HistoryLover

I agree. I was much more difficult to synchronize movements and therefore felt more natural to me. The problem Steve mentioned, that it doesn't make sense to wait to move a unit quickly out of danger or over a street could be solved, if the first movement was without a delay. Additional movements would add delays.

I did some tests with PzIV Hs vs PzIV Hs and M4A1s (75 mm). In this test one tank is always full hull down (not partial), the other is standing in the open. Both tanks have the hatches open (unbuttoned). Crews are all regular. The hull down tanks are positioned on a ramp. Therefore they can retreat into cover, while the free standing tanks can’t. This gives a survival bonus to the HD tanks. The testscenario consists of 15 tanks on each side, but they are visually separated by high walls. Each tank can only spot one enemy. I did three runs each, that makes 45 tank duels. 1500 m PzIV H vs PzIV H -------enemies spotted after 1 minute—after 3 minutes---Losses after 20 minutes--Result Pz IV hull down--------------18------------30-----------------16+3-------------19 (+3 means they have big damage, for example gun or optics RED, or immobilized) Pz IV free-------------------9-------------36-----------------20+2-------------22 (although they can’t retreat into safety, it’s also possible that the enemy is KOed or has retreated and so they survived with a big damage) After 3 minutes the free standing PzIV has spotted more hull down PzIVs than vice versa (30 vs 36). The success rate of the full hull down PzIV with the tiny turret is only ~15% higher than the free standing ones @1500 m. M4A1 vs PzIV H ----------------------enemies spotted after 1 minute---Losses after 20 minutes--Result M4A1 hull down--------------29---------------------------------------11+2---------------13 PzIV H free------------------19---------------------------------------27+2---------------29 Contrary to the PzIV vs PzIV duels, where the HD has no advantage, here the M4A1 has a big advantage when being hull down. It spots the free standing PzIV much better and it hits it more often. To me this seems to be a plausible result. PzIV H vs M4A1 Here I also measured the time to first contact in seconds (TTC). But since I only made three runs (3x15 tanks), statistically this could be quite off. -------------------------TTC-------enemies spotted after 1 minute---Losses after 20 minutes--Result PzIV H hull down---16 s----------------------19------------------------------13-------------13 M4A1 free---------12s----------------------19-------------------------------22+1----------23 Again, the M4A1 has much better spotting abilities. The M4A1 @1500 m even can spot the full hull down PzIV with his tiny turret earlier than the PzIV H can spot the free standing M4A1. After one minute the free standing M4A1 spots as many hull down PzIVs as HD PzIVs spot free standing M4A1. The better cannon, the better optics and the smaller turret of the PzIV H give a WORSE result (29 PzIV H (HD) losses vs 23 M4A1 (HD) losses). 1000 m M4A1 vs PzIV H ---------------------enemies spotted after 1 minute---Losses after 20 minutes--Result M4A1 hull down--------------27---------------------------------------9+1-----------------10 PzIV H free------------------15---------------------------------------26-------------------26 The PzIV spots the hull down M4A1 worse and is hit much more often. Plausible result. 500 m M4A1 vs PzIV H ---------------------enemies spotted after 1 minute---Losses after 20 minutes--Result M4A1 hull down--------------33---------------------------------------18------------------18 PzIV H free------------------33---------------------------------------24------------------24 The hull down M4A1 still has an advantage, but it is smaller than at higher distances. Seems plausible. Conclusion The spotting ability of the PzIV H above 1000 m is much worse than the M4A1’s. It is so bad, that the M4A1 can spot the tiny hull down PzIV turret at that distance BETTER than PzIVs can spot free standing M4A1s. Also the free standing PzIV H spots better than the HD version. The PzIV H seems to have (at least) a severe spotting problem.

Another possibility would be to give the icons a colored frame - the frame color reflecting the suppression meter - except green. The frame would become yellow could go over orange to red. This should give a good impression where the most pressure is building on units. But what I really miss, if a squad is split and I select a team, is the information which other teams belong to the selected team and form a squad. Maybe this could be displayed with a dot above or below the icons? Or a somewhat slightly different color of the icon?

