Northman

And the cyclic behaviour is there to simulate confusion. You just don't get it, Mingan.

My idea is to have a more dynamic battlefield where soldiers fight over ground without necessarily obliterating themselves. One, simple way to get the game in that direction would be reversed AI group paths.

It's not about panicking/fleeing, but retreating - planned or not. This is currently not modeled in the game. "When the main attack is coming, then for the defender there exists no retreat" I don't know why anyone would make such a blanket statement. Much of WW2 combat revolved around carefully planned attacks to push the enemy back. Making him flee in disarray would be a great success - trapping/encircling him even greater. Complete obliteration? Rarely. In a modern setting, I would think the possibility of retreating was smaller, since weapons have longer ranges and the chance of heavy munitions ending the day before a reaction can take place is bigger.

It's been mentioned before multiple times, both here and at other forums.

What a social darwinistic approach. I bet you prefer playing as the Germans.

I would like to see a more dynamic battlefield that simulates the push/retreat mechanisms of a real tactical battlefield. Right now it's simply about killing stationary targets, and the casuality rates have, to put it bluntly, nothing to do with reality. To achieve that, you would need a better strategical AI. A good start would be to allow AI groups to retreat along the same path they are scripted to advance. You could set a certain threshold for how much incoming fire/casualties/morale drop the group could take before halting and then another threshold for retreating. The group would then retreat back to the previous waypoint and face the current waypoint. When that is in place, weapon accuracy and effectiveness could be reduced to more realistic values. The game would then require a greater deal of maneuvering - not just frantic placing of target orders. You could have realistic probing missions and allow the scenario designer to script delaying actions. I think the expanded victory conditions/objectives which were added in CMx2 have great potential, but they are rarely used. The game is usually just about killing/racing to capture the flag, like CMx1.

There's also an issue with small clouds of smoke/dust very close to the target tank(from the gun firing possibly) temporarily cutting off LOS. In that case LOS should be regained immediately and the AI should fire 1 round(at least) through the smoke. Or possibly discard small dust/smoke clouds altogether.

I think tanks should be somewhat better at spotting in general, but the problem seems to be that tanks are unable to concentrate on a specific spot and thus utilize their zooming capability. Instead tanks seem to have simply a "general awereness" ability, which is very poor. You can put a cover arc on a window and the tank will not spot anything in that window, while infantry will. It should be the opposite.

I'm having the exact same problem playing the Niscemi mission in the demo, except I play as the Germans.

This might also explain the AIs magical ability to hit you with mortars out of the blue, with no spotters or target rps nearby.

Mortars will also continue to fire on targets that are out of LOS after the mortar is moved, as long as the target order is not cancelled.

I'm using Vein's mods, all of which are highly recommended btw.

Are individual soldiers too insensitive to incoming fire? That is, do they take too long to go from 'spotting/firing' status to 'covering'? Here is an example to illustrate: A scout team with rifles spots an enemy HMG. They open fire and kill one man, and then the MG opens fire, releasing an enormous amount of fire directly on them at short range. It is able to do so for FIVE seconds before one of the scouts decides to seek cover. Shouldn't they go prone rather quickly in that situation? (note that I don't object to one of them being killed by fire coming from a different direction) I've noticed that they take even longer to hit the ground when they are reloading their weapons in these kinds of situations.

Ah, thanks for the info. Must've been something else that killed them then. I thought it was odd, because the timing was perfect with when the HQ unit to the right fired.

Is friendly fire now in? I seem to faintly recall reading it was not...

Ah, I see. Thank you for digging that one up for me, Chops.

Question 1: Do flavor objects provide any cover and concealment, or are they simple eye candy? Question 2: If they do, is this cover and/or concealment abstracted, or do soldiers have to be in the right position in the given tile to take advantage of it? My apologies if this has been asked before - I could not find anything through searching.

Earth calling...

The same thing happened to me - with the new campaign.

A few bugs/issues and some criticism of the third campaign mission('The Flank Guard'): **** SPOILER ALERT **** . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Victory conditions. I almost completely annihilated the attacking force, yet I only achieved a 'Tactical Victory' because the Syrians gained points for "breaking through". Obviously, "breaking through" achieves little when you are dead one minute later. The amount of VPs given for killing the entire opposing force should almost always be higher than what is given to the enemy for other objectives! 2. Problem with Syrians not dismounting from their BTR's. One of the BTR's drove all the way over to my part of the valley and stayed there for several turns without dismounting its troops(they dismounted when I opened fire on it). 3. The briefing said I had cobras at my disposal. No cobras appeared. Should they have been included? 4. The enemy reinforcements spawn too close to where the fighting is. If one decides to attack(a very bad idea, but still), one might end up right in the middle of the enemy spawn zone.

The StratAI still sucks, to be plain. It is still the same, simple pre-scripted system with very limited options(the AI still can't use the 'hunt' command, for instance - they always run(perhaps this is why quick/fast work as they do...)). The TacAI is a whole different case. There have been numerous improvements here. Nearly as good as CMAK's I would say, though they do not compare well in many areas because of the 1:1 modeling SF has. Soldiers fire on the move, seek cover better and generally react better and quicker to threats/incoming fire. Huge improvement from 1.0. There are a few issues with vehicles turning their side, or even rear, towards potential threats, but generally the pathfinding issues/bugs are gone. It's still clunky. Get used to it. The Marines campaign seems to be more challenging. Yes. All this is opinion, of course.

Another LOS oddity. My men can spot the enemy rifle squad, but they do not have LOS: http://www.filedump.net/dumped/losbug51222654366.JPG

Okay, I'm beginning to think there is something seriously bugged with the LOS code in connection with walls and ridges. I keep seeing this stuff every time I look. http://www.filedump.net/dumped/losbug41222652203.JPG They haven't even got LOS to higher elevations, let alone the areas below. EDIT: Packing up the weapon seems to improve the LOS. With the weapon packed up, they have LOS from higher elevations and almost down to areas with the same elevation. Nothing can be seen below.

There is an issue with unit flags(i.e. the question marks). They disappear when the unit is destroyed, even if the unit remains unspotted. Consequently, you will always know when an area has been cleared of previously spotted units. Example: Intelligence shows there are enemies here: http://www.filedump.net/dumped/unitflagissue1222644426.jpg A few rounds on target, and those units which were spotted can now safely be assumed to be destroyed: http://www.filedump.net/dumped/unitflagissue21222644445.jpg NOTE: When the unit in question has been spotted by beforehand intelligence, then every soldier in that unit has been spotted, as far as I can tell, which means you can be certain that every man has been wiped out when the question mark goes away. A quite serious issue, in other words.

I'm about ten turns into the second mission, with the campaign fix, and when I request a cease-fire, I get a victory with 7 dead syrians and 8 alive... I think I'll skip this one.