Sherman performance... again.

[Amizaur]

Yeah but that was with the lemming AI which simply crawled forward without further plan or planning.

If you have an AI with a plan you need to follow the plan. If all vehicles are always in CMx1 "hunt" mode that won't work, as you can delay movement of the enemy indefinitely simply by showing units.

Then how they managed in real-world to make any coordinated tank attack in WW2, shooting from short stops during an assault ? I would think, it should be easier to coordinate AI units in computer game, than to do it in real life

[womble]

Then how they managed in real-world to make any coordinated tank attack in WW2, shooting from short stops during an assault ? I would think, it should be easier to coordinate AI units in computer game, than to do it in real life

You're forgetting that the AI operates under the same parameters as the human, as well as being restricted by being a machine script. If the AI used Hunt to stop and fire, just showing an infantry contact for a few seconds would kill the entire turn's movement in WeGo. The AI can't replot its move until the next minute, any more than the player can.

[dieseltaylor]

Given how far some of that woodland is from anyone who'd tend it, I'd tend (oh-ho-ho ) to disagree. France is a lot more sparsely populated than I'm used to in the UK. Yes, more wood would have been being cut, but I don't see your average Paysan clearing the edges of his copse every summer just to be tidy. They'd cut a path, and the interior would be relatively clear because of the dense canopy, but the edges would be for the most part "au naturel" in the summer. Even brushwood cutting would get done as the leaves fell and the sap stopped rising, with the growing season done, rather than in the height of summer heat when there's hay to be gotten in (and calvados to sip in the shade of the orchard ).

The other aspect of cover from woodland (wild stuff, not orchards) is how dashed dark it is under the eaves of the woods that don't have shrubs filling in their side elevations. AIUI, shade isn't accounted for in the concealment values of trees.

I an agree shade is highly relevant as I know to my cost playing paintball in British woods in high summer , and for that matter other times of year.

You may be misled by the present population density levels In rural France and of course most of us are unfamiliar with the rural economy of Normandy in 1930-40's.

You say copse which is a slight difference in scale to woodland. I am still unable to find stats for rural population in France for the period which is annoying but I will persevere. The French economics site does not back anywhere near far enough but is still faintly interesting for land under grass, wooded, cereal crops, size of farm post 2000.

[Amizaur]

You're forgetting that the AI operates under the same parameters as the human, as well as being restricted by being a machine script. If the AI used Hunt to stop and fire, just showing an infantry contact for a few seconds would kill the entire turn's movement in WeGo. The AI can't replot its move until the next minute, any more than the player can.

The AI units COULD coordinate their movements, but this would require writing additional code .

The Hunt command COULD work, if there was HUNT ARMOR option, so they would not stop firing on infantry contacts, the "engage" logic could also be improved - for example the tank could stop to engage ONLY if certain conditions are met - leghth of the contact, it's size ect. It could stop to engage important contacts that are visible at least for xxx seconds and not for a split of second. Everything can be fine-tuned. The curent rules of emgagement ect. are very basic.

My point is - it COULD be done, but of course not with the currect code and current set of orders and their simple rules. It would have to be improved and enchanced. And it would require additional work. But please don't say it just can't be done .

[womble]

The AI units COULD coordinate their movements, but this would require writing additional code .

The Hunt command COULD work, if there was HUNT ARMOR option, so they would not stop firing on infantry contacts, the "engage" logic could also be improved - for example the tank could stop to engage ONLY if certain conditions are met - leghth of the contact, it's size ect. It could stop to engage important contacts that are visible at least for xxx seconds and not for a split of second. Everything can be fine-tuned. The curent rules of emgagement ect. are very basic.

My point is - it COULD be done, but of course not with the currect code and current set of orders and their simple rules. It would have to be improved and enchanced. And it would require additional work. But please don't say it just can't be done .

Yeah. Anything "could" be done. All it takes is design, programming and testing time. Someday, CM will make us our tea.

[Redwolf]

You're forgetting that the AI operates under the same parameters as the human, as well as being restricted by being a machine script. If the AI used Hunt to stop and fire, just showing an infantry contact for a few seconds would kill the entire turn's movement in WeGo. The AI can't replot its move until the next minute, any more than the player can.

Not with the resources that wargame developers can dedicate to AI.

I have been lobbying to developers to let us/me write an AI for more than a decade now, just like every Quake clone (FPS) game in the world allows players to do. There is just no hope.

Not entirely the developer's fault but still, it locks us into a situation where game developers have to waste their precious precious programming time that should better go elsewhere, only to come up with AIs that are lame, and in the case of CMx2 and TacOps also don't play arbitrary scenarios without human preplanning.

[Michael Emrys]

Someday, CM will make us our tea.

Which is all well and good, but will it ever learn to be a good lay?

Michael

[slysniper]

Ok, I finally sat down and did a little bit of testing last night to see what I would discover under the latest version of the game.

I saw some good and some not so good things. And by far, this is not enough testing to mean anything. But it was enough to get me a feel for what is going on and now I can try some other set ups to see how it impacts things. But as of yet, I do not have anything worth running a large number on that would show some issues.

The setup is this. I have a moving Sherman M4A1’s in the open, moving from cover to cover at 800 meters away from an enemy Sherman in tall grass under trees with heavy cover and trees behind it. (This might not be considered to be much concealment in the game-I need to test other types of hexes) but it is what I went with to see if it impacts play. Which I have not tested yet. The crews were Vets. With no mods and all units.