C2yeung, the problem is, that the gun does not recognize that it's firing into an obstacle. Using on field guns in indirect fire role works very well, but you must make sure to give their trajectory a buffer to the highest obstacle. Do not aim at the nearest possible action spot but imagine the target area must be a few meters further away - and also place the gun in setup accordingly. As a general rule: the further they are placed away from obstacles in their planned firing direction, the bigger their potential target area becomes. It would help players to understand these issues better, if the game would draw an approximated trajectory when the player is aiming.

John Kettler, in this Communist propaganda movie the gun IMO is placed Hollywood like: directly at the trenches, where the most bullets and grenades are flying and not behind them. It is placed in the open and on the top to be seen clearly from everyone far, far away. It is also only shown the crew manning the gun (and obviously nt knowing what they are doing ), and not running away for cover to come back later. Crews using foxholes close to the gun is one thing, but giving the player the freedom to move gun crews around freely? If the gun was not spotted, then artillery fire is spread in a random way in an area, while the gun crew doesn't know where this area begins or will end, if it will be shifting or not. To make sure to escape it, the crew would need to move a long distance away from the gun and would know much more than it knows. And if the gun was spotted and it was under fire, then the gun is in combat and running away is not recommended. I never had been under artillery fire, but I guess you only know where it is going down, WHEN it is already happening. If players would have the ability to move the crews away from guns, everyone would run his gun crews hundred meters or more away. I would keep my crews a few hundred meters away and would use other units for spotting. Then I would wait or provoke the opponent until he has shelled the area and wasted his artillery. Afterwards I would walk my crews up and reman the guns. Effective but awfully gamey and it would be not one forward, but two steps back IMO. If instead guns could be placed slightly below earth level to simulate being dugged in well and if their camouflage levels could optionally be increased, with the already available foxholes for the crew I think the result would be much more realistic than giving the players the possibility to run their crews around.

Absolutely. The weapon must be manned and protected at all times, especially when the enemy comes and the enemy usually comes when artillery is shooting. Put yourself into the position: You are held liable for the gun not falling into the enemy's hands intact, liable for executing your orders, responsible for your crew and the other comrades that need you fulfilling your duty with your weapon. And when the enemy is about to come, which means artillery is falling down, you would order your men to jump up and run around, away from the weapon? What if a grenade hits your crew while running away? If you would have the luck to survive running around under a barrage, and if your crew would be lucky to get back (decided by what?!) to the gun unspotted and also lucky enough to survive the ongoing attack, then you probably wouldn't suvive the martial court afterwards. You are not allowed to leave your place of duty. Every deserter and coward would act that way and would have thousand excuses why it was not possible to stay at the weapon. What do you think the fighting power of any army would be, if soldiers were allowed leaving their (heavy!) weapons just like they want, if they come under fire and recognize a few meters further back it was more safe? :eek: With that said I do not mean that ATGs should not be improved. You mentioned a few aspects that really should be looked at. But leaving the weapon would be no solution for these problems.

As understandable this is from a player's perspective (even more because of the sniper mortar problem in the game), I somehow have doubts it would be realistic to allow leaving the gun. Although there surely were differences between the armies, but in general crews are never ever allowed that a functioning gun falls into the hands of the enemy (the crew leader is liable with his head). Since artillery usually is the indication of a following attack, or is taking place already during the attack, I have difficulties to imagine, that leaving the weapon was allowed doctrine. Nobody knows how long the artillery will fire and once the weapon is left, nobody can say, if a remanning would even be possible. But not only from the tactical point of view it seems unrealistic to me, also from the psychological implications: In all armies desertion is threatened by death. Why is that? That's necessary, because every soldier must know, that he has a chance to survive if he fights, but that he is doomed, if he doesn't. This psychological framework would be extremely in danger, if it was allowed that crews leave their weapons when under fire. It's against everything the military training tries to achieve: suppress the natural instinct and make the soldier stay at his weapon and shoot back. Once crews were allowed to leave their weapons, they would not get back to them, when the enemy was even closer and more dangerous. And it also is against the standard procedure when coming under artillery fire: immediately eat dirt (and pray).

John, great post. I had mentioned in another thread in the CMFI forum this problem (but without any resonance). If an ATG opens fire, it better makes sure to hit. Currently CM has the problem, that ATGs IMO are way too easily to spot if they should be perfectly camouflaged and concealed, but they are too hard to spot once they have opened fire. To me this seems because blaze and smoke - depending on the individual type of the gun - and sometimes dust from ground in dry and dusty conditions is not modelled. IMO that imbalance is the reason, why in CM single on field mortars are still the best gamey weapon of choice against ATGs, because of their sniper accuracy and tanks under fire simply don't spot them fast enough, no matter how good their optics are. This does not mean there were not outstanding successes possible with single guns and CM should ofcourse allow for 3-or-higher-sigma events. One I know about is the one of Otto Riehs, which earned him the Knight's Cross. He knocked out 10 (ten!) T34 in twelve minutes with his gun, although being positioned on a forward slope and although - IIRC - the gunner had lost his nerves and the frist two shots had missed.

Not necessarily big maps are needed for that. Only a highly unbalanced battle with tanks on one side and only infantry on the other side. Evne the biggest big map a few kilometers wide would not change the fact, if both sides are balanced well, that the defender will always have his tanks available after a few minutes while in reality things took hours or even days and this cannot model the biggest CM map. Therefore I believe we need a system that allows scenario designers and players to call for (tactical or operational) reserves, optionally with the cost of victory points. If such a system could be offered - maybe even for campaigns - then these kind of battles could be modelled perfectly. Since CM allows for asymmetrical victory conditions, there is no need to make balanced battles at all. Nevertheless this possibility IMO is used way too seldom and everyone - designer and player - is still fixated on balanced battles like it was necessary with the old CMx1 system. This fact probably is enhanced because scenario decriptions in the scenario list are so restricted and therefore give the player not enough info what he could expect from a battle - and therefore probably everyone meets at the average in the middle.

Who says that the orientation of the spread must be fixed? There are a lot of design choices which could be made. Oh and before the mentioned 6 action spots are brought up as the next strawman argument, the numbers were chosen for illustration purposes. The exact values and how things are designed, is up to the designers and developers. Stationary heavy weapons are maybe the most important weapons for defenses and I find it strange, that you bring up examples that have no impact on the tactical outcome of a battle, but that now the decisive weapons can be knocked out so easily is much less of a concern. Which is realistic: incoming fire on locations where no units are, show that it's only a fearful shooting into the air and indeed gives the defender feedback what was spotted and what not. I'm somehow surprised that you seem to believe that hidden units are allowed to open fire only because they are shot at. This is only true for very inxeprienced units without leadership. The better the unit, the higher the fire discipline. Usually no one is allowed to open fire until dedicated weapons manned by experienced crews do so.

Hi Steve, are you talking about my first probosal at the beginning of the thread, which indeed was not good, or about the second proposal (p.2, top)? Don't let the comments distract you. It does not reduce area fire effectivity, it INCREASES it, but it reduces it's capability of extremely gamey results, that blind units knock out more guns (or mortars and HMGs), than the units on the field which have spotted the threats. Without a contact in reality nobdy is shooting eight grenades into a spot. But instead the fire is spread.

Troops are transported on railways, not highways.

Where do you see a problem with a simple, strictly on the single action-spot based mechanism?

Who needs game mechanics, when mind control of the opponent can be used...

The beauty of the idea is, that the game would offer that and the god-like capability of destroying units that haven't been spotted yet would be dramatically reduced, too. Two huge improvements with only one adaptation. Yes, but I have found no better solution yet. The thought behind it was that spreading area fire when aiming at buildings would make levelling buildings almost impossible. So this seemed not like an improvement to me. Do you mean it was better if no exception was made for buildings?

Ah, great! Finally one who understands me! But not necessarily accuracy. I would see it more as intentional recon by fire effect, where the game determines how far the shooting will spread and the unit aims and shoots accordingly. If you have spotted nothing, you want a wide recon by fire effect and not waste precious HEs on single spots. Check. But if a tank has spotted a unit and it suddenly hides, the contact has a very good quality and an area fire command would become as concentrated as it is now. Check. But if any unit spots a gun and your tank hasn't spotted this gun yet, the player's god-like ability to shell the gun's action spot is reduced: the tank has no contact in this spot and therefore his area fire would be spread over several action spots. Check. Who can find a situation that breaks it?

