eltorrente

I'm glad to see this AAR going again. This one has been very interesting, and is a good demonstration of how much fun PBEM's can be. Just about everyone I've played has a been a fun opponent, and it's been great to match wits with a thinking enemy general, as opposed to the AI. I'm hoping you can pull this victory off, and I think you can do it with your forces at hand. Use the clock and let him come to you, and it should be a good fight.

Streety, if you are an old-school wargamer, then I assume you played against other humans. Why don't you want to play against humans in this game? The computing power goes into calculating LOS, round trajectories, penetration, graphics, animation, etc etc. You talk like programming AI shouldn't be hard to do at all - like it's just a matter of having more powerful computers. That's just being naive, really. If you know how to program challenging AI, then you should share your code with Battlefront.

^ for all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist.. It doesn't "think", and has no concept of strategy. It's all based on what the scenario designer has planned out. To quote what you quoted: "However, the AI can improvise, to some extent, within the designer’s parameters. " so within the designers parameters, the TacAI will take over sometimes and react to a threat. Maybe it'll backup out of danger - maybe it'll stop and shoot at someone. It WILL NOT react and respond to the strategic moves that you make and has no clue what is going on strategically. It will only react, to some extent, WITHIN THE DESIGNER'S PARAMETERS.

I target light area fire with mortars, and target area fire with MG's. I almost never directly target an enemy unit directly with my fire teams, because as soon as the enemy cowers and they lose sight - they'll stop firing.. Best to just area target with them, and let "normal" troops fire on their own when they see them.

Ahhh I see what you mean. I very rarely give target commands to any of my units. No need for that 99% of the time.

What are you guys talking about?!?!?! The AI doesn't analyze LOS and search around for firing paths. The AI doesn't even exist, really. There is TacAI for units, of course, but the "AI" never decides on it's own to move this unit here, and this unit there, and go through these trees and flank this tank and blah blah. The scenario designer places units in good spots and issues orders for them. That's it! Your own units have the exact same TacAI as the computer does. "The AI's all but unholy ability to find fire paths"?!?!? What the heck are you talking about?

Yeah, I agree. I'm planning an artillery mission, then realize I should have targeted somewhere else instead - so I cancel, then I gotta wait until the next turn to do it again. During the planning phase, I shouldn't have to wait after cancelling - since presumably the artillery doesn't actually get my fire order until after I hit the red button.

Well, FWIW, I just saw a clip on CNN that showed a Syrian rebel firing an RPG from inside a building - and the camera man didn't seem to flinch.

Yeah, I'm thinking people don't want to "work for it". Make the scenario because you like making scenarios.

Yup, they all say "packing up" until they are limbered up.

I downloaded it, played it, and it works like it's supposed to. It says in the ui that it takes 4.4 minutes to pack up, and that's about how long it took. After 4.4 minutes, they limbered up and started moving toward the truck.

I don't use big artillery much, but my opponents do every now and then. From being on the receiving end, I think that the slow firing works really well. If a round is dropping in an area 1 or 2 times a round, I stay clear. Infantry are so vulnerable when they're walking, that they can get killed from quite a distance away from the large shells. I'm currently in a PBEM with Ian.Leslie, and he has some big artillery - not sure how big, but they are leaving huge holes in the ground that's for sure. I've had to form my strategy in large part avoiding the LOS areas from his FO (I'm think I know where he is.. ). It changes the whole face of the battle just having occasional rounds dropping. I like it better when they just fire fast and furious and get it over with, then I can get on with my game.

The file isn't available so we can't look at it. I often see ATG guns not doing what they are told, and several minutes go by before they actually unlimber and face where I want. Every time this has happened, it's because one of the team members is walking off on his own - out of synch with the rest of the ATG team. If you see one of the ATG gun team members walking around on his own, it's best to simply wait until he makes his way back. If you try and give the whole team another move command to force him back faster, he'll still keep walking to the old waypoints first before going to the latest one. Best to sit there and wait it out, which can be quite painful. One of my guns did this in a current PBEM I'm playing. It took about 7 minutes for my ATG team to finally get their sh*t together and unlimbered the gun.

I see this happen occasionally. I don't think I've ever seen the MG team stay in that "deploying" mode for more than a few turns without firing. Usually when it happens, they'll start firing on their own. I've also seen this happen, then they start firing, then it goes back to "deploying" sometime later. I would suggest giving them a face command as Womble said - then just leave them alone and hope for the best. They'll prob start firing eventually.

It's easy to confirm that targeting from a waypoint calculates LOS from that waypoint, and not the origin that it pivots from. Just look at the target range that is displayed when you drag the line around. It will show distance from the waypoint, and not the origin. Also, you can easily confirm that the LOS is from the waypoint by plotting a waypoint past an obstacle of some sort, and you'll see that when targeting from the waypoint - you can now see on the other side of the obstacle.