Wreck
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Posts posted by Wreck
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Steve: if I understand what you are saying here correctly, you are pointing out that during any given LOS check the only units which count for anything are the firer and target; that is, that other units simply don't enter in to it.
That is the same understanding as I had about LOS when I proposed my idea. I want to clarify that my proposed solution for grazing does *not* assume anything other than the LOS that exists. It does use it somewhat more, which I see (from you and tom_w) may be more of a problem than I thought.
In the abstract, what I proposed was that every time a burst is fired, first angles would be checked to each enemy unit, then those within a critical angle get LOS checks. If both checks are passed, then the unit is grazed.
Contrary to what Stellar Rat said, I do not think the angle check needs to be very costly. Yes, if you want to know the exact angle between two vectors, you need to use a trig function (arccos), and sqrt, which are not cheap. But we don't need the exact angle; all we need is to know whether or not the angle is less than some particular angle.
[Note: I had a proof of this here, but this bboard does not seem to like inequality signs and so I removed it. If anyone wants it just email me.]
Summary for those that hate math: the vector math is not bad. It should be quite fast on any CPU of pentium class or better. Checking angles to all of say 100 enemy units should be a reasonable thing to do.
Also note that if one is clever, one can cut off a lot of angle checking simply by keeping track of the last angle result, and using it if neither unit has moved. The same idea would also work for LOS, and in fact is likely already implemented.
So most likely, for any given MG burst only a small subset of enemy units would need to be checked for angle, since by and large most of them would have been checked in the last burst and neither the MG nor they would have moved.The LOS check, though, appears to be more costly than I had hoped. About the only thing to say about that is, that for most circumstances the number of units within the critical arc for any given MG should be pretty small. So I am not really proposing adding that many LOS checks in the vast majority of cases. Perhaps one or two extras per average MG burst; something like that.
Whether or not that is affordable, well, that's BTS business.
[ 04-17-2001: Message edited by: Wreck ]
[ 04-17-2001: Message edited by: Wreck ]
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
... we are not confident that the CPU can handle the demands of a real deal Grazing Fire system.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I am a bit surprised by this. Certainly LOS is already being computed quite frequently during a turn resolution, right? So the LOS check cannot be *that* expensive.
Given a vector that the MG is firing, grazing can be approximated using LOS. If the MG has LOS to a unit, and the angle between the vector to that unit and the target vector is below some critical angle, the unit will be "grazed". If you wanted to get fancy about what angle to use you could factor in distance so as to decrease the fire lane's angular dimension w/ range (which is probably the right way to do it).
Obviously this fails to take into account units that are near to the fire but which the MG cannot see. But it would certainly be sufficient for the vast majority of situations. And in any case at least the more experienced soldiers would be unlikely to be affected by fire from an MG that cannot hit them, even if it does happen to be going close by.
Am I incorrect in assuming that LOS checks are happening in great multitudes during resolution?
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Abbott:
Anyone who has ever fired or been fired upon by MG's I think would disagree.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Just curious: have you been fired on by both as a means to form this opinion? Anyone else? One fellow mentioned getting a .30 fired over his head in training... did they also have 20 guys line up and pepper the berm with rifle fire?
It is certainly true that different sorts of fire sound different, and so might affect people differently. But I think on the whole this effect -- that of the sound alone, that is -- will be pretty minimal, especially for troops of higher quality.
To some degree the sound of fire is correlated to its dangerousness, since the amount of sound made is a physical effect of energitically pushing around air. But this aspect of sound-scariness should be adequately subsumed in "firepower", since that same energy is the aspect of the bullet which makes it dangerous.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
The noise alone is enough to frighten a man to the bone until he is acclimated. Small arms do notproduce the same effects.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Again, as I stated before the issue here is of "firepower", the CM abstraction. Because MGs have many times the "firepower" of rifles, they should produce many times as much of whatever effect "firepower" has. In this case, we are talking about creating fire lanes. I agreed with the original guy, who seemed to think that all small arms (i.e. things with "firepower") should create lanes. However, I pointed out that a rifle's firelane would be relatively small compared to that of an MG, so small as to be reasonably ignored.
To see the scale of this effect, consider that at 250m, an HMG42 has the firepower of ~28 riflemen. At 500m, it has the firepower of 52 riflemen. So another way to put the question, which do you think would have a greater effect: 52 riflemen blazing away at you from 500m, or a single HMG42?
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by StellarRat:
No one has proven to me why ALL small arms fire across the line of advance shouldn't have a chance to hit someone or why this should only be a magic power given to machineguns.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I don't think MGs should be qualitatively different than normal small arms in terms of most effects. Firepower, in the abstract, is firepower. However, heavy or medium MGs are quantitatively different from small arms in that they produce substantial firepower at much higher ranges. So as a practical matter it is a reasonable implementation decision to say that squad fire only affects points.
To truly compute a firelane is a nontrivial task. You want to find all the terrain that a bullet travelled over, from 1 cm to 3m, say, with variable effects based on the aspect of the infantry near the lane, whether or not they can see the MG, distance, morale, etc.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pillar:
[QB]David, Wreck,
I don't mean to intrude on your debate but I wanted to make sure you knew that neither X-00 nor I are arguing for MG's to be treated like highly accurate killing machines.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I cannot speak for David, but I am not arguing they should be accurate killing machines either. They should be inaccurate killing machines.
Seriously, the only place I would like to see their lethality increase is against exposed infantry, and that only in conjunction with a change to make exposed troops automatically slow down (reduce exposure) when fired on. In other words, my concern is that they do not suppress enemy infantry. This makes them fairly useless for area denial. That is not historical IMO.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
That said, Remember these points from X-00:
We're still primarily concerned with suppression, grazing fire, and assault speeds.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I am concerned w/ grazing fire, but BTS has said they intend to deal with it for CM2. So I have little to say until I see their implementation.
What I have not seen BTS really answer to my satisfaction, is the concern about assault speed. But this is really the same as suppression, unless you are talking about suppressing units in cover (which I am not).
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by David Aitken:
Look at a unit's information panel. At the extreme bottom right, the morale state. This starts at OK, then goes to Alerted, Cautious, and then I think Pinned and so downwards. But the box above it indicates the unit's attitude - whether it is Taking Cover or Hiding. In other words, whether it's hugging the ground because it's taking a lot of fire, or because you ordered it to. This is separate from morale.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I had not noticed this. Thanks for the information.
Of course there is a reason why I had not noticed it: that the "taking cover" result does not seem to happen nearly as often as I think it should in the open. Or perhaps the running troops do get placed into "taking cover" mode but they don't slow down. Either way, the point here is that the mode is not working as I (and I think others) expect. A squad that is "taking cover" in the open should stop, crawl, or at least slow down to a walk.
There is simply no way to run in the open, in cover.
As for what troops are trained to do, that is often dramatically different than what they do, especially against fire. Since I have been looking for machinegun pinning incidents on the web because of this thread, I happen to have just read this that I can offer:
From http://www.thehistorynet.com/WorldWarII/articles/1998/0998_text.htm :
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
I ran up onto the beach, where I found myself among others of my company and
mortar section, all of us prone on that beach and hugging its sand. The noise of the
incoming fire made voice contact almost impossible. Japanese artillery and
small-arms fire were dealing death wholesale upon the assaulting Marines and
particularly those who chose to remain on that beach.
My fellow A/1/7 comrades and I had been instructed repeatedly in our training
exercises that the beach was the last place we would want to be. The Japanese
would have it "zeroed in." After debarking from our landing craft, getting off the
beach immediately was a must. Despite such instructions, in the face of the fire
from our front and both flanks, we remained frozen to that beach with fear.
Never before or since have I experienced such fright. Yet neither I nor any of the
people around me took any steps to avoid what was bound to happen. If we
remained in that position, we would almost certainly have been killed.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by David Aitken:
Pillar wrote:
> I don't think it should have to be Green's > for a suppressive/stopping effect.
... The point is, veterans will do it, and newbies will not. Veterans will understand that machineguns are not as lethal as they seem, and will keep moving using squad-level tactics. Newbies will hug the ground and stay there.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If anything I would give vets a greater chance to go to ground almost instantly upon receiving MG fire; in fact the program should reduce their exposure% for doing so. However, as I previously mentioned (and failed to communicate to you, and thus probably others), there is a difference between this effect (suppression) and a morale effect. This effect has nothing to do with the unit's willingness to fight; it is simply the smart thing to do.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Wreck wrote:
> I think that Pillar's test is perfectly sufficient for showing the (lack of) suppressive effect that MGs had. [...] At issue is the simple question: can infantry run across open ground against MG fire? The answer in CM appears to be yes. The answer in history (some of us think) was no.
