Freyberg
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Posts posted by Freyberg
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I've found this to be quite a stubborn problem. There is a workaround, but it's a little historically unrealistic.
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I like the randomness in this game - it makes it more fun.
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It's an excellent scenario - I played it twice, first H2H, then against the AI.
I can't remember the precise outcome of the H2H battle, but I remember it was exciting and close. It's an Italy scenario, so as Allies I was aggressive and used weight of numbers. I probably lost (which is not unusual), but I do remember it was very close.
Against the AI (much more recently) it was also fun and exciting, with high casualties, but it wasn't too hard to get a total victory against the AI. I seem to recall it was a real combined arms operation. Using artillery was quite important, and once there were a few gaps in the German line or they were suppressed, there were some blind spots I could push men through.
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Many of the QB maps in Market Garden were particularly nice too, especially in comparison to the QB maps in the base game of CMBN, which were often rather minimal.
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I bought Commonwealth and the base game together and Market Garden soon after, so my recollection is muddled, but the British Paratroopers were new to Market Garden weren't they?
And it had some wicked urban maps and scenarios...
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Admittedly, I've been a good a good customer over the years - I think I've bought all the CM games, modules and packs except Afghanistan - but this price is insane.
First I bought the Shock Force 1 big bundle on special for the price of a restaurant meal for two, and now you've basically sold me the Big Bundle upgrade for the price of a takeaway curry and Naan!
I don't know how you expect to make a living - but thank you though
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21 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:
Nope. Go back to sleep.
Michael
This forum would really benefit from a 'block' feature.
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9 hours ago, Combatintman said:
Maybe two of them will do the 8 mouse clicks necessary to open a scenario in the editor, add the time, save it and then exit back to the battle screen.
Perhaps there are only 3 people on the forum who have expressed some degree of support for this simple and minor improvement, but thank God we have the snide-police, that tiny elite group who police the forum, ensuring only their ridiculous ideas (like the endless discussion over the daft idea to completely disable the game so as to turn it into a completely command-level game; or CM Pacific, or CM Fulda Gap) can be discussed.
I mean, God forbid there should be random discussions and polite suggestions on a discussion site.
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I've had games where I wish I could have just another 5-10 turns, where the AI surrendered when I just about had a flank shot on that King Tiger or where I had an awesome barrage 2 minutes from falling.
It's a non-solution to say you can tweak the editor, because this is not something that you want in every game, and because using the editor means you have to start the game again from the beginning.
If there were an option upon AI surrender to click a button to extend the game by 5 turns or 10 turns, I would enjoy that.
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Spotting does seem to have become harder in recent updates, but that's OK - it's part of the fun...
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42 minutes ago, Ivanov said:
So does it mean, that a green spotter is completely unable to correct the fire mission, even after a long spotting ( it took him about 10 minutes )?
Another factor is that he is a Company HQ, not an Observer team. I haven't had much luck with HQ as spotters teams myself, so I usually buy at least a couple of Observers.
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I've seen tanks firing with both MGs before, but at the same target (although I've never really studied it). I've never been able to get a tank with damaged turret weapons to target anything, or noticed if they use the bow MG on its own in that situation...
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2 hours ago, Col Deadmarsh said:
I'm watching this now for the first time and I'm already put off by one of the scenes. They've just finished killing off the AT guns by the tree line and then want to execute the German soldier...oh wait...I meant Nazi...cause every German is an evil Nazi in these films. So not only do we have this ridiculousness, but I'm supposed to identify with American soldiers who want to illegally kill this unarmed prisoner. WTF?
It's sick how the men who run the Hollywood studios try to get the public to believe these lies against the German people. Do you think that if this movie took place in the Pacific, they'd have our heroes executing a Japanese POW? Doubtful.
I didn't see it like that - I didn't find the killing of prisoners heroic, but horrible. However, things of that sort did happen.
