Pericles

I have prepared a video AAR of a mission from The Charge of the Stryker Brigade campaign. I have had some issues with the design of some missions in the campaign, but most missions are masterfully designed, including this one. Enjoy.

Can two instances of bunching within the first 10 minutes of a stock campaign be a sign of poor design? Maybe all the thorough testing before release didn't pick it up? I highly doubt it. If it was tested a lot before release, this would have been noticed and corrected. I believe this because it happened so early on in the scenario, before the "TacAI" could have got rolling so to speak. Like I said, I'm interested in constructive discourse. Throwing an "incompetent" or "kicked to the curb" in here and there makes things more colorful as long as empirically supported claims are being made. And +1 for Scenario of the Month, great initiative. And now for some bunched smoldering wreakage in a large open map:

True. My charge that the scenario was designed "incompetently" was too harsh. It was borne out of frustration. No I have never attempted to design a scenario. Overall, pointing out problems with AI/scenario design is constructive if the problems are real. I provide two examples in this thread of enemy bunching in the first 10 minutes of a scenario in a stock campaign. This is sufficient empirical evidence that there is a problem. It does not matter if I play the scenario over again and find that the AI does not bunch. The fact is, the AI bunched in two separate instances in the first 10 minutes of the scenario. The problem may be with the AI ("TacAI"), it may be with the scenario design tools, or it may be with the scenario designer's decisions. Given the comments so far, it seems I was wrong to conclude that the problem is solely with the decisions made by the scenario designer. It is all of the above. Perhaps the designer could have split the enemy into smaller groups. Overall the designer for this campaign has done well. But bunching like this really takes the wind out of my sails.

So the consensus here is that this bunching behavior is a symptom of incompetent scenario design. Extra disappointing because this is a campaign sanctioned by BF ("The Charge of the Stryker Brigade", part of the $10.00 Battle Pack). Clearly it was rushed. Just played another turn and sure enough, now the enemy tanks are bunching up unrealistically:

The fact that you were able to post those real world pictures so quickly after reading this post is very impressive. But my point stands regarding the AI/scenario behavior in this particular tactical situation. You're right: the first company to make an AI that approaches the challenge of playing against a human being in a tactical combat game will be unspeakably rich. I think Battlefront can do better, maybe even become leaders in AI performance in the video game industry (most developers are resorting to exclusive multiplayer now anyway because AI is so difficult to do properly). Let's hope that they get more sales so that they can devote more resources to the improvement of AI and scenario design tools.

Here is another example of unsatisfactory, immersion-breaking AI (or design) from the "Charge of the Stryker Brigade" campaign. These four enemy BMPs had not yet been engaged and this is only about six turns into the scenario... in less than a single turn (1 minute) they emerged from behind a hill and clustered together as seen in the picture. One of my javelin teams took one of these out later in the turn. This is highly disappointing. Are there plans to improve AI, or at least to release more competently designed products? I've never designed a scenario before, but this seems so amateur to me (to have a bunch of BMPs simultaneously crest a hill in an exposed position). Perhaps the designer is attempting to model how a panicked Russian force might react, but I simply can't imagine a bunch of Russian BMP drivers doing something like this, even when they weren't sure where the enemy was.

Good points. I think your argument about having more AI-groups is strong (as in the Combat Mission AI thread). That would at least enable scenario designers to circumvent unrealistic AI behavior.

The point I am making is that it is unrealistic to have 3 vehicles parked next to one another on a road in an active combat environment. My artillery has been falling, tanks have been exploding. This would never happen in real life. It is utterly stupid. Do you disagree?

Here is an example of unsatisfactory, immersion-breaking AI from the "Charge of the Stryker Brigade" campaign. These three enemy units had not yet been engaged... they are just hanging out in a group in the middle of a road with their flanks to the enemy (me). Two of their tank friends had been destroyed many minutes before this screen capture was taken. Unacceptable? Yes. Will I continue this mission? Yes.

Currently playing "Hunting for the bug". Came to this thread to figure out how to deal with tank spotting of AT guns at long range after losing 4 tanks to 2 AT guns in less than 2 minutes (6 tanks lost to the 2 AT guns in total so far). After reviewing the comments, it seems that there are no "tips" for spotting AT guns with tanks: the AT gun will spot your tank first and will destroy it (might be an exception for green AT crews but they're uncommon). In fact, it will spot and destroy many of your tanks first, even if they all have LoS on the guns simultaneously, are unbuttoned, and are dispersed. So my conclusion is that if you are not ok with sacrificing 2-4 tanks and their crews to finally spot and destroy an AT gun, then keep your tanks on standby until the AT guns are dealt with using artillery or infantry. IMO this is not a realistic feature. I have four tanks with LoS on the AT gun positions. The tanks are unbuttoned. When a large 88 mm AT gun fires, I expect crew members with LoS on those AT guns to spot them. But they don't. Anybody know how these situations played out in reality during WWII? My guess is that if AT guns were present, tanks would hide until they were dealt with. Perhaps tanks would fire on the known location of the guns at times from hidden position, although I don't see how this tactic could be used in game because the tanks will be spotted and destroyed with relentless precision.