What I found the game does well is, Moving target in open are sighted very quickly. I saw no problems there. Within 13-15 seconds from the start of the game I always had sight of the moving Tank. I saw nothing in the test to think anything needs changed here.

Now the fun stuff.

At first I tested the moving Sherman with a hunt order and let both tanks fire at will. The results were the tank in the woods managed to shoot first every time. Spotting in 15 seconds and firing a few seconds later. With the enemy shooting at them the moving Sherman adv. spotting time were 28 seconds and then stopping and returning fire. So in general, not bad. Except for one thing, I had a battle where both tanks almost spotted each other at the same time.

So I adjusted the test so no firing would take place. Then I set the moving tank to not move to cover, but to zig zag moving towards the enemy. Let’s see what happens running at different speeds and see how long it takes the moving tank to spot the motionless tank in some concealment.

The motionless tank did fine with an adv. of 13 seconds to spot the enemy, nothing longer than 19 seconds.

But it is the moving tank that might have issues.

Here is what I saw. On the adv. It normally was taking twice as long for the moving tank to spot the motionless, tank. With 50% of the test taking over a minute for it to spot the tank. But that was the adv. Where I see a possible flaw is that 25% of my test had the moving tank spotting the enemy tank in 20 seconds or less.

With two tests actually having both tanks spot each other at the same time. This is not good.

Now I understand, that I should think of a tank in hunt mode as stopping at times and looking for the enemy.

So I ran some test at quick and fast to see if I could get similar results (there does appear to be added penalties). But I did get results of fast moving tanks still spotting the enemy tank twice in less than 23 seconds. (Now that is really bad- no fast moving tank should be seeing things all that well).

So In general, the moving tanks in the game adv. twice as long to spot something with a little variance for speed - not bad, at least there is a good difference (but similar results as if the enemy was firing, there should be much more of a difference). They have the ability to spot way to fast. Non motion targets at times. So I think a detailed test focused on this one issue might be what is needed.

So I was glad to see in principle it works, it just comes down to how often should a moving tank get eagle eye abilities where nothing is preventing it from seeing the enemy. (It is almost like it was sitting still and the enemy is not in any concealment either.

this shot shows what the moving sherman is trying to see

note: even if using Binos, this would not be easy to pick up quickly

Where as, even not in motion, it is pretty clear that we have a enemy tank out there

I do not expect the game to be totally realistic, but Some additional tweeking could be done to prevent moving units from picking up non firing units so quickly at times

[noob]

Everytime someone expresses a opinion about the game and the prices here that even suggests a change or two and it's always the same people who are first to arrive on the scene to get their panties in a twist

Your honour, it's not the fact that someone expresses an opinion about the game that gets peoples "panties in a twist", it's the way those opinions are expressed, (turns to defendant) so i put it to you sir, that based on the statements below, it is in fact you that has his "panties in a twist", and had so from the very start.

exhibit a/ your opening statement:

Yeah, the Shermans are currently OP bullcrap, I hope they release a patch that fixes it soon.

exhibit b/

Is the team that small or is the budged that limited? Give me some sources man before trying to get me disappointed on this game.

exhibit c/

Are they at least going to release FREE patches along with the module for the base game so that we don't have to pay 60$ for a bloody update?

exhibit d/

They had Canadian forces along with Americans already in the Beyond Overlord along with access to every month of the year. Without any fancy DLC's.

I rest my case your honour.

[slysniper]

Oh one other thing I wanted to mention. I started the test with clear skies at noon, I switched it thinking maybe overcast skies might change spotting the tank in the woods, which is what you are seeing. It was not the point of my test, but if it was a factor, it appeared they were spotted quicker when it was overcast. but based on the number of runs I would say there was no real difference. or not enought that I can say the engine was impacting the sighting because of it.

[eltorrente]

Oh one other thing I wanted to mention. I started the test with clear skies at noon, I switched it thinking maybe overcast skies might change spotting the tank in the woods, which is what you are seeing. It was not the point of my test, but if it was a factor, it appeared they were spotted quicker when it was overcast. but based on the number of runs I would say there was no real difference. or not enought that I can say the engine was impacting the sighting because of it.

It would have been interesting to see this tested with dissimilar tanks. Do Shermans see tanks quicker than German tanks? What brought this discussion up was the AAR that showed a PZIV sitting still, facing down the road, and a moving Sherman saw it first. It might be interesting to see if there is a major difference between Shermans and other tanks, or if they actually have equal chances.

[sburke]

Your honour, it's not the fact that someone expresses an opinion about the game that gets peoples "panties in a twist", it's the way those opinions are expressed, (turns to defendant) so i put it to you sir, that based on the statements below, it is in fact you that has his "panties in a twist", and had so from the very start.

exhibit a/ your opening statement:

exhibit b/

exhibit c/

exhibit d/

I rest my case your honour.

oh god damn it, the Jury is off playing CM again and missed the whole summation!! Mis trial your honour!!

[noob]

oh god damn it, the Jury is off playing CM again and missed the whole summation!! Mis trial your honour!!

(sound of banging gavel) Order !!!, Order in court !!!

[Baneman]

(sound of banging gavel) Order !!!, Order in court !!!

Did anyone else see a kangaroo in here ??

[slysniper]

It would have been interesting to see this tested with dissimilar tanks. Do Shermans see tanