SteveP

A second concern has to do with deployable weapons. Not sure what types of units are affected by this, but I notice that when I set a mortar to be undeployed, so that it can move out with its platoon right away, the AI always deploys it immediately and later undeploys to move. The result is that the mortar will frequently get out of C2 until it catches up with the platoon. I think it's possible that this behavior is intentional. If so, I just wanted to point out a drawback. Edit: Actually the behavior here isn't consistent (perhaps is different if the mortar comes in as reinforcement). And the mortar seems to stay put for a long time even if undeployed. So that is probably intentional.

This may be a bug, or I just need some education: I have been spending a little time learning about groups, map zones, orders etc. in the Editor, using one of the included scenarios has my test bed (using the Scenario Editor mode for running the scenario). It's obvious how easy it can be to handicap the AI if you aren't pretty careful will all of those things. However: the order options are Dash, Quick, Advance, Assault, Max Assault. AFAICT, none of these orders will cause the AI units to employ Move or Hunt (contrary to the manual, which implies that Advance will use these). In the case of Advance, those units that can use Assault do so, and the other units (except Mortars and perhaps other exceptions) use Quick, at about the same time. As a result, HQs and various teams such as bazookas end up at the next map zone before everyone else (unless they are killed on the way). This, I am sure, is why I have seen these units leading everyone else into the combat zone (as noted in another thread). It appears that when Assault is the order, the HQs, etc., will wait and move when things are a safer. I have not yet totally figured out how Assault and Max Assault differ, but that's for the future. In any event, I think something is wrong with the Advance order. But I am prepared to be educated.

I concluded some time ago that people who create and sell sophisticated sim games on the commercial market must have very thick skins. I admire their ability to control how they respond in some cases. I don't think I could do it.

Yes, IMHO, if the mortar crew gets a contact icon in that area, it is not gamey to order area fire there. That would be legitimate in either role you are playing, since as overall commander you could easily and quickly authorize a mission on a location already known to the firing unit. Otherwise, no contact icon, no area fire.

Absolutely. The game is designed so that you play two roles: overall commander of a force, and commander of each unit. Without that, the game mechanics could not work. You have to be able to give orders to units that may be isolated or whatever. However, when you are in the role of commanding a unit, the game does not make it easy for you to act on information you have only in your role as overall commander of the force. If people can keep in mind that these are separate roles -- not the same person in two different locations on the map -- the question of what is gamey and what is not starts to get a little clearer, I think. If you can rationalize a way for you as overall commander to communicate something to you as commander of a given unit, go for it.

Yes there is: in the one case, a commander (you) can message the tank to stop without being required to also send information on exactly the gun is located. In the other case, you have to send info on exactly where the gun is located. Using indirect fire, this takes time. In gamey area fire orders, you are able to do this instantly. If you can send area fire orders instantly, there why not argue for instant indirect fire? Why wait thru spotting rounds (since you can give pinpoint accurate directions instantly)? If the tank has a contact in that location, you can reasonably tell it to area fire on that spot, because that also is a simple, one sentence order.

But at least the way the game works means that you are confronted with the fact that you are about to do something gamey. I think that in CM1, there was nothing to give you this kind of signal. If people start to get this, they may start to think about other, less gamey ways to accomplish the objective. Which is good training, if you will. Which is why I am bothered by the instructions in the tutorial ...

Thanks. Very good answer. I think I can see where that might be a good design decision in this case, because otherwise a pre-planned barrage could unbalance the scenario. Also, the 12 minutes was OK with me. And I saw the AI make effective use of this asset even with the delay -- specifically by using adjust fire to aim at four different targets (two of which it missed due to inaccurate fire). So, once the 12 minutes had elapsed, the time to hit additional targets was pretty low. I learned something from that: find an observation point that is likely to reveal multiple targets.

OK, but what's the bottom line? There were no FOs in the scenario. So either the 105s were to be used for pre-planned (which is what I think, but not the scenario designer, it appears) or flexible use but expect 12 minutes because they are HQs. Or 12 minutes is too long even for HQs. Or what? Again, I'm not making a complaint. Just adding my experience to the OP for the benefit of anyone who might know what is reasonable to expect.

Just to add some support for the OP: I got 12 minute delays for the Allied 105s routinely playing Vierville. No FOs in the game, only HQs, but I got the same delay no matter which HQ I used. I didn't get worked up over this because my thought is that these guns should mostly be used for pre-planned. However, the scenario author did not think so, I guess, because there are no Support Target orders in the AI Plan. So, if 12 minutes is too long, then there definitely is some sort of problem in the game mechanics.

No, I think the proper analogy is that what you want is like the government sending benefit checks to someone who has not applied for them, because the government "knows" the person is unemployed. You, as commander, may "know" there is something in that location, but most of the time IRL there is no practical way to communicate that exact location to a unit that has no intelligence about that enemy itself. You can't even use map coordinates because that is not available to all the units (and maybe to none of them). There is reason why there is a delay in the "receiving" phase for indirect fire, because of the time required to communicate target location instructions to a firing unit. But you want to be able to communicate that type of instruction to any unit instantly for an area fire order. The game doesn't prevent you from doing that, but the designers have no reason to make it easy for you to do that.

