Freyberg

Agreed - that's a neat trick. I must try it

Not true. It's not explicitly labelled as such, but it's quite possible to get an unbuttoned AFV in a position where it has LOS but not LOF, nor can it have LOF on it - hence it is turret down.

If this is the river crossing scenario of Hammer's Flank, that was basically how I played it. The briefing tells you not to worry overly much about losses. In terms of doctrine, I figure the Soviet forces guide that - they are effective at short range, so I played aggressively to get them within close range, but it was certainly not a human wave attack.

It looks beautiful! I'd like to book a room overlooking the river for a week in July please

I had a tank crew bail with minor damage when they were hit by a 150mm shell (DF), but that seemed fair.

I've never noticed this. I split Soviet squads when I need to and it seems to work fine. Having said that, with all the games I prefer to keep squads together if possible because I don't like having to micromanage...

This is my position, too. What I would personally love to see is the task of the designer being made simpler. My impression is that the AI already has a lot of power that is not currently being fully exploited. Some of the ideas above are excellent, such as 'if..then' routines, but I don't really want to micromanage AI plans.

That was cool and interesting - and beneath all the serious expressions I think they were having fun

I'm really glad you're enjoying them

Definitely! It's in the zip file I linked to above (of maps in progress - haven't done much since then, too tired from work). Here's the link again https://www.dropbox.com/s/auilzpybhm0w206/FI map pack in prog May20.zip?dl=1 The map is called 'Frey Tiny 07 [RU] - City, ruins - Northwards ATTK.btt', but all the maps with the code [RU] are slices of the same master map - that one is basically the very centre of the map.

Congratulations gentlemen Your wonderful wargame has enriched my life.

Ditto to that - with 2 casualties you got off lightly...

This was another fun battle on an urban ruins map. Here is just a small part of the action, but the whole thing kept me engaged for hours and was actually very very difficult, with a string of mutually supporting enemy positions - every time I dealt with one and went to assault the other, another would reveal itself. In this small slice of action, I was trying to get a good angle on a minor strongpoint... It was fun and infuriating. In the end, I couldn't beat the AI with just infantry tactics, and I had to resort to using on-map 81mm mortars, which I had hoped not to have to use. When I designed the map, it was purely to try make it 'look cool' - I gave no thought whatsoever to what the AI or players might do. In the event, it surprised me over and over again. So it's possible the AI is placing units more-or-less at random, but it doesn't feel like it to me (I didn't take any screenshots while playing, so this is from memory with screenshots of the map in the editor)

I get your point . It may well be that the AI algorithms are not complex, but they are certainly clever. Here is a very typical result from a game I'm playing against the AI now: My scouts easily saw the tank just behind the crossroads (now a burning wreck) - to which there were two good avenues of approach. Expecting a trap, I threw everything at it and took both. I don't know if I've seen everything yet, because the game is still in progress, but each group of tanks had to come over a slight rise, leaving them vulnerable to temporary numerical disadvantage and visibility disadvantage. The ambush was cleverly done. I expected it, threw everything at it, and still lost two tanks and an immobilisation just to kill one tank and take out a lightweight AA gun (so far). I know that none of this was engineered by the designer, because I was the map designer and I gave no thought at all to any of this when I created the map or selected the slice, and the AI plan was one of the very simple ones I mentioned above. This very enjoyable and quite difficult game is all the result of the AI. This kind of clever set-up is the norm. In the maps I've been doing myself I never see a random defence that is easily overcome.* Now it's possible that the AI just has a very simple set of rules for placing units. I don't believe that - my guess (and it is just a guess) is that it's quite sophisticated. Either way, the end result is very good. And my original point was that the AI wouldn't need major changes to be made more responsive. If it simply used the calculations it's already doing, but directed them actively at general areas of enemy concentrations, I think it would most formidable. (*Having said that, whatever the algorithm is doing, it seems to work best with multiple AI groups, even very simple ones.)

I tried that at first, but it didn't seem to be necessary. As long as you give the AI plenty of groups with different settings, it really does seem to make excellent choices about where to position units. I think one of the problems with some QB maps is using only a small number of groups - I don't know why, but at least 4 or 5, preferably more (I usually have at least one of each of: active, normal, cautious, ambush 1000m and maybe a hide group or some other ambush groups) even if they are very general, does seem to give a much improved game.

We must be playing a different game... I see these things all the time. It does depend on setting up a QB map the way I described it though. One of the reasons I started playing with AI plans was that I was dissatisfied with some of the QB maps I'd played on.

