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Northman

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Posts posted by Northman

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. A few bugs/issues and some criticism of the third campaign mission('The Flank Guard'):

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    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.

  7. 1. The utterly incompetent AI (both TacAI and enemy overall AI, not sure what the "term" for that is). Many many missions the enemy would simply SIT there or move around a tiny bit. It was a joke. CMAK enemy AI was FAR superior (as well as the TacAI)

    So has this been resolved in 1.10/Marines?

    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.

    2. Pathfinding (this kinda goes with TacAI I guess).

    It was bad. 'Nuff said. Has this been addressed?

    There are a few issues with vehicles turning their side, or even rear, towards potential threats, but generally the pathfinding issues/bugs are gone.

    3. The interface drove me crazy. I really didn't like the way the movement sidescroll would speed up/slow down and the actual control scheme for issuing commands was super clunky (how you had to change tabs and all). Has this been fixed? (both the sidescroll/zoom thing and the actual command and control scheme)

    It's still clunky. Get used to it.

    Also I thought the campaign was kinda boring but this may have been largely due to these other 3 issues.

    The Marines campaign seems to be more challenging.

    Is the content in Marines worth it if I'm not particularly interested in just having "Marine units"? (i.e. are the missions/campaigns solid)?

    Yes.

    All this is opinion, of course.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. I know this has been reported by another player...but just wanted to add it happened to me also.

    Second mission in the campaign, I won, with 2 killed, 2 wounded and 3 missing...but more strange than that, I killed 2 enemy soldiers...and there were none left alive...so the entire enemy consisted of 2 soldiers???

    It may not be a bug :D ...but thought I'd better tell you anyway.

    In reply to that posters message, you said you'd deal with it in another thread. The other thread (or "a"nother thread) I noticed you said there had been some campaign tweaks, but for those downloading on Sunday, it wouldn't be a problem as the download would already include the updated campaign file for whatever changes you made...well I downloaded on Sunday, so if your "campaign edits" had anything to do with this issue, I don't have the fix.

    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.

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