It takes a couple of seconds to line up the gun before you pull the trigger. You pick your target and line it up. Your target ducks, whether in reaction to your fire or through sound tactics.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
"Your target ducks"... this is what I think should be modelled. Slow down highly exposed troops under heavy fire. You simply cannot run full tilt while ducking. And you cannot run full tilt while crouching behind a shrubbery, unless it is a very fast shrubbery.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Elsewhere another target gets up and dashes. You line up the new target and fire. All along, you are struggling to get in any kind of effective fire while your target is exposed. All along, there are other targets moving while you try to hit the current one. This is a constant process which repeats in the space of seconds, and your targets are rapidly closing on your position.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
A reading at variance with history IMO. Look, if it were so hard to hit anything firing a veritable stream of bullets flying all over the place, then how would you expect anyone ever hit anything (or pinning down troops) with mere rifles? And yet, they did.
As for what the firepower of an MG should be at very close range, that is not the question I am concerned with.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
"Running" troops are not out for a jog. The only issue, as Steve has admitted, is that the rate of movement may be a bit too high.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Way, way too high, against fire. The rate is about as fast as a man can run carrying a load. Incidentally, those testing the CM
run rate to compare against known human rates, should do their tests with infantry on a paved road, not open, as the fairest comparison to the sort of running conditions we have in the modern world. If you have ever run over an open field (not to mention a field with the occasional shrubbery), you will know that you cannot go as fast as on a track.
As for the rate being "a bit too high" -- it is way too high IMO -- that is what my suggestion was designed to do. Men running would be slowed to walking speed, then crawling, automatically as a result of coming under fire while moving about with great exposure.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Wreck goes on at length about the lack of the ability to "take cover" as opposed to being "pinned". Sorry, but am I imagining the "Taking Cover" status in CM? Am I also imagining it when troops ordered to run across open ground, take fire, hit the ground and try to crawl to their destination? I could swear all that you're asking for is already modelled.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You are not imagining things. (That must be a relief to know.) However, neither are you using your imagination along with your WWII knowledge, regarding what I said. I was positing, and trying to explain, two different meanings for "pinned", only one of which is really implemented in CM.
The first meaning is a loss of command control over a squad, which has decided for whatever reason that self-preservation is now more important than the mission. This is the effect CM models. This effect is midway on a spectrum of morale effects. A pinned squad is getting close to the point of panic.
The second meaning for pinning is not about morale vs command control per se, but rather, smart responsiveness on the part of the squad. (I am calling this condition "suppressed", though I realize it is not the perfect label since suppression also has the meaning of "not returning much fire". Perhaps better would be "taking cover", but CM is already using this for a morale effect as you note.) By "smart responsiveness" I mean: the squad has perceived conditions about it that make it foolish to move or stand up. There are actually two such conditions typical of the WWII battlefield: being under artillery bombardment, and being under MG fire (especially presighted grazing fire). A suppressed man may be in somewhat worse command control, because he is prone: it is harder to give and get orders. But other than that he is fine -- he still has the mission in mind, is trying to follow orders, etc. He is not near to panic. He simply realizes that running (or in fact anything requiring standing up or even crouching), is a very bad idea in his current circumstance.
So, while it is true that CM does model suppression somewhat, as you note, it does so as a morale effect. You have to take a considerable amount of fire to get it, in other words; and the unit is thus close to panic. My whole point here is that while suppression and morale effects are related -- both being caused by fire, and both being mental states of sorts regarding willingness to take risk -- they are different.
Perhaps a clearer way to think about the difference is this: suppression should be the reaction of vets. When they are exposed due to movement, and artillery starts falling, or they receive what should be deadly MG fire, they instantly go to ground thereby saving themselves casualties they would otherwise take. You, the commander, would not want the men moving; in fact you should (usually) be happy they have gone to ground. Pinning, in contrast, is a condition more typical of green troops. They have taken fire, and are getting panicky, but for now are simply frozen, unable to do much. Green troops might even keep moving in an artillery barrage or across MG fire, simply because they don't know to get down (and they should take heavier casualties as a result).
I hope that makes clear what I am talking about.
[ 04-10-2001: Message edited by: Wreck ]
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REVS, I feel your pain, but this is definitely a "get used to it". Generally CM has the problem of units being able to act in ways that they almost certainly would not have, historically, due to lack of information. But there is no way in the game to allow one unit to know stuff and another, not. So your AT guns are known to the entire enemy force, even tanks that have never seen them.
The good news is, it is typically a pretty hard thing to get a tank into a position to do what you described. Your opponent has some skill.
One thing you might try, assuming you last a turn, is to order your guns to fire smoke that will block the LOS the tanks have. Of course this only lasts for a turn, but (a) you can renew it, and (
you should usually not expect a gun to last long after it is revealed anyway, especially early in a battle. -
Here is an idea I had relative to this thread, that might be useful for CM2.
It seems to me that the CM system has a fundamental problem in modelling suppression. Suppression (pinning) is modelled as a morale effect, midway between full effectiveness and routed. There are two aspect: one is the unit has long command delays; another is that it is dangerously close to shaken or panic. For infantry in cover, this works very well IMO.
However, the "pin" status reflects two different things. One is the mental status of the squad: is the commander losing control?; is it starting to think of self preservation more than the mission? The second aspect of pinning is the literal one: a pinned squad cannot move (much) because it feels compelled to hug the earth: it has to crawl, hide behind those occasional shrubberies and folds of earth, etc. I guess this is a mental effect as well, but a different one than a man on the verge of flight.
So we can see why CM pinning works fine for infantry in cover: in cover, the second meaning of pinning (hug the earth) is a natural outcome of the first (loss of command control to self preservation). In reverse, most fire is not going to be heavy enough to make men stop moving, without causing self-preservation issues to come up. Furthermore, especially in heavier cover the entire "hug the earth" aspect may not even matter, since the better forms of cover have walls, trunks, etc that make it possible to remain standing in about as much safely as lying down. And so not modelling "hug the earth" separate from morale has no effect in good cover. (And thus, since most infantry is in good cover most of the time, the CM system in general has a great "feel" to the morale system.)
For infantry out of cover, there is a problem: there is no way to model the effect of a squad feeling forced to seek cover but otherwise fine in terms of morale. That is, you cannot have a squad that is pinned without it being one step from breaking. Instead, to get to pinned status you have to move down the morale ladder in steps. For what I mean here, think of a platoon pinning down by an MG behind a low wall. They are perfectly safe where they are, and they know it -- as long as they do not stand up. There are no self preservation issues once they realize their status, but there are mobility problems.
Looked at in this light, the problem that I and others see with MGs is that what we want is for them to very quickly (a matter of seconds) pin infantry they shoot at running in open, but for that pinning not to be one step from shaken -- for it just to be the squad slowing down to take cover, and eventually be forced into hugging the earth. There may be morale effects in addition to this, of course, but maybe not.
I think the best way to model this difference in current CM, would be to allow a "hug the earth" pin effect which would simply rewrite move orders, from Run to Walk, then to Crawl, when it happens during a turn resolution. This effect should almost never happen in buildings, sometimes in woods, frequently in open. The player could then, once per minute, revise the next waypoint from Crawl to Run, and hope for the best. The effect would be bursts of running with lesser rates of movement, which is what we want. (I have seen this effect, rarely, in current CM with infantry presumably due to morale effects.)
Anyway, that's my suggestion for a fix that should be implementable without too much fuss.
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I am of the opinion that CM does not model machineguns well enough. Along with Pillar and others, I think they are generally modelled fine, with two exceptions.
First, there is grazing fire. Everyone acknowledges this as a problem, but it is also clear that fixing it will be a pretty major code upgrade. In CM2, the effect will thus be to cut down on the massed charge of infantry across a "fire lane". This will be good, in effect cutting down on the human waves somewhat. However, it will not prevent infantry from simply running through the firezone sequentially. Therefore I predict that absent further changes, the "MG problem" will still be there in CM2. (And that is the reason for continuing this ... um... discussion.) We all want CM2 to be perfect.
