nikolai

I don't know... It sounds as if we play different games... In the CM that I played, group movement orders just do an affine transformation. That is, every unit is moved by exactly the same distance to exactly the same direction. No intelligence involved. No attempt to optimize placement of individual units to find better firing position or better cover.

In my opinion, tactical AI means *making decisions*. That is, finding a reasonable trade-off between multiple options given the current uncertain information about the enemy. You know, finding the shortest path is not a tactical AI, but finding the safest path would be. Running away after being broken is not a decision/trade-off, as well as dying after being shot is not a decision. A tactical decision would be to decide whether a unit should engage an enemy or not based on chances to kill the enemy versus the risk of being spotted and shattered by return fire. As of now, so called TacAI is not even able to choose an appropriate weapon for the target, it just fires everything that has even the slightest chance to damage the target. Sure, the decisions needed at CM scale are different from the decisions at CO2 scale. However, notice how many tweaks are there in CO2. That's because there is a tactical AI and it needs your input to adjust various trade-offs to your high-level plan. I think that if BF ever decides to add a tactical AI to the game, it should start with adding Aggressiveness and Rate of Fire parameters for units. The units would use those parameters to decide whether to engage the enemy or not, and which weapon to use.

Right. Different games, different systems. That's fine. I just don't want to pretend there is a tactical AI, while in fact it is absent by design.

You sound as if there is a tactical AI in the game. TacAI is a misnomer. The existing unit "AI" doesn't take tactical situation into account at all. You cannot ask it to find the safest path, you cannot ask it to make an ambush, you cannot ask it to fire-and-retreat (would be helpful for ambushes, snipers or for fire-and-forget missiles in CMBS). Just compare it, for example, to true tactical AI in Command Ops 2 and you will see what tactical AI should look like. I play CM with an assumption that there is no friendly tactical AI and I have to micromanage units giving them the very basic orders: go this way with normal speed, don't forget to deploy weapon, fire into this wall for 30 seconds. You're trying to impute to TacAI decisions that it was never designed to make.

Thank you!

Thanks! So, it indeed looks like a bug with cursor hovering. Any ideas how to best inform developers about it?

It's a lame excuse. Every time pixel soldiers do some nonsense, someone says that it's a feature, a clever tactical AI. But every time someone asks for Ambush command or ability to mount/dismount at the interim waypoint, the answer is that it's too much for the AI.

Sure. It's "A Muddy Affair" battle. There is a stream on the left-hand side. Most of it cannot be crossed (according to cursor-hovering), but there is a pretty big segment of the stream that appears fordable. Feel free to try it and please share your results.

I have just tried changing the movement type to Fast or Quick. It didn't help. The tank still refuses to cross the stream and tries to go around it. How can it be not a bug? I mean, why do you think it is a feature?

Ok. Based on your replies, I presume that this behavior looks like a bug. Does anyone know how I could report a bug?

No. I have checked it multiple times. There is no impassable tiles in this location. The nearest impassable tile is pretty far from this path, under the tree. Here's the video: https://streamable.com/bmqixg (sorry for capturing video with the phone, for some reason OBS doesn't capture cursor in CM).

Thanks for your replies! Yes, I am aware of the cursor-hovering method. However, in this case I cannot see any impassable tiles in this part of the map. Actually, my original screenshot was supposed to show that all the tiles in the path are kind of considered passable (you cannot put a waypoint into an impassable tile, can you?). Still, the tank refuses to cross the stream and decides to drive around the stream (the stream ends on the other side of the map, deep into the enemy position). I wonder if it could be somehow related to muddy ground conditions. I wonder if some tiles could have turned impassable because of it, while cursor-hovering method keeps assuming dry ground conditions.

It is so frustrating when instead of straight-line path your tanks take detour through enemy positions and get busted... Is there a way to know in advance whether a tank will be able to cross a stream or it will be forced to drive around?

Thanks @c3k. That should work fine in most cases.

No. That's not what I'm talking about. Using Javelin against an APC is fine if APC is pretty far, because there's a chance that the team will die before they have an opportunity to use it against a tank. Though, if APC is close, I'd like TacAI to try and use AT4 first. What I'm talking about is pretty different. In this case TacAI decides to use Javelin (Javelin operator is aiming), but at the same time it fires AT4 rockets and reveals the team. Firing AT4 as soon as possible would make sense if the team were spotted and fired at. But when the team is well concealed, it's just a pointless suicide.

Hi Ken, Attached the saved game. It's a simple contrived example to make sure that such stupid behavior is not caused by stress/casualties. The password for both sides is 123. Please, let me know if you have any other questions. I would be happy to help. It's a rifle squad with all the heavy weapon from Stryker and without the assault team. I believe when deciding whether to fire AT4 (or any other weapon), TacAI should weigh chances to destroy the target against importance of staying concealed. In my example, in the beginning of the turn I would expect TacAI to decide not to fire AT4 (low chances of success and the enemy probably cannot see the team), but decide to fire Javelin (high chances of success outweigh importance of concealment). As soon as they fire Javelin, the concealment is gone and nothing prevents TacAI from firing AT4 at other targets even though the chances are still low. Thanks, Nikolai Test 003.bts.zip

Guys, do you have the same issue with AT4 and Javelin? What do you do about it? Maybe I should have given some specific combination of orders to make soldiers keep hiding until they fire Javelin? Maybe there is a way to tell them to fire AT4 only at close targets and not waste them at 200+m distance? Or maybe my expectations of soldiers doing "the right thing" are plain wrong, and they are supposed to fire at everything they can without any intelligence?

I've just got a very frustrating experience trying to ambush enemy armored units with Javelin. I had a rifle team with Javelin hidden inside a building and able to spot a BMP-3 in the distance (about 250 m). As soon as they spotted the vehicle, they started to fire their AT4 at it, revealing their position immediately. Of course, all the AT4 missed at such distance, BMP returned fire and all the team lied dead long before Javelin operator had a chance to fire his missile. It looks like a bug in TacAI. The only workaround I could come up with is to never give Javelin to a team with AT4, and that is not cool at all... Actually, according to the patch notes, a similar bug was "fixed" in 2.10. However, in 2.12 and 2.13 I still see rifle teams using their AT4 prematurely, revealing their position and getting wiped out before they can fire a Javelin. Video example: https://streamable.com/s2kuzn