A Arabian Posted November 29, 1999 Share Posted November 29, 1999 Ok, this is probably covered in another posting, but a search on 'victory locations' yielded FAR too many posts for me to filter through, so I checked the most probably ones and couldn't find info on this particular issue. Forgive me if it is a rehash: Told from the point of view of what the german player sees: Imagine, if you will, turn 28 in Riesberg. Allies are assaulting the church where I have one heroic sharpshooter and about 30 m. away a cowering smg team (4 out of action) (broken or panicked, dont recall which). The allies assault with 5 or 6 units of various types. Victory loc flag is a questionmark. Turn 29: Sharpshooter gets killed and allies begin to move in. However, the flag does not go to an ALLIED victory flag, but instead a GERMAN one. I KNOW there are allied units in there, and another visible outside the walls on its way in at the end of the turn. The only unit I have is the (still panicked) smg team still about 30 m away. Turn 30: About 5 allied units hanging out in the church now (God to have a mortar...) but all are 'stars' (i.e. not visible per se) but the flag still shows up as GERMAN. This is how the scenario ends. At the very least this should show up as a question mark if I'm not sure if there are units in tehre or not. There is NO way the Germans own it at all! However, the allied player sees this as an allied VL as of turn 29. To me, this is quite obviously terrain captured by the allies by sheer force of numbers. My cowering smg team notwithstanding, I can't project the power into the building. I presume the answer to this is going to be 'fog of war' but how could fog of war give me something that I know isnt mine! It seems like the fog should instead indicate it is '?'(unkown who owns it). Sorry for the length of this, but I really kinda want to know. Regards, A. Arabian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hough Posted November 29, 1999 Share Posted November 29, 1999 Well, you dont REALLY know it's not yours... those stars are just the last contact. You have no way of knowing if they'd packed up their bags and headed back the way they came after killing the sharpshooter. So the only unit that you actually see by the VL is your panicked half-stregnth squad. Which is sufficient to capture the location as long as there's no enemies nearby. You, of course, know that the location is likely not yours, but you don't know for sure. I wonder, though... would the ai, in that situation, consider the location his? -John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los Posted November 29, 1999 Share Posted November 29, 1999 p.s. did you check the second floor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Arabian Posted November 29, 1999 Author Share Posted November 29, 1999 R.e. second floor - the sharpshooter was on the second floor before he was overwhelmed (Which I think is a bug, BTW - based on CC, he should have been able to easily take out all three rifle teams, platoon command, and bazooka. Man - whats wrong with this game? ) I agree that I don't know whats going on there - i.e. it MIGHT or MIGHT NOT have enemy units in it, but it seems to me that that lack of knowledge would result in a questionmark, not in an owned vic loc. Seems that I should have to do some additional recon before I get the VL as 'mine'. I KNOW that there were at one point enemy units in there, and simply because I can't see them right now doesn't mean the computer should say its 'mine'. A. Arabian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 Actually in CM-logic it does. See, CM doesn't work by using the "last nation to touch this VL owns it forever" SO the fact that US troops were there ten minutes ago means NOTHING if you have troops there now. I guarantee you though that if you had LOS to a single squad in that VL that you would have known it was a fully US owned VL. What you came across was an extreme example of how the VLs work. I do think it's realistic though since you actually don't know there's anyone in the church NOW. You know there WERE but don't know there ARE ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 As the opponent in this game, I thought I might speak up. Fionn, do you know if the VLs take into account the last known location symbols (whatever you want to call them...) I know that the VLs aren't supposed to give you any more information then you already have, but in this case the VLs don't really seem to jive with the info at hand. I would think that the VL flag would be the unknown flag if there are synbols showing in its location. As the Germans, Adam didn't know whether I had moved my squads out from that VL or not, as such it should be unknown. Now, if he hadn't been able to see any troops (or symbols) then I can see why it would be his, but in this case he was unsure whether there were still troops in the building or not, and as such the VL (I would think) should have been shown to him as unknown. At least until such time as he either got close enough to tell for sure, or was able to spot them in the building... Adam took a couple of screenshots of it from his perspective. laf.cioe.com/~galanti/cm/church1.jpg laf.cioe.com/~galanti/cm/church2.jpg Now, of course, at the end of the game, the VL was shown correctly as mine (allied) so it didn't really affect the game any, it just seemed to be completely at odds with the info at hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 Simple answer. The game does NOT count the "infantry used to be here 15 minutes ago" markers as contributing to "ownership of the VL". All the German VL allocator knew at that stage was that some US guys HAD been in the church maybe 10 minutes ago BUT he couldn't see anyone in there. Therefore, since there was a German squad right beside it and the church was, presumably empty the AI told the German player he owned it when in fact he didn't. It all seems perfectly logical to me. The key here is that those symbols denote US presence IN THE PAST and NOT the present.. If you saw 1 squad for real in that church at that turn then the VL would be shown as American. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 I understand what the game is doing, I just happen to disagree with it While I agree that the symbols represent the unit locations in the past, not the present, they also represent the last known location of those units. Since the last known location of the units is around the VL, I would think the game should show its status as unknown to the German player. Now, I am unclear about a couple of things with respect to the symbols, which may make a difference in my opinion on this subject. Do they fade away after some amount of time if no clear LOS is gained to them? If a unit gets LOS to a symbol, but there is no longer a unit there, does the symbol then go away? or are the symbols their permanantly until the unit itself is respotted? I haven't paid close enough attention to them to be sure. If the symbols are permanent, then it might have to be the way it is now, since you could get into the situation where a german unit entered the church and all the allied units had left, but the symbols were still there. If the symbols were taken into account, then that would screw things up. But, if the symbols disappear once a unit gains clear LOS to the location and can see if the unit is still there or not, then they should be taken into account. Since they are the last known location, and as far as you know they are still there (until you check it out and find out for sure). Now, if the symbols are permanent, I would put a vote in for changing them so that the disappear if a friendly unit gains LOS to the location and the unit is no longer there, but thats for CM2 and a different thread [This message has been edited by Ben Galanti (edited 11-30-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Arabian Posted November 30, 1999 Author Share Posted November 30, 1999 Basically thats my stance as well. It only affects game play nominally as victory percent is pretty arbitrary - I can tell how well a battle is going regardless of if I own this square inch or not. However, as I see it, if I saw 5 units walk in last turn (as was the case), I can have a pretty good guess (and to my mind so should the software) that at least for the next turn or two there are units close enough that the VL is under contention. But, as I said, not a huge deal one way or t'other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 Symbols are not permanent they fade away over time. Further, they react to new spotting of the units. I can't believe it, a question that I played the game enough to learn the answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 The fade away thing is pretty cool if that's how it works... I know that the symbols disappear if the unit that the symbol represents is respotted somewhere else, but do they disappear if you run one of your own units up to it and there's no one really there anymore? (assuming you haven't respotted the unit, in which case the point is moot) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 I have seen the symbols disappear under what appeared to be those exact circumstances. I can't say for sure though, because one of the other squads may have been the same one, but I'm pretty sure that they were other squads. It gets pretty chaotic to know these things for sure, as I'm sure you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 Yep, if you run up one of your units to see if the enemy is still where the marker indicates him to be, and find out he's gone, the marker will disappear. Moreover, the marker will also disappear after some time (several turns) even if you do not have anybody in the area to check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 Thanks for the clarification Moon. Since that's the case, I'm going to go back to my stance that the symbols should affect the VL flags. In this case, i think the flag should have been a question mark from the German perspective 9especially since the units had only moved in the turn previous). Fionn and I might just have to agree to disagree on this though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howardb Posted November 30, 1999 Share Posted November 30, 1999 I've discovered that many times a hotseat game can answer a lot of questions. Fionn said that if you put the tank on hide it wouldnt fire at anything than a Tank (well he's got a later version tho) but I tried it and it fired on everything in sight. I like the fact that the AI asks if you want to use the main gun if you're shooting at infantry tho.. could save you valuable time if a tank showed up. Don't have to reload to AP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 1, 1999 Share Posted December 1, 1999 Howardb, In my posts I can't cover every eventuality. What I was envisioning was that the tank would disregard some low-priority targets if in hide. Obviously though if the tank sees only infantry it's going to fire at them.. I think hide shouldn't be used unles you really ARE ambushing though. Ambuhs, hide the tank to make it quiet and sit and wait ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted December 1, 1999 Share Posted December 1, 1999 It should be added, maybe, that...uh... trying to hide a tank on top of a hill or in the middle of wide open ground won't do much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howardb Posted December 1, 1999 Share Posted December 1, 1999 Well from Fionn's post I thought hide was the equivalent of "target armor only", I'm not english so I guess I don't get all the meanings on different issues sometimes I know that it's been said earlier that in the final version it will be a "target armor (& maybe AT guns) only" and I really think we need that. You're loosing valuable seconds and you get exposed by shooting at infantry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolColJ Posted December 6, 1999 Share Posted December 6, 1999 I think what Arabian and others are trying to say, that the flags disrupt FOW. If a Flag in the distant arae of a map, is neutral, then there must be no enemies nearby , or if it has an enemey flag, there must soldiers there... etc see what I mean. Maybe its in the game - but I feel there should 4 flags, unknown, neutral, Axis and Allied ------------------ ------------------ CCJ BLITZ_Force My HomePage -----> www.geocities.com/coolcolj/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted December 6, 1999 Share Posted December 6, 1999 Ok, so there seems to be a slight misunderstanding with regard to how VL flags work. When the flag is shown as neutral, it does not mean that it really is neutral - it only means that you cannot be sure if YOU control it. While you might see it as neutral, the other player might see it as his... or even as yours in some instances. Or, in other words, "unknown" and "neutral" is the same flag type in CM - "neutral". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted December 6, 1999 Share Posted December 6, 1999 Perhaps there would be room for a fourth flag type though. Something to differentiate between 'unknown' and 'contested'. Neutral doesn't seem to be the right word, becuase the only way a flag could be neutral is if nobody is there, in which case it is actually unknown If there are units from both sides in the area though, a 'contested' flag might be a nice addition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 6, 1999 Share Posted December 6, 1999 Ben, if there were two VL flags to differentiate then the NET effect would be that you'd be giving the player free info since ONE flag would indicate the presence of the enemy more strongly than the other. You could safely run to an "unknown" flag cause no enemy are nearby BUT you'd know that there would be enemy there if it was the "contested" flag. BTW there IS a contested flag already in... It's half US and half-German and I've seen it a few times during play . ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted December 6, 1999 Share Posted December 6, 1999 Fionn, I pretty much like the victory flags as they are (except for the whole strange occurance that started this thread ) I would suggest a contested flag ONLY if you already knew that there were enemy units there, otherwise it would be unknown (as it is now). I haven't seen a contested flag in the beta demo though, perhaps this is something new since the beta build? If it's in there already, that's even beter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 6, 1999 Share Posted December 6, 1999 Oh, that might be it.. It mightn't be in the beta demo but is in my version. Whatever the case it'll be in the game that ships.. SOO much has changed it's difficult to keep track of it all. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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