Glubokii Boy

If the AI can be improved to handle the terrain and various threaths from varios directions that would be great ! Another solution that i have been advocating for for several years now is....More AI groups Let the scenariodesigner 'help' the AI with these kind of tasks... Instead of the platoon being ONE single AI group...let it be two...let the platoon/company supporting weapons be their own AI group (or several) etc and not be mixed up with regular rifle squads... It's not only infantry that has trouble doing tactical movements in a 'very good' way if asigned to the same AI group....The same thing applies to armour also... as well as other supporting vehicles...Stummels and the likes... If such assets also could be their onw AI group it would be a good thing. An armour platoon consisting of 2, 3 or even 4 AI groups would be able to do a far better job then if asigned to a single group imo... Especially now with the addition of areafire, face and withdraw commands. Imo it would also be far easier to program the AI if we where allowed to use a greater number of AI groups...less tweaking, less testing

It's me Again ... Another thing that perhaps could be possible with a decent number of various triggers would be the possibility to get the AI off to a good start... As of now every scenario can have multiple AI plans...what if the AI had the capability to 'chose' AI plan at the start of each game...after the player has finisished his deployment and clicked GO ! The scenario designer lists one or a few conditions that needs to true in order for the AI plan to be selected by the AI... Using avaliable trigger options... Things like Unit in zone, unit out of zone, unit value in zone higher then (using for example QB battle purchase values for units)...armour in zone, armour value in zone higher then etc, etc... If the conditions for the first AI plan is met then that plan is chosen by the AI...if not then the conditions for the second AI plan is checked...And so on...if no plan clears the check the the first plan is selected...or perhaps a random one... This would allow the AI to do some nice 'cheating'...to help it decide if the overall plan should be a left flank attack or a right flank attack or an attack up the middle... Dependant on how the player has set up his defences. Simular in an AI defence scenario it will give the AI some needed initial help... It's cheating...yes ! But...comes on...It's the AI...it needs it ...it's not a H2H game... This way the AI might be a somewhat more challeging opponent... Not that the AI cant be challeging right now ! It can...but a little more help never hurt the guy i belive ...the level of help the AI will get can be pretty well controlled by the designer to not be...over the top..

Or perhaps istead of redirecting the T-34 platoon...a mortarteam might be instructed to lay down a smokescreen covering the hill... Stuff like this...having flexible triggers and resulting actions could really help the AI quite a lot...

Yepp...things like what com-intern mentions above is in line with what i'm hoping for... Things like a UNIT IN ZONE trigger gives simular options as a casulty-level trigger... An AI T-34 platoon advances towards a river crossing...Suddenly a player JagdPanther is spotted in reverse slope possition on top of a hill overseeing the crossing... Instead of simply continuing on its path across the river...The player JagdPantherer has been mark by a unit objective and ones spotted in the terrain-zone covering the hill the UNIT IN ZONE trigger instructs the AI T-34 platoon to halt its advance and instead head for a secondary crossing point... The AI will not need to understand what is happening on its own...The trigger that has been put in place by the designer 'helps'...the AI to make a rather good decition ...

While not having the capabilities of a supercomputer....one game that comes to mind that has an absolutelly amazing missioneditor (AI) would be... DCS World by Eagle Dynamics...the greatest flightsim every made ... The capabilities of that missioneditor is just...WOW !! The game uses a very wide range of various triggers, flags, conditions and results designed in a very clever way to allow the entire gameworld to act and react in a very belivable and intresting way... The game does not relly on the AI to be able to make all these decissions on its own...because of the multitude of various triggers and resulting actions the scenario designers are able to 'help' the AI to act in a fairly realistic, reactive and challeging way... It it could be at all possible to get something simular in CM...the capabilities of the AI would increase massively...a whole new level ! All without the AI needing to grow a superbrain... The editor works decently...yes ! But theres always room for improvements... A simular AI programing feature would indeed be...amazing !

Fictional US/japan/S Korea/NATO vs N Korea/ Kina and maybe Russia... At the desired timeperiod...

One way to expand on your original idea might be... Instead of painting pretty much the entire defensive zone for each AI-group...One could perhaps be a little more 'picky' That is... Make one AI group (or a few)for AT-guns, one group (or a few) for HMGs, simular for perhaps armour, tankhunters and finally regular rifle squads... Instead of painting the entire defensive zone...for the AT-gun group you only paint every good and decent area of the defensive zone sutable to deploy AT-guns in...And perhaps if you want to even some less good possitions. Do the same for the HMG group...paint pretty much all of the good and decent possitions to site and HMG in. And go on like this for all the groups... This will give the AI a pretty high level of freedom but still help it avoid the really stupid, wierd set-up choises for the different weapons.

Yeah...this sounds more like the AI i'm used to seeing in regular QBs... Freybergs suggestion might provide a slight improvement over regular QBs though as the 'designer" has some control over wich unit he places in wich AI group... The downside being stationary units...