Second, and what the disagreement in this thread is about: the effect of MG fire on moving infantry. Pillar is clearly of the opinion, and I join him in this, that MGs should have much greater slowing effect on moving infantry. A squad simply should not be able to charge across a field into an MG. One of the problem here is that our side of things is then asked to prove a negative: find us all the instances in WWII where a commander did not charge an MG. Well, it probably happened almost continually in combat, but it would rarely if ever be documented, would it? Instead (and what you do see all the time in WWII American accounts), is units up to company size being slowed, stopped, and pinned down by MG fire. Examples of heroes charging MGs are there too, and in fact well attested I would argue exactly because they are so exceptional. Obviously, the guys who charged an MG but got ignominiously mowed down did not get written up for an award.
I think that Pillar's test is perfectly sufficient for showing the (lack of) suppressive effect that MGs had. In fact, it would be even better if he had edited the squad to remove all its ammo before the charge. So I disagree with Steve's notion that you need combined arms to fairly test MGs. At issue is the simple question: can infantry run across open ground against MG fire? The answer in CM appears to be yes. The answer in history (some of us think) was no.
The one thing I can see that should be done for testing, is multiple tests with various conditions. For a complete set of tests, here is what I would do given unlimited time:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI> Tests with and without leaders, for both the MG (combat: {no leader, +0, +1, +2}) and the running infantry (morale: {no leader, +0, +1, +2}). For the running infantry, the leaders should be +2 command and stay hidden, so as not to take or supply any fire. (16 combinations)
<LI> Tests with green, regular, and veteran units on both sides. (9 combinations)
Obviously that makes 144 tests, each of which would have to be run say 10 times to get a statistically valid sample. Nobody has time for all that. But I think the results would be interesting even with a small fraction. We might start with the most favorable situation for the MG (with +2 leader, veteran against green w/o leader), and see if one can stop a charge. Then scale back the advantages until we find the tipping point.
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why bother having guys armed with rifles and SMGs at all? Why not just give everybody a MG if they are that effective?
Of course, after WWII (and even during) this is the direction they moved: from 1 to 2 MGs per squad, and smaller squads. The reason why not everyone got one is casualties. If it takes two men to fire each MG, putting 4/squad would mean losing 1/4 your firepower after a single casualty.
Comparing anything to WWI is pure folly. It also underscores a misunderstanding of how MGs were used in combat and why they were, and were not, effective in a given situation.
From my understanding of the CM system, there is no reason why CM could *not* be used to sim WWI. I realize it is not designed perfectly for that, but I think it has enough there to sim it reasonably well. I think it is a wild overstatement to say such a thing is "pure folly".
All you need are rifle squads and MGs, and artillery. Put down lots of shellholes, lots of rough, lots of open, and lots of wire (leave some holes to sim pre-attack bombardment) across a generally flat no-man's land. Two lines of foxholes just above a sharp terrain rise can form the trenches. Separate them by maybe 500m.
So here is a serious question: if someone set up a scenario like that, giving realistic amount of MGs to each side and a realistic amount of attacking bodies on one, do you think it would realistically predict the outcome that happened repeatedly in WWI?
I don't know the answer to this question, but I am inclined to think it would not.
Do you think this would be a fair test of how MGs work in CM?
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A note for you TH junkies out there. Yes, the website is down. And that takes the java chat thingie with it. But you can connect to the IRC channel which the chat thing uses, and try to get a game going. (Right now, the only people you are likely to see are me or swamp, which is why I am posting -- to change that!)
Anyway, the server is: webmaster.ca.us.webchat.org , port 7000. Join #CMTH
Get Mirc or some other IRC client, point it there, and come get a game going.
[This message has been edited by Wreck (edited 03-29-2001).]
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I am there (alone) using Mirc. However the java thingie at TH doesn't seem to be working. Evidently it is popular.
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Bigmac, it is OK if you think Germans are not stronger. With this idea, it does not matter what the truth is about the relative strengths. Because two games are played, that evens out. At worst, the criticism of the idea should be that it results in unnecessary games being played. I don't really find that a huge problem.
In any case, your opinion places you in the minority, at least among the high-ranking TH players that I have seen opine about the issue (about half of the top ten or so).
Even if you think the allies are stronger, you can still use the idea. Just offer allies to your opponent instead of German. (But don't be surprised if you frequently get turned down!)