Appreciate the response. I think what the tutorial is recommending is gamey. The tanks are being told to area fire to a specific location, where they have seen no one, but where the infantry units have seen a contact or possible contact. If the tank had at least a contact, I would be OK with the area fire order. Or if the location was easily communicated (e.g., "shoot at the building in front of us") I would be OK with that as well. However, I think that communicating an area fire order to a location that can't possibly be described or pinpointed over the C2 net in any rapid way is gamey.

FWIW, I totally agree with the sentiments here. So it seems like a good time to call attention to a flaw (IMHO) in the tutorial (Raff campaign) in the first scenario, where the player is instructed to clear the bocage region. In the text, the player is told to use the Shermans to area fire at locations where the tanks themselves don't see any targets. You could possibly rationalize this, but for my money I think this sends the wrong message to the troops. Just been waiting for a chance to point this out ...

I think it would have to show target lines from each individual soldier, because that is the way the game is calculating combat. That would be a lot of lines. Any targeting you order just expresses a priority and only applies to soldiers that have LOF to that target. The game design also presumes that you don't issue a lot of targeting orders -- that the TacAI is doing nearly all the targeting itself. So, presumably you should be able to keep track of what targeting you've ordered without needing target lines. If I right about all of that, I doubt that BFC is going to bring a Show All Targets option back into the game.

Glad you mentioned the difference. My testing (which was by no means scientific) was done with on-map mortars, because that was what puzzled me the most at the time. So maybe you've hit on a very important point.

I shifted from WEGO to RT because I can pause when I want. My approach to situational awareness, if I'm not sure where the next bit of action is going to occur, is to pull the camera back to a place where I can see the battlefield. From there, I can see where the bullets are flying. Also, if an icon starts flashing I know that a unit is taking casualties. I have to hesitation about hitting the Esc button in order to investigate anything that looks like it might need attention. This is a "twitch" type game. There is nothing wrong about stopping things so you can give orders. With WEGO, you get to study what happened at many times as you want. If you need to know exactly what happened and why, WEGO is the way to go.

This mystifies me because my tests indicated no relationship between where the spotting rounds landed and what happened with the FFE barrage. Quite often (small on-board mortars) the first spotting round landed right on the target. There would still be anywhere from 1-3 more spotting rounds (have no clue why the variance), and the barrage might still go wrong. The only thing that I could relate to the accuracy of the FFE was the experience of the spotter and the size of the area around the target that the spotter could see. OTOH, if the spotter needs to see a spotting round fall, why would the barrage go wrong when the first spotting round fell right on target?

I think these objectives work like the flags did in CM1. In the latter you had to have a unit of some sort near the flag at the end of the scenario. The big difference from CM1 is that the AI doesn't have some built-in imperative (other than what it is scripted to do in that scenario design) to recapture one of these objectives. So presumably you could leave just about anyone there most of the time.

I remember you writing about this type of thing before (usually with CMBB, I think ). Obviously, we aren't going to get away from the single battery shoots in CM. Possibly scenario/QB creators should be creating larger areawide Support Targets for preplanned barrages. At least, then, the AI would be doing something that is a bit more realistic. OTOH, my testing here was the result of problems directing small on-board indirect fire. And I think the problems here are mostly user error/inexperience. I think there is a possible role for the TacAI to do something if your barrage is clearly going way off target. But there may be reasons why that has to be left to the user to deal with.

Lots of good feedback here. I know what I am seeing. But I also know that I have a lot to learn about AI scripting, and that this is one of the most interesting new features of the game. So I will go back to learning and experimenting with the scripting myself and see what happens with different scripts. It does seem to me that if no one has created a comprehensive guide to scenario creation yet, there will have to be one at some point. Perhaps too many people are re-inventing the wheel. Most of all, I am pleased to learn that this is indeed something BFC has worked on.

So, I will also withdraw my speculation that this was not on the list for improvements. It's certainly possible that my reactions reflect my particular distaste for this behavior (like half the posts on this forum ). With CM1, I really thought it weakened the AI. In CMBN, I'm not so sure about this. It may be that it looks wrong more than anything else. But it isn't just a problem with scenario design or something like that. I just don't think there is yet any governing rule that keeps HQs from dashing off to the next Map Zone even if they are the only ones going there.

So perhaps the morale effect of barrages that are roughly in the vicinity is not really simmed well in the game? Because you are right that, given those parameters the "inaccurate" barrages aren't so far off the mark. Another consideration is that the game seems to treat all indirect fire the same: i.e., a small caliber mortar can be as far off as a large caliber gun. Yet the former needs to be more on target to be effective. In any event, I do think that paying some attention to the quality of the spotter really makes enough difference, so that there is no good reason to miss the target. And the AI seems to have a reasonably OK way of doing something useful with the available ammo.

For my part, it wasn't a complaint. Just a matter of understanding, especially if your previous experience was CM1. I agree, the current design is more realistic. But it did take some research to figure it out. Some people will take longer to adjust, I suspect.

OK. I will withdraw the charge pending further review. And really it was a small complaint. Overall, I am impressed with the quality of the AI, with good scenario/QB design.

One of the things that I did not like to see in CM1: when the AI was on the attack, it wasn't unusual to see the assault being led by HQs, or specialist teams, or the like. Who immediately got killed, thereby giving the AI something of a handicap for the rest of the scenario. It's also ugly to see, though playing at a high difficulty level does spare one some knowledge of this until you reconstruct things at the end. I had hoped that this problem was solved in CM2, but apparently not. Perhaps it's just not on the list.