You mean this? I ignored this post, since he obviously had not read or understood the latest suggestion, but since you also haven't got it, maybe I should clarify it better. I wrote: In this pic I chose 6 action spots for firing HE where no contact/intel is available (but maybe 4 AS would already be enough?). The better contact in the pic reduces the area fire width to two AS, the weaker tank contact reduces it to three and the building can be aimed directly like it is now. This means: No contact = wider area fire. The better the contact, the narrower area fire gets.

@poesel With this argument also artillery delays could be criticised as fun killer. I think the more realistic the game becomes, the better it gets - as long as realism is not burdening the player with micromanagement. Did anyone read my latest suggestion at all? There is no restriction of firing, in fact recon by fire would be improved while the gamey use of HEs would be prevented.

Ok, ok, I see some players insist on wasting ammo. How about combining both? I think there is a way to keep recon by fire available (probably even enhancing it) AND to decrease the player's god-capabilities: Spotting dependent area fire A pic says more than a thousand words: In this pic I chose 6 action spots for firing HE where no contact/intel is avvailable (but maybe 4 AS would already be enough?). The better contact in the pic reduces the area fire width to two AS, the weaker tank contact reduces it to three and the building can be aimed directly like it is now. That way the chance to eliminate unspotted units would become vastly reduced, good spotting or sharing intel would be rewarded, while the capabilities with recon by fire are maintained, probably even increased. :cool:

Just came across an idea, how the player's god-like knowledge and impact on tactics could be reduced further (thanks to CMx2's relative spotting). To my understanding there are two big god-like problems the absolute knowledge the player creates: 1. The player can move units although the particular unit has absolutely no information where and why it is going to. 2. The player can then use area fire although the unit has no knowledge that an enemy is there. This idea deals with problem #2. Assumption: the game allows intelligence sharing between units from different command&control chains, but therefore the game denies high explosive area fire on locations without the unit having any indication of an enemy being there (exception: buildings can always be area fired). Units can share their individual intel about enemy units and the receiving unit would get the foreign intel contact knowledge inherited. For the player this would be displayed just like sound contacts. Any such "contacts" would be the prerequisite for the player to give a HE area fire command on this action spot. A tank or armored vehicle would only share his intel to other units out of his radio net or C2, if it is opened up. Example: Ifantry spots an enemy ATG. Now the player would simply order an on field mortar or a vehicle with a cannon to a position that get's LOS to the (adjacent) action spot and area fires it. With intel sharing and area fire of HE being denied, the player would need to move the unit for countermeasures, for example a tank, close enough to the unit with the intel first (and open up to get a more reliable location). If the tank was in talking distance he could get a much better description than only being within hand sign distance. Stopping for 10 seconds could give worse intel than stopping for 30 seconds. Under optimum conditions the intel should be as good as if the tank would have spotted the unit himself already. And, ofcourse, then the information would be shared within the radio/communication net of the tank/receiving unit like it is done now already. Negative consequences of this idea?

If the player plots moves and if the cursor moves over a vehicle (unit?) and if a modifier button is pressed (for example ALT), then the cursor turns into a "follow vehicle"-cursor: If clicked, the game copies all waypoints from the clicked vehicle/unit below the cursor into the path of the selected unit.

Is anti aliasing finally working in movie lighting mode?

Is this haze? And a glowing GFX for the bright sky?