As for your suggestion that my belief is made in ignorance: at least with the idea I have proposed, the problem should be self-correcting. That is, I ignorantly think Germans are stronger, so I offer my lower-rated opponents Germans, and thus end up playing Allies a lot. In the long run I should therefore unlearn my ignorance -- if that is what it is.
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I have a question. I understand that the cheat for autopicks is a potential problem for email games. But I have not seen anyone clearly assert that it is also a problem in TCP games. Is it?
I would think that it would take a fair amount of time to check a particular battle to find out if it is advantageous. So if your TCP opponent takes less than a minute or two to generate the battle, you should have a pretty good notion that it is fair.
If this is so, then autopick should still be usable for TCP games. Email players might get together to start their game via TCP, then take it to the mail after the setup or first turn is done.
Anyone knowing more care to comment?
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Nabla, my system also runs at 100% load when the game is active. And that regardless of being on the opening screen doing nothing. When minimized, though, load is as I expect... 5% or so.
Methinks it is a bug.
To those in this thread getting crashes only when playing CM: that should not be happening regardless of the fact that CM is hogging the processor. If it is heat-related, you need either (a) a lower wattage processor, (
a better heatsink/fan, or © better case ventilation. -
KiwiJoe: yes, the Germans are better side to play. It is possible, I think, to at least reduce their advantage by careful choice of scenario parameters. But generally, they have some unmatched bargains in each arm:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
Pure SMG infantry
Leaders to spare
Cheap effective guns
Jpz IV/70, Panther
The allies have bargains too. But they don't get the Volks and they are always tight on leaders.
Incidentally, I recommend playing in Oct 44 or before, with player agreement to select in setup the two forces to be used. This does result in the allies not being able to use British glider troops with American SP guns and Brit tanks. But it also gets rid of the German SMG horde, for the most part, and it much more realistic to boot. (Yes I know there were times when all sorts of unusual combos happened, but 90% of the time they didn't.)
Martin: I don't know that the German advantage level is 10%, though after Nov '44 I would guess that it is. Your suggested fixes are ways to deal with the problem, but I think they while they are superior in many ways, they require more explaining and agreement about the facts of unit costs than my method.
The best way for the problem to be dealt with, of course, is for the unit costs to be twiddled in the next patch. Of course BTS are not omniscient, so it is unlikely they will get it perfect. So this sort of discussing will still be going on, albeit hopefully at a reduced level.
Also, I might note there can be differences of opinion as to which side is stronger (perhaps in combo with certain params). My method is (obviously) fair regardless of conditions. Any method relying on mortal man to properly set prices and/or choose params is not.
BTW, I read Jason's thing and agree that pricing up SMGs a little is a good idea, as well as putting an extra one or two into allied units. The exact details are, of course, hard to be confident of. In the absence of further inquiry, I proxy my vote to Jason.
As for playing both sides: I see a lot of top players at TH getting very intimate with the Germans, but not the allies. It is true that this proposal ends up w/ good players playing allies a lot. (My last seven games have been as Americans.) That's OK; I won't forget how to play Germans. And for that matter, I am sure you can fairly easily find a good German player at TH, any time you want to get spanked.
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Here's an idea I have been using a bit to make TH more even wrt German/Allies balance.
When you start a game, offer the opponent Germans if he is lower rated than you. Then (regardless of the outcome), the loser may challenge the winner to a repeat engagement using the same QB params, reversing only the sides played. Of course the repeat may take a while to happen, but in time things should even out.
One nice thing about this system is, you do not have to explain it to newbies to use it. Just check the rating before playing, and offer them Germans (typically). If they lose, which is probable, a repeat is not needed since they will certainly lose w/ allies.
The best part of this system, though, is that (if it gets used) it prevents any highly rated player from getting there using only the Germans.
I hereby extend this offer to all comers.
Abbott: if we ever do finish our game (I will not forget, BTW), then at least you have the consolation of a repeat engagement to try to recover some points. Meanwhile, I wonder to see your victory total mount. What about finishing with me?
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I saw four pages of groundless arguments and vitriol, where was the
explaining?
Mr Cawley was trying to explain almost every post what he had said, in his original post, directly in answer to a query.
When I first saw his 20% figure, I thought it was ridiculously high; however, after letting it slide, I later read the followup explanation after it was challenged for the wrong reason. As Mr Cawley says, given the other four still unchallenged assertions as to factors that were more important than snipers, it follows mathematically. Most importantly it answers the question that Cawley was responding to.