A few things that imo makes designing attacking AI difficult... Number one ! The inability of the AI to reevaluate the situation. The AI will NEVER change its attackplan...ever. Not on its own atleast. It has one way forward and one way forward only regardless of how the player defences are set-up. A skilled designer may be able to design the AI plans in such a way that it seeems as if the AI is adjusting its original plan when running into strong resistance. To be able to do this the designer will pretty much have to 'guess' right though as to what the players defence set-up will look like. If he guess wrong the outcome will simply look wierd...if the AI abandons a succesful attack ! Number two...The limited number of AI groups. For a reinforced company sized attack 16 AI groups may well be enough but for a reinforced battalion it is a bit on the low side. Unfortunatelly...If the player commands something like a company sized force then the attacking AI will pretty much need atleast a battalion to provide much of a challange...unless the forces are very unballanced. I belive that one of the reasons for the AI attacks currently often looking like suiccidal human wawe attacks are indeed the lack of sufficient AI groups. Number three...perhaps not so much of a problem...but to a degree atleast...the low tempo of an AI attack...atleast when conducted over somewhat larger distances. imo ones the AI units gets pinned down it can often take quite some time for them to recover and move forward again...Far longer then it would take a human player to get the same units moving again...They sort of 'get stuck' it seems... number four...The limited ability of the AI to get HE and smoke on the right location at the right time...(has improved somewhat with the on-map mortar trick)

Yepp... On smaller maps the AI can contribute in the battle atleast to some degree even if they are not...in the right place, at the right time. On huge maps...not so much

Uuuummhpf, uuuurf...maybe not But i acctually do not restart all that often...but it do happen...i have to confess ...

Ahh...these little 'tricks' saves us Thanks for the tip !

With regard to multiple AI plans... Imo it kind of depends if the goal with the scenario is to be used simply by one self or if it is to be uploaded and made avaliable to the community... If the goal is for personal use only then a higher number of AI plans would be preferable to maintain some sort of FOW... But if the scenario is to be shared i actually prefer fewer...well designed ! AI plans to a high number of them... I rarely play a scenario more then twice...having fewer, better AI plans would be preferable Even if you have multiple AI plans some of the FOW will be ruined anyways...the unit roster will be the same ! If a scenario has 4 Panther tanks and 2 AT-guns...thats what it has...in every playthrough... You will know it after having played it the first time... If the scenariodesigner would like to add some uncertanty into the head of the player...he could use the briefing.. För example mentorn things like... "Based on previous days fighting we can not rule anything out...despite being heavely outnumberd and low on ammo...don't be supprised to see the enemy counterattacking... Even in suicidal fashion ! The enemy is very unpredictable..." Mentioning the unit roster...got me thinking... To increase the FOW and make multiple AI plans somewhat more interesting..wouldn't it be a good idea to have the option to include multiple unit rosters in a single scenario...? This way the unit FOW of the AI would not be ruined after the first playthrough... Maybe not completally different unit rosters offcourse but change a few details... Kind of in the example above....instead of having 4 Panthers and 2 AT Guns...one AI plans might have 2 Panters, a StuG and 2 AT-guns

And offcourse... Multi-path/option conditional triggers

That static defence custom QB-trick sounds like a nice idea ... But as for giving the AI greater freedom to act on its own...i'm not so sure. If BFC could make it work...yeah that would be great but i fear that features such as you describe might be a bit more complicated... Simply having LOS/LOF to an action square might not help the AI enough...what kind of enemy unit is comming ? where are the other enemies/friendlies ? What are they doing ? Where should the AI units regroup to ? Why ? There are a lot of things the AI will need to considder...not only for each induvidual unit but also as a force as a whole. I doubt it would be able to do it... I would prefer that BFC moved in the opposit direction and gave the scenariodesigner MORE tools to 'help' the AI...providing for better scripting... - more AI groups - more trigger options like AI group casualty level higher then, unit killed (friendly or enemy), unit spotted, AI group ammo level below...etc,etc - more options for when reinforcements arrive. - more objective options - a new AI artillery programing interface that would allow the designer to specify indirect firesupport for the AI mid game among other things.

True .. But this has been equally true all through the CM2 timeframe...has it not ?

Me to...

Jepp

As i understand it...BFC makes most of their money on other things then the public CM2 games... I guess they need it...because this releaserate is not good !! Its hard to make any money if they have no new products to sell. I don't really like the current trend of comments about their products comming from BFC either... Everything is to big...to complicated - CMSF2 was to big, to complicated.. - R-tv was to big, to complicated.. - Fire and rubble is...to big and complicated. It's really sad that they can't release their products faster...because if they could...they would most certainly sell.. It's a bad situation imo....

I'm affraid i can't blame this on the coffe...or lack off it... I've had 3 coups already... Not even old age is the problem...i'm still a 'youngster' ...god damn it ...(2 weeks away from 50 !!!...oouuchh). I had it in my mind that TRPs worked in a simular fashion as regular units... That is... If a scenariodesigner places the TRP outside of any set-up zone when he designs the scenario then the player will not be able to move it during his set-up face when starting the scenario... My bad...

As for when to pull back..and call in the barrage... A few things to considder. - Are the enemy likely to capture the crossroad and stop there (an objective)...or will they keep on going an just move through the possition as fast as possible. - Are the enemy under any kind of time preasure...Or will he have an oppertunity to try and trick you to call in the barrage prematurely. - Will your platoon be able to disengage from an intense fire-fight at the crossroad easily enough...Will the terrain etc allow your troops to break LOS/LOF quickly when pulling back. - Is the enemy attacking from the front only or will he be able to/ have already been able to outflank the crossroad.. - Do you require your platoon to be...an effective force...after having pulled back. Will they be asigned a ne task that they need to be able to carry out. -

I most certainly would apprisiate such an initiative from my commander (but maybe the TRP is 'locked in place'...not in a set-up zone)

As an example when a quick entrance might be preferable... - when you are in a firefight and you want part of your force to advance...Into a bildning...that you are pretty much sure is empty. That is...not an assult on an enemy held bildning but rather an advance into an adventagious possition to continue/advance the fight.

The constant regrouping/organizing that happens at each waypoint makes this trick not aplicable in all situations though...unfortunatelly. The troops doing this right infront of a door present good targeting oppertunity to any enemy observing this... In many situations it would be better to move straith in without any delay

I belive BFC have been struggeling with a number of pathfinding/tac AI behavior issius for the last few years... The fix does not seem to be all that simple though unfortunatelly... If it was...it would have been fixed by now