Hi everyone. My impression is, that the CM-model of spotting, as good as it is, compared to all other games, is close to the limit of it's capabilities, when it comes to the somehow unique spotting of guns: In reality it was mostly the blaze of the gun and the smoke, that showed a gun's position (often not the gun itself). Under certain lighting conditions the blaze could be seen over very long distances and interestingly, the best protection of guns, woods, is also offering the best viewing contrast for the blaze. Blaze and powder smoke seem not to be modelled and therefore IMO creates all kinds of unrealistic consequences. Once you recognize someone has shot on you and if you haven't seen the blaze, maybe because it was coming from the back or the crew was not fully concentrated or the tank was moving, then the most important thing the eyes in the vehicle are searching for are any indications of the shooting. The amount of smoke a gun produces is therefore also very important if the blaze was missed. The smoke the gunpowder produces, in situations where the blaze was overlooked, gives a second chance of spotting the gun from a single shot. Because the blaze and smoke seem not to be modelled, units, especially tanks, have big difficulties to spot guns that have opened fire in the game. Therefore spotting units are needed at quite close distances which IMO is not realistic. The bigger the blaze, the higher the chance the tank crew spotted the gun aready while the grenade was flying! With a preloaded HE grenade the tank with the turret showing into the correct direction (a few words later on that topic), the chances were high, that the second shot in this duel was not shot from the ATG. As a rule of thumb I have read: an ATG that opens fire also must hit. It's a surprise weapon and it's biggest advantage is, that it can determine when it begins the fight (somehow different are high precision long range guns, like the German 88 in open terrain, which could dominate the battlefield without any camouflage because it simply could hit over such a distance, where no other gun could hit back quickly enough, but that's another topic). A gun (sometimes even tanks) placed among woods and very well camouflaged usually could not be spotted unless it opened fire. But once it fires, the blaze of the gun against the black background of the wood could be seen immediately. CM seems to search for a compromise because the blaze is not modelled and as a result guns on one hand are too easy to spot if they have not opened fire and on the other hand they are too hard to spot, when they shoot (and produce smoke). On the Western front with the also up to date western technology this seems less a problem, with both sides somewhat equal, but especially for modelling the Eastern front the sharing of blaze positions seems very important to me if the Russians do not have radio in their tanks or AFVs: In the case of the German radio net, critical information about ATGs was shared within seconds, while units without radio, could simply not communicate this information. Especially if a tank spots a gun's blaze, it must react immediately and shoot back as quickly as possible. There is no time for the commander to shoot a flare in the direction of the threat. Radio equipped tanks get the information immediately while the tank simultaneously is engaging and until the gun gets off a second shot (if it even comes to that) already a multitude of eyepairs are watching the area when the second shot is fired. It should also be noted, that tank commanders ofcourse know very well where ATGs are to be expected. This means that tank commanders advancing already know not only roughly the location, but also the distance where the threat could come from. With that in mind it becomes even better understandable that a blaze of a gun can be spotted even by buttoned down tanks over long distances depending on the light conditions and position of the sun. On the other hand this fits well, why single ATGs were not that useful for denying the advance of tanks over open terrain. They simply were spotted easily once they opened fire. If ATGs were used to stop tank advances, several of them were used and they were about to open fire at the same time (PAK-Riegel). What is also critical when it comes to simulating this phase of a firefight is the hit probability of the first shot: A highly focused tank crew in overwatch position while the others are moving can notice already the very first blaze of a ATG while the projectile is still flying as noticed. In the next second all other moving tanks hit the brakes and know the position. If the first shot of the ATG misses, the chances of the gun to survive diminish dramatically once spotted. But not only the accuracy of the gun plays a huge role: It can make a huge difference, if a gun and it's crew have a ROF of 3 or 7 seconds. The chance for a second try does not raise proportionally with the ROF because one second in a gunfight duel can be like an eternity. Every tenth of a second can count. The modeling of the spotting of the blaze and smoke becomes even more important! Without simulating the blaze and smoke and it's impact on spotting and without giving guns tremendous camouflage bonuses that make them nearly invisible in the right terrain until they open fire, I don't see how much better simulation results could be achieved. But back to the the problem of too low camouflage bonuses and the planned CM-series of the war in the East: In Russia the German term "Schweigepak" (silent-ATG) was used for Russian guns, which had the task to let German spearheads or tanks pass and open fire on the following troops. Without great camouflage bonuses rendering ATGs almost invisible until they open fire, I don't see how these nasty but doomed units could be modelled well in CM. This would be my main feature wish for improvement of the simulation model.