phil stanbridge Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 I've played a few QB's of varying sizes now. I've been the attacker in most situations and have cherry-picked my own force. I allow the AI to auto select its force but I generally specify force 'mix' and leave it at that. I've noticed that every battle thus far has been extremely armour centric. In my last battle which was a medium sized assault the AI chose 5 tanks/assault guns and a couple of LMG teams with a FO team, and some off-map artillery. Not very helpful defending a town. This was supposed to be a 'mixed' selection. But it doesn't seem particularly mixed to me? Is this working as intended? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Well, all I can say is that you're not the first person to point this out, myself included. Hopefully they are tweaking how the AI picks it's forces. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 The only way this will ever get sorted out is if they implement a Combined Arms setting. Calling the current option "Mixed" is a misnomer, since it is actually the equivalent of the CMx1 Unrestricted setting. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childress Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 The only way this will ever get sorted out is if they implement a Combined Arms setting. +1 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExurbanKevin Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I've seen similar with the AI on defence. I set up a nice balanced force of armour, arty and infantry, only to find out I'm fighting 6 entrenched 88's and two spotters for 150 infantry guns, and that's it. No, no doubt such things happened for real, but every single time? And +1 to the Combined Arms idea. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJFHutch Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I don't think you need a combined arms setting, choosing balanced forces is the most effective way to play, it's just that the auto-picker isn't very good at it. "Mix" is combined arms, what do you have in mind when you say "combined arms" by the way? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 I don't think you need a combined arms setting, choosing balanced forces is the most effective way to play, it's just that the auto-picker isn't very good at it. This is more of an argument against using AI picked forces than against a Combined Arms setting. At least the autopicker would be forced to spread its points around. But there are good reasons for it beyond playing against AI picked forces. Combined Arms was by far the most popular setting used in CMx1 PBEMs. It surprised me that it was not in CMx2. "Mix" is combined arms, what do you have in mind when you say "combined arms" by the way? Lets just say that when I think of a combined arms force 5 tanks, 2 LMGs and an FO isn't really what I have in mind And apparently neither did the OP. In CMx1 the Combined Arms setting put hard limits on how many points you could spend on any category of forces. For example, in a 3000 pt attack/defend QB as the German defender you would be allowed to spend up to 2148 pts on infantry, 1288 pts on support units, 600 pts on vehicles, 402 pts on armor (in CMx1 light vehicles such as trucks and half tracks were in a separate category from tanks and assault guns), 750 on artillery and 600 on fortifications. As mentioned above, the "Mixed" setting is actually the same as the CMx1 Unrestricted setting, which was not nearly as popular with players. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJFHutch Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Isn't that a bit restrictive? That sounds very similar to TOW2, in which I felt I may as well just press the "randomize" button instead of picking since it gave me almost exactly the same units every time anyway. The thing is nobody [human] will pick 5 tanks, 2 LMGs and an FO, if they did they would be annihilated [provided it wasn't a flat plain]. Well rounded, balanced forces are the most effective - as they should be. OP was referring to AI selected forces, not human ones, which is where the problem is. These kind of systems always feel very unnatural and gamey to me, funneling both players into a kind of "tournament" play reminiscent of Starcraft or Supreme Commander. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Of course it's a bit restrictive. That's whole point. But to suggest that it eliminates choice is completely wrong . Add up all the numbers in the categories I listed and they come out to be much more than 3000 pts so you do have some wiggle room. I assure you that you can get a lot of variety with that system. What it does do is act as a sanity check. You don't have to worry about someone spending half their points on artillery and just blasting you off the map. Sure, you can negotiate stuff like that, but that can be tedious. There is a reason why it was the most popular QB setting. As for gameyness, QBs give you a limited number of points to choose your forces with. Putting limits on the individual categories isn't any more gamey than the QB system already is by its very nature. I'm not seeing the downside here. It's not as if the Mixed/Unrestricted setting can't co-exist along with a Combine Arms setting. It was like that in CMx1 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJFHutch Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 I guess I just don't see a need for it. How many [mp] battles have you had where you thought "that's ridiculous" and on top of that how many of those didn't go horribly wrong for the guy doing it? I haven't played a lot of multiplayer but I haven't ever seen anything like you describe. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 I've never played multiplayer in CMBN, so I guess the answer is "none". But I do intend to. Even if you discount the multiplayer aspect for whatever reason, it would also presumably help with the AI autopick issue the OP was complaining about. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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