I've been doing a lot of playing around with the AI recently, and I thought I'd bore you all, and insult the developers, by describing what aspects of the AI I think work well, and what could be done to improve it. A: Static defence Firstly, in certain respects, the AI works extremely well. For example, the simplest way to set up an AI plan in an attack/defend QB situation (Probe, Attack or Assault), which is the type of game I play the most (and therefore the type I am most interested in learning how to produce), is to set up several AI groups, and for each one paint the entire defender setup zone (or a big part of it), and then select a different behaviour for each group... For example: - group 1, ambush 1000m; - group 2, ambush 300m - group 3, cautious - group 4, normal ...and so on In an attack-defend scenario, this will give you a very good static defence, and with a suitable map, will give you a fun and challenging Quick Battle. The AI will allocate the groups very intelligently and will create an integrated network of defensive positions, there may be interlocked fields of fire, AT guns will be well sited, avenues of approach will be covered, and it may place units as bait. It seems to have an excellent 'understanding' of the relationship between terrain, objectives and setup zones. It's incredibly easy for the map designer and works very well. As a map designer, it will also surprise you. Since all you're doing is painting big swathes of the map and inputting the full range of behaviours, you can happily play QBs on your own maps without any foreknowledge of what the AI is likely to do. Marvellous. For years I avoided using the AI, because I thought the map designer had to think out all the strategies and (a) I wasn't confident in my strategic skills, and (b), what point would there have been when I wouldn't be able to enjoy the maps myself, knowing in advance what was going to happen? But I was quite mistaken about just how sophisticated the AI is, and how easy it is to use. If you do something as simple as this: ...you'll get a really good defence from the AI, but it will be a static defence. B: Responsiveness Planning an active defence, with displacement or counterattacks, or a realistic attack, is far harder. With QB maps, I've seldom seen either one work well. Occasionally they're quite fun and somewhat challenging, but most of the time - with QBs at least - an attack plan or active defence is a turkey shoot. The reason for this, and the area where I would like to see improvements is in the AI response, or lack of response, to the actions of its opponent. I have read comments over the years that programming a truly responsive AI is a Holy Grail that is more or less impossible, but (and this is the point at which I insult the developers), I wonder perhaps if that is true. I can see the reason why it is so hard... Imagine a map of 2000m2 - that's 62,500 action squares (250 x 250). To calculate, at the level of the action square, what was happening on such a map (lines of sight, lines of fires, enemy presence and so on) would involve around 62,0002 or nearly 4 billion combinations of action squares - once a minute or more often. But if the AI were to react in a more general way - say perhaps it 'observed' enemy movement on the level of 5 x 5 action squares... A 2000 m2 map would comprise of 2,500 such 'AI action acres', which would mean around 6 million combinations to calculate approximate LOS and LOF. Given that the AI does such a fabulous job on static defence with the under-the-hood algorithms it has, if the AI were just to react in a general way to the presence of enemy troops on an 'action acre', in a similar fashion to the way it incorporates objective zones and terrain in a static defence (seeking to mass fire on the enemy for units designated 'active', or backing away from massed enemy for troops designated 'cautious, perhaps), you would get a fantastic responsive AI. The AI already has the capability to produce interlocking fire, keyholes and so on, but it would then be orienting these towards the player's units. Major movements would still be provided as an AI plan by the designer, but the AI would no longer be operating blindly or by clockwork. In fact, seeing how well the AI produces an integrated static defence with the simplest of designer plans, it only needs to respond fairly generally to the presence of enemy units - anything more would be too much. If the AI were to continuously respond to enemy movements down to the level of the action square with the sophistication it uses to produce static defence, the game would become too difficult to play.

An excellent tip

Thanks guys

That's an excellent shortcut - thanks!

Thanks guys Really appreciate it.

I've been chopping them into slices and adding AI plans, and playing them, so I can upload a map pack to the Scenario Depot. Below is a link to what I've done so far - all of these maps (except the 'base' maps) have Defender AI plans, so they're good to use on the attack, but so far only about 15% have Attacker AI plans. Anything marked '-prog' still isn't playable against the AI (usually ME maps missing AI plans). If you want to play an ME against the AI, just check it has an AI plan first. I've been enjoying testing them - they all work well playing as Attacker, and a few of them have been really challenging... Have fun Any feedback and advice appreciated. Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/auilzpybhm0w206/FI map pack in prog May20.zip?dl=1

Allied LMGs seem to do pretty well, which I figured had a lot to do with range and zero setup time. Which is the better LMG I wouldn't know (Allied LMGs seem pretty similar), but I've seldom seen Maxim or Vickers MGs used on the attack kill anyone (occasionally, but not often), although they are good at suppression. Again, I think this has to do with range. Because they need setting up, they don't get close enough for good aimed fire. .50 cal, on the other hand, is pretty effective, because it can more easily penetrate a lot of buildings. In a recent infantry-only QB against the AI, I had troops advance to cover, then spend about 10-15 min popping away at the enemy, in similar cover, with mainly aimed fire, not area fire. When I checked the kill stats at the end, my infantry had killed about the same number of men per squad as the enemy (and they had numerical superiority). If the troops are making a sustained assault, not in cover, casualties will be disproportionate - and that's common when supporting fire is from AFVs. But with infantry only (probably a more common occurrance in RL), everything moves more slowly and the casualty proportions are more even. MG42s still seem to be the deadliest weapon on the CM battlefield to me (I make no claims for the RL WWII battlefield) - and they seem very accurate, but perhaps that's just because I always play Allies, so I'm usually on the receiving end of their fire.

I pay a lot of attention to who gets kills. Defensive fire is definitely more effective than offensive fire, which seems obvious and reasonable; Allied HMGs against troops in cover serve a mainly suppressive role; the MG42 is the most lethal, accurate weapon on the WWII battlefield; and HE is the big killer of infantry for sure (as history attests); but if you use fire-and-manoeuvre and have your troops advance to cover, within their weapons range and spend periods of time degrading the enemy with aimed fire, you generally get a fairly even mix of infantry kills on both sides.

I think that's intended. The idea is that an observer can either supervise multiple pre-planned bombardments, or supervise one fire mission. So you can't have multiple active missions going at the same time. It's a little odd, and there are minor exceptions, but it's worked that way since the ability to operate multiple fire missions with one observer was changed.