I took it that Brad Pitt's character was meant to be a screwed-up anti-hero with a lot of disgusting qualities. That disturbing scene with the German women reinforced that.
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9 hours ago, IanL said:
Steve just said that the story line is not going to be modified. He did *not* say there would be no CMBS modules.
Yes - I read that remark very carefully too
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3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
That is bloody magnificent that is!
Love the little market stalls you made, very cunningly done.
You could use internal flat balconies with support legs to create the appearance of pillars in your long stadium corridors.
Going to enjoy picking this one over in detail, superb work fella!
Thanks
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1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
C'mon then.....Share those maps!
I love mucking about with AI scripts on urban terrain.....Bring it on!
OK
This one is the best one so far.
I've been fascinated by the idea of modern constructions as 'urban fortresses' (of the sort that so often seem to feature in news stories of war zones) - this one is based around a football stadium, but includes some rather robust apartment blocks and shopping centres (featuring multiple modular buildings to give them interesting interiors and make them difficult to destroy), as well as suburban shops and houses and some wide open spaces (such as car parks).
I took quite a long time clearing out interior walls in the larger structures, making doors match up and so on. There are few structures where you have to blow your way through interior walls, and some of them (the stadium in particular) feature large amounts of open space, long corridors etc. which I think is realistic.
I also spent several hours adding street lights and one or two other flavour objects (streetlights in particular make maps feel really immersive IMO).
There are aspects I'm not quite sure about (I haven't play tested all the interiors, so I don't know how much fun they'll be).
The zip file contains the master map and some of the slices - not all of which are equally useful (just playing around at the moment).
Maps download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fk4g2xz9v43mi6/Stadium_Map.zip?dl=0
Apologies for rough edges - I hope you enjoy it
Here are some images:
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Yeah - I'm not trying to do too much - I just want a slightly active defence.
Having played literally hundreds of QBs (what I play most of), I feel quite sure changes of the sort above - none of which are particularly extreme - would improve QBs significantly.
Reasonably often, QBs end because the AI defender does something completely daft, like a Panther turning its rear armour to attacking Shermans, or a tank sitting completely stationary for the entire game while I sneak up on it.
The times AI works well, I think the designer must a genius at guessing what direction and timing an attacking force will take.
Triggers are a great idea - but I firmly believe a little bit more should be added, which would make the AI enormously more satisfying to play. This is particularly true for QBs.
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41 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
Some of the things on your list can be achieved by workarounds, for instance pauses can be created by simply scripting more orders, tedious but it does the job.....However I can't argue with the general gist of your thread.
I'd like to see 'Reinforcement by Trigger' (activate the trigger, get the reinforcement, or the other guy does) and a 'Hold For' objective (hold the objective for a certain duration or until a certain time on the game clock).
I was testing CMBS - which seems to be a much quicker game in terms of AI - and for a tank even 5 repeated orders only resulted in a pause of about a minute.
I agree with the reinforcement by trigger though
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I've been trying to learn the AI (using Black Sea, because I enjoy creating modern maps)
I want to create a fairly simple AI that does more than simply sit passively or attack aggressively - in particular I want to have tanks relocate from time to time to create more of a challenge, doing 'shoot and scoot' in effect, rather than just wait for the player to hunt them down (which commonly happens in QBs) - and I'm trying to do this with QB maps, because they are more reusable.
At the moment, the AI allows you to do one of the following:
a single action based on a terrain trigger
an action or series of actions that happen immediately in sequence, with a pause of only a few seconds*
an action or series of actions that happen according to a strict timetable (based on the game clock)(* using a Russian tank crew: regular , -1)
I would love to have a series of timed orders, each triggered by the enemy reaching a certain phase line, but this is not possible - terrain objectives can only usefully trigger one order.
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My wishlist, most of which doesn't seem extremely complicated, would be as follows:
SIMPLE THINGSBasic changes
- Armour should not turn around and face the rear unless given a dash order - but should remain facing the enemy's friendly edge or the last known location of enemy
Orders:
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to be able to include pauses, instead of timing only by the game clock
(this is huge - it would make the AI much easier to use for a non-expert.) - a withdraw action that doesn't make a tank automatically pop smoke
- a hunt order (the advance order for a tank, even in 'careful' mode moves forward quite quickly)
Triggers:
- a casualty trigger, so infantry can withdraw after a certain % of casualties - this could be unit-based or as a % of the whole force
Other
- Let the designer of a QB map specify in the AI, which types of units will belong to each AI group (e.g. Infantry, weapons teams (e.g. grenade launchers & HMGs), AT teams, observers, light armour, heavy armour) - this would allow much better QB AI
LESS SIMPLE THINGS
- allow an order to be skipped (i.e. 'can skip' option in order screen), to enable simple conditional branching
- triggers on enemy behaviour (e.g. on enemy fallback or enemy tank/s destroyed)
- triggers on intangibles/morale (e.g. trigger when 'overmatched')
--Personally I've found it hard to get a reasonably 'active' defence from the AI. If there were pauses and a 'skip order', it would be relatively easy to get some moderately realistic behaviour from the AI without being such an expert as can predict what the player will do.
This experience has made me respect the map and scenario designers all the more, having seen how difficult it is - but if the AI were a little more flexible and intuitive it would help long-term noobs like myself contribute useful content to the community
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I'm having a lot of fun making urban/suburban maps for CMBS (as an old Sim City 2000 addict), and enjoying playing on them (although the AI is proving difficult) - the tall buildings and modern flavour objects make some very immersive modern city environments.
As someone who prefers WWII, a good map, where I can really feel like I'm really playing in a modern environment, makes all the difference to enjoying CMBS. The maps that seem too much like CMRT are not immersive for me. I enjoyed the CMBS urban maps much more when I went in to the editor and added streetlights and traffic lights.
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So this is not a criticism - I've grown to enjoy CMBS (it took time) - but an ability to make more modern-looking maps would be a big advantage.
My wishlist would include the following:
TERRAIN- landscaped and suburban flower tiles (visibility like wheatfields)
- Enable stepped terrain more easily - to create 1+m drops from one elevation to another (at the moment this only works with large gaps in elevation)
FENCES
- Tall chainlink fences*
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modern lightweight fences
(e.g. lightweight wood or sheetmetal) - a total visibility obstacle but not very protective, with tall fences passable with difficulty by infantry, but easily passable by light armour - road barriers
ROADS/PATHS
- steps
- Improved paved/highway tiles (I haven't been able to produce a good highway with the highway tiles - there seem to be some missing)
- ramps
BUILDINGS
- all glass frontages
- garages (I've been using barns, but they look odd)
- A wall type for modular buildings that is open but with a parapet, such as you would have in multi-level car-park.
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Open-sided metal towers and stairs such as you see in heavy-industrial sites
(the simplest form of which could be placed alongside other buildings to form climbable external fire-escapes) - More modern houses and small shops
- The ability to remove floors in buildings (the way you can currently remove walls) to make large interior spaces)
- To be able to shift-click on interior floors to make them cement (instead of wood)
FLAVOUR OBJECTS
- Billboards
- Highway overhead signs
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[ *this very good suggestion was made by Ithikial_AU ]
in the thread happy-new-years-day-2018-look-ahead
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5 hours ago, Pete Wenman said:
As at Engine 4 this is now in game
Page 103-104 of the engine manual details
Each AI Order can designate a Fire Zone for area fire. This is done by painting on the 2D map just like a Movement Zone, but by CTRL-left-clicking instead. The tiles designated as targets will be colored red instead of yellow. While that AI Order is being carried out, the AI Group will attack the Fire Zone with suppressive area fire if it doesn't have any spotted enemy units to engage or other important tasks to do.
