, Soft, and AT. For example, I can tell my tank commander to look for Hard target in the range upto 2km, and AT target in the range upto 120m, and soft target in the range upto 50m. Now say you are on defense, you normally would have your infantry in front, digging nto the defensive positions, and 1 or 2 tanks falling behind as support. In this case, as a commander, once you know the direction from which the enemy's tank group might come, it is almost always the right decision to tell your tank crews to forget about enemy nfantry and only search for Hard target (your nfantry in the front line could take care of enemy infantry). We should have a global option for all unit and the ability to fine tune on each individaul basis. If this is too much of work for every type of unit to have such an option, we need it at least for the tanks. 2 On offensive: Here your

Sorry if this topic has been addressed in the past. I recently started to play the demo version and the game is awesome! however, I do find one thing very annoying: It seems to me that I can't not order my tank crews to stop engaging enemy infantry with its main gun. Consider this scenario: A German panther was seen 500m away. To engage it head on seemed like a sucide. I decided to frank it with my Sherman while sending some other infantry to draw panther 's attention to other direction. Everything worked just as I planned. However, just as my sherman got close to Panther's frank, it discoverd a very German soliders. At this time, the soliders were in LOS of my Sherman, while Panther was not (although it was about to as my sherman was driving towards it). At this critical point, my sherman turned its turret into the German infantry, away from Panther's direction, and shot HE round. In the meantime, the sherman kept driving towards Panther's frank And you can guess the rest, by the time Panther lied in my LOS, the sherman turrent still pointed to those infantry, and at a 180 degree away from the Panther. Because both tanks sae each other, they started to turn the turret towards each other. But, Panther only needed to turn 90 degree to engage my sherman, while my sherman had to turn 180 degree. Naturally, Panther got the first shot and my sherman was toasted. A brilliant tactics ended up with nothing just because my Sherman tried to engage infantry right before the critical point. This brings up my question: Is there any way that I can force my tank crew to never engage infantry with its main-gun? If yes, how do I do it? If not, this is a MUST-HAVE in the next patch.