A Canadian Cat

Oh man that does suck. Driving while giddy I'd say you did not learn your lesson but since you never let it happen again I suspect you actually did. LOL brilliant.

I have managed to run out of petrol twice in my 30+ years of driving. Once when I was trying to break my personal record for distance travelled on one tank (yeah I know, I'm a dummy - I was on my way to the filling station and only had to walk two or three blocks). The other time was after finding out my wife was pregnant and I was not paying much attention to anything (yeah I know big dummy).

LOL great idea - no saving the game as you go then...

Kidding aside the game does not support any real modding (there is no changing the behaviour and properties of units in the game). It only supports skinning (there is changing of the way units and the UI look). We are a confusing bunch because we use the term modding all over this forum we it really means skinning. @JoMc67's suggestion of using immobilization to simulate fuel may have been tongue in cheek or not but it does not really do what I expect you want which is to have a limited amount of movement available vehicles. Setting a vehicle to immobile will mean it cannot move for the duration of the scenario. So you can simulate a unit that has already run out of fuel but you cannot simulate vehicles running out during the scenario.

Cool. That is great to hear. Sounds like you did pretty well. During testing the Germans did not do well very often. As you said this is based on historical events and the German commanders did very poorly in their first two attempts to assault the hill (this scenario depicts the first attempt). The US AI does actually have some smarts so if you did manage to get close on one side of the hill forces form the other side will shift positions to shore up the side where the Germans are attacking.

Yep, they fire at the centre of mass of what is visible of the enemy tank.

I do have a recollection of someone posting about a rear facing .50cal firing on an infantry target. The crew will *not* stand on the back deck and fire the .50cal forward. They should fire it backwards if a threat appears there (and they notice it). These paper thin open top TDs do not do well when infantry get that close especially from the rear so I'm not sure how long your TD will last during testing unless you keep the test infantry from firing at the TD just to see what happens.

Perhaps it is time to create a test and generate some stats. Take a crack at it and share your test setup and results. Don't do too many runs right away just get some feedback on the test methodology first.

Very cool. Only seeing this now because, well Canada day.

Everyone. My "favourite" story is one time a grenade thrower was winding up to throw and got hit. He and the grenade dropped in the middle of the team and took out two other guys.

I see that you find it arbitrary and I guess it is. No comment about sex I just want to see that Tac AI do more of the low level squad commander type work so I can spend more time being the platoon through battalion commander. That would make fights against the AI better too. Adding more control for us does not make the overall game better even if it would make some people happier, including me from time to time.

Cool. Good detective work. PS friendly hand grenades are always dangerous to your own side.

Oh cool. I never knew that. How did you stumble ok on that discovery?

Sounds like we found more people who are ok with more commands and choices in the UI. That is great. I didn't mean to start a whole discussion about that but that is ok too. My main point is that giving more commands to us only solves our frustrations it does not make the game better. Yes, I know *you* would feel like it is better. The issue is the Tac AI needs to make those decisions not us. That would make the game better. The discussion about too many commands is a red herring. If the Tac AI cannot decide between using the ATM and the pea shooter or between going prone and kneeling and we give control to us we actually make the game worse. We players already have lots of advantages over the AI, giving us more is not the solution IMHO. We need the Tac AI to learn to fire on ? contacts, move more when loosing the fire fight, notice spotting rounds and react, make better decisions about posture so they can see and make better weapons choices when there is more than two options available (just a list of highlights off the top of my head). That would make the game better. In short adding commands is a bandaid that would make us feel better but I would consider would actually make the game worse.

@Anthony P. has the answer. We players have issues with the Tac AI's choice of ammo now and then. In the Modern game it is more frequent since there are more choices for the same unit. In the WW2 titles there is very little complaint about ammo choice but it occurs much more frequently in CMBS. This has been hashed around a lot. BFC has stated their preference for improving the decisions the Tac AI make for two reasons: 1) that way the AI player gets the same improvement and 2) to keep the number of commands down to control the amount of micro managing needed. Nearly every one agrees that #1 is a good goal - we all want the AI to be better. There is lots of is agreement about #2 though. There are plenty of people who vocally say they want more control.

LOL old, yeah, it's true. I'm getting up there. Wise not so sure. I had a hair cut today. It was a astounding to see so much grey hair. It has happened so fast too.

Ah got it. I'll try and look out for small arms damage. I suppose someone could do some testing about the rate of gun hits. It will not be me though since I just don't see it happening with a frequency that concerns me. I will say that I do see gun damage more frequently with tanks that survive longer. For example if a panther has been pounded 20 plus times that is a lot more chances to end up with a damaged gun than a Sherman that goes down after two or three hits. Plus that panther is much more likely to be still driving around than the Sherman will.

Words of a wise man. I'll skip the part about being old

You are seeing small arms fire damaging optics easily and on a regular basis? I admit to not tracking this closely but I do not re call ever seeing small arms fire hurting a tank - other than taking out crew who are peaking out of hatches. So, if an AP round hits an enemy tank's gun you think it should never hurt it? I have to admit I do not understand this often claimed problem. What do you want the game to do when an AP round hits a tank gun? We have had experienced tankers say they avoid breaking through walls and fences when they do not need to because of the risk to their tracks. If there was no risk then we players would just crash around without regard. Given that apparently actual tank commanders prefer to not do that it seems appropriate for there to be a downside risk for us in the game.

There was another landing in France? Kidding aside surely you can see how lots of people interpreted it to mean the landing in France (aka Operation Overlord). There I fixed that for ya!

Indeed. I have a few regular players where we have a house rule that AFV crews who are unhorsed move to safety in the rear. The one exception we have is HQ units can mount a radio equipped vehicle to take command of their platoon again. So, we cannot move the HQ into another tank but we can have them be passengers in a radio equipped HT and then they can bring their platoon (or company) back in the C2.

Also see this thread with other suggestions:

I didn't look for a shot gun ban just a flame thrower one...

The restriction against swapping crews of tanks is long standing and by design. Basically it is meant to stop gamey moves on our part and to reflect that normally if a crew get un horsed they withdraw to the rear to get a new tank for a future battle. Normally they would not hang around the front in case they are needed to replace crew casulties in other vehicles. That's the decision BFC have made at the beginning of their work on CM

I am sure you are not alone. I am also pretty sure that there is a majority of people who want more content. As @llCptMillerll has said it the Tac AI is actually pretty good. Bottom line though BFC is constantly striving to improve everything about their games and keep older games up to date. So, I would imagine we will see improvements to the Tac AI as new releases come out. It sure seems like the pace of Tac AI improvements will likely not match your expectations but it will very likely be non zero. First off that is outside the Tac AI. I think the term BFC uses is the Strat AI for this level. Us human players' units make use of the Tac AI just the same as the computer controlled units. The part replaces / simulates us is an AI layer above the Tac AI (the Strat AI). I am not sure if Steve has answered this directly but the indications are that they see things differently. The progress they have made has been to offer tools for the scenario designers to make those "move a pre-designated group of units to a pre-designated place" plans more nuanced. Over time they have increased the number of groups, the number of orders and added conditional execution. There have been asks for more unit groups more orders, plan branching plus a whole host of other small things. It really seems that this is the way BFC have decided to go - create more flexible tools for scenario designers to create more complex and more realistic plans for the Strat AI.