Reading the comments, I now believe it stands to reason that increasing turn time would screw with the gameplay. Nevermind.

I greatly enjoy PBEMs (WEGO). However, I wonder whether seasoned veterans of CM2 would support a WEGO mode that enables users to increase turn time. For example, instead of the standard 1 minute turn time, this could be increased to 2 minutes, perhaps up to 5 minutes. So during your turn you would be issuing orders knowing that you would not be able to reissue orders for another 2-5 in-game minutes. The benefits of this increased turn time are: -faster PBEM battles (instead of being drawn out over 3 months, maybe only 1 month) -a new challenge for CM2 gamers, requiring greater foresight and strategic thinking

PBEM's are painfully slow indeed. I am currently on Day 79 of a one hour and 30 minute battle in CMBS...

Here's a problem with the way CM2 is coded: if you have an infantry squad being transported in a truck and they take a single casualty, you cannot on the next turn instruct them to get out of the truck. You must watch as the truck reverses and the passengers remain sitting upright in the back, taking more casualties. This doesn't seem right in relation to real life: passengers would jump out immediately if the situation allowed. Having them all panic immediately so that they cannot be controlled seems like a mistake. I wonder if this can be re-coded in future versions of CM2.

Kieme - Would it be possible for you to provide an up-to-date list of all CMBS mods that you have created? This thread is nausea-inducing. On a similar note, I have noticed that the popular http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net website only carries 8 of your mods. I'm guessing there are many more Kieme mods given what I have seen in this thread.

Just to clarify, I am not Josey Wales. His AARs are the best in class and thought that I'd share here. My CM AARs (in the style of Josey Wales) can be found on the "Rational Assessments" youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaREwrCM8yagYu-Gwo3sjBg

The only mark against CMBN is that most of the maps have lots of "bocage": tall or waist high shrubs that units can fire through but not move through. Bocage battles can become monotonous, especially on the flat maps which are common in CMBN. CMFI has more heterogeneous terrain and little to no bocage. CMRT has little to no bocage.

Ok then. I wrongly assumed that near misses were ineffective. So the new v.4 precision artillery code still allows precision arty to be effective, just not so effective that it completely destroys targets. I hereby retract all statements in this thread pertaining to bugs and unresponsive devs.

Do Excalibur rounds that land beside the target do damage to the tracks/wheels of the target? That would make my 0 for 15 experience easier to accept.

Yes, IRL the fault would be with the missiles. But for the game, the fault lies with the code. Still haven't heard anything from the devs, I hope this gets fixed or is at least explained.

Michael, I have played a lot of CMBS v.3 and have never had issues with precision artillery like I am experiencing with CMBS v.4. In my experience with v.3, precision artillery hit the target on pretty much every fire mission (>90%) when using 3x shells per fire mission - using less reduces chances of success in my experience. In fact, it stands to reason that the more precision rounds you use, the more likely you will hit the target. Unfortunately the developers do not provide any information on these and related issues in the CMBS manual. So in summary, in my experience, precision artillery success rates were greater than 90% in CMBS v.3 and are now less than 10% in CMBS v.4. rocketman has had a similar experience, although he has not ventured to assign percentages. This is experience-based evidence of a bug, not of random chance. If I was paid to test these things systematically I would do so but it's too time consuming. Perhaps there really aren't that many people playing the game these days, or those who play it choose instead to stop rather than venting their frustrations on the customer forums.

Imperial Grunt, your Battle Pack seems to be excellently designed (I have only played two missions in US campaign so far). But the precision artillery bug is ruining your work for me. Did you notice that precision artillery was ineffective in your testing of the missions? I have fired over 15 Excalibur rounds (3x per fire mission) and none have hit their targets. Given what I have heard from others on the forum, itt seems that my experience is not unique. Are you aware of plans to fix this bug? As it stands, precision artillery is a waste of time to call because the success rate is less than 10% (I'm being generous). The shells land a matter of feet or even inches away from the targets, but never hit. I feel that this is not the case in real life against stationary targets.

I'll try this and return with results.

As I have continued to play Mission 2 of the US campaign, and have continued to call in precision artillery, I have continued to miss targets. I have fired over 15 Excalibur shells and none of hit their targets. Given the difficulty of most CM missions, this bug is "game breaking". I find it strange that customers have not taken to the forums to complain about this. I look forward to when the developers address this issue in writing and then fix it. So far I have no evidence that (1) they acknowledge that the bug exists and (2) they plan on fixing it.

No, they did not miss by much and yes the target was stationary (even after the third barrage of near hits). rocketman, so you recall that this is a known issue? Do you know of efforts by the devs to address this issue? Overall. the persistence of small bugs like this takes away from immersion and realism. The bugs may be small but there is little room for error in most CM missions. The gamer is left feeling annoyed by the bugs, not amazed by the excellent unbugged gameplay.