Mr Cawley's several critics did not grasp his perfectly sound and simple argument about inequalities. Hence tragedy. Both sides deserve blame in using incendiary language and condescension. However, given that Mr Cawley was right and his critics wrong, he should be absolved.
However, that still does not prevent him from looking foolish for arguing at great length over relatively trivial matters. I think perhaps he does not have sufficient faith in the average reader of this board to be able to interpret what is argued. Or perhaps he cares too much for our good opinion.
On the other hand, they are his keystrokes to waste (if that's what it is). More power to him. Someone posted earlier about earning respect; Cawley has mine based on solid analysis and the generousity to write it up at great length (which is not easy) and post it here for us. That's a much bigger contribution to a community than sniping about things which shouldn't be quantified.
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I am with you, Homba. It is a small thing typically, but OTOH should also be very easy to improve.
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Deadmarsh: in answer to your original question. I have some experience at TH now, including playing some "technicians" (and copying their strategy).
The use of the tanks w/ big armor is caused by two factors. One is in dealing w/ other tanks, and has been talked about here. But the other has not been mentioned yet: it is in dealing with guns. Using completely vanilla settings for a quick battle, what you tend to get is a map where both sides can, in their setup positions, see most of the map. (Raising the hills to modest helps, a bit, with this, but not always nor much.) And they also tend to have plenty of cover in the setup so that it is impractical to shell all of it or even have a reasonable idea of where a gun will be.
In a situation where you can buy a 75mm pak for about 1/2 of a decent tank, and it can often cover a good portion of the board, and you can only buy so much armor anyway, armor has a tough existence. The partial solution to this problem is (a) massive armor (to get enough time to at least back away from Yet Another Gun), and (
rarely moving AFVs much on the battlefield. To deal w/ a lot of the gaminess at least as it exists at TH, I would suggest trying heavy woods. The idea is to cut down on the lines of sight from the setup positions. If that can be achieved, then at least a large portion of the impetus to super tanks will be removed. If tanks actually have to manuever a bit before coming into danger, we may see some manuevering.
A second way to deal with it, might be to remove trees, so that the setup hillsides are bare enough that there are few places for guns to hide. With hills and buildings to maneuver behind, this might work
Incidentally I am not too sure about the merits of villiage vs other terrains are. Villiages tend to have light buildings which are potentially death traps for infantry, again putting a premium on large guns. I would suggest that something more rural might be what you want.
However, this still would not result in historical tank mixes. But at least the "wall of guns" would be dealt with.
[This message has been edited by Wreck (edited 03-22-2001).]
you should usually not expect a gun to last long after it is revealed anyway, especially early in a battle.
MG team recommendation
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:
If you guys think it is hard to impliment the effects of grazing fire once the direction is settled, wait until you get to the AI, and get to try to backsolve the expected results
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Simple. I don't expect that. As I said in my post, this is not a perfect simulation. It is an implementation of grazing that is good enough that at least some of the time it will produce more firelane-like results. But primarily it is good because it is computationally light.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
for the tac AI [solving that problem] is ridiculous.
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Well then, let's not try to have the AI solve it. Since it does not do so now, in fact all we need to do, is nothing. Making no change -- BTS definitely has time to do that.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
And unneeded, because the real problem with the way rushes happen now is a cover effect, not a fire-lane effect, and the role of firelanes can be abstractly and on-average included in the solution.
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I agree that the problem is a cover effect. I proposed a solution myself in the previous thread, easily implementable: just downgrade the move status of units under exposed fire, with the idea that they are trying to get less exposed. This is, IMO, realistic.
However, there is a separate problem (that of the firelane), which IMO is not gonna be solved in approximation by point fire. And I do not think grazing fire is small enough to wave away with abstract, on-average coverage.
I entered the thread to help BTS with firelanes, which they are already going to try to do. Do they need any help? I don't know. Clearly they have an uberhacker on staff, which is good, but even the best don't always think of everything.
As for your solution I don't see it really slowing troops down (except via morale effects), so I don't think it is all there is to say. I certainly don't want to micromanage my rushes across an open field (bursts of running with crawling mixed in to get my exposure down). I want my troops to do that automatically, perhaps even sometimes against my will.