It is important to note that the Fire Zone is the lowest priority task for the AI Group. Other tasks, such as moving, unloading, attacking a spotted enemy unit, etc will take priority over shooting randomly at the Fire Zone.
Each AI Order can be given a location for it to Face towards. After painting the Movement Zone, Alt-left-click on a single tile that you wish the AI to face towards. When the AI Group reaches its destination, it will pivot or rotate towards the designated point.
By shift-left-clicking on the map, AI Groups can be ordered to Withdraw while moving towards their movement destination. Vehicles will move in Reverse to the destination, while infantry will leapfrog back while turning around to face behind them. Like the Facing Zone, Withdraw Zones are a single tile that the AI Group will face towards. For example, a vehicle given a Withdraw Zone will reverse towards the Movement Zone, while keeping its front pointed towards the Withdraw Zone.P
Thanks for that - apologies for being lazy and posting my question before reading the Engine manual (I'm reading that section now).
I have to admit, there are a number of things - some small, some possibly a little less small - that BF could do to make the AI more responsive and to make the interface more usable.
Some more things I would add to the (short and fairly modest) wishlist above would be
- timed pauses (not based on absolute clock time)
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simple conditional branching
- this would only have to be very simple to add a lot to the game, such as a checkbox that would allow an order to occur even if the previous order/s had not been completed.
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11 minutes ago, Pete Wenman said:
Does the wait for trigger in the AI editor not do this ? This trigger relies on the orders of another unit to be activated rather than a terrain type objective.
Yeah, I thought about that - it's a very fiddly workaround though, for what should be a straightforward series of pauses.
And if the other unit is knocked out or fails to fulfill its orders, the trigger won't happen.
I hope BF add some flexibility to the AI in future patches or updates - it doesn't sound like a major overhaul would be required.
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3 minutes ago, Pete Wenman said:
You might be misunderstanding the trigger mechanism just a little.
The two times set the period for which the trigger is live (on the game clock). So a trigger will not work if activated before the first time, and the trigger will automatically activate by the end time if not previously triggered.
However once live the trigger orders will activate as soon as the trigger is activated (the following turn).
Keep in mind that triggers are not conditional and so will always trigger based on either being tripped while active, or at the end of the active period. (Although this can be set for after the game end, but doing so means the unit can be given no subsequent orders)
HTH, but to be honest the best way to get your head around the concepts is to set up simple movements in the editor and replay them in scenario author mode until you can see the connection between the orders you have issued and AI movement you want to see.
P
No, I think understand them perfectly well.
What I want is a series of timed orders to proceed from a single trigger event, not at a pre-set time. Like this:
order 1 (triggered)
(pause)
order 2
(pause)
order 3
...and so on.The triggered order is easy - but because the clock in the game is absolute, other orders cannot follow from a triggered order.
QB bugs that won't die...
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
I have all the games except Afghanistan and I play them all. I've played many scenarios, a number of campaign, but I mostly plays QBs against the AI. After all these years, CMBN is still my favourite.
I love Combat Mission and enjoy playing it, despite some of the quirks and bugs. There have been certain bugs that are a little annoying and have persisted through all the patches and updates for a while:
1) The facing backwards bug - enemy forces face the wrong way. This still crops up. When you spend ages choosing interesting forces, tweak the map a little to make it look more exciting, and then the Panthers are facing backwards, it's a little disappointing.
2) The limbered AT gun bug. AT guns are limbered and trundling along like infantry - I think this is because too many QB AI plans have most of the enemy hiding in a corner then rushing out for a big ol' turkey shoot, which is a quirk, rather than a bug, but is also annoying.
3) The stuck-in-a-hedgerow bug, or stuck next to a wall. There is a workaround for this bug - you shoot the little b#st#rd who's stuck. Works great, but you have to use a tank.
The bug-out bug, where the troops run in random directions, often forwards, doesn't bother me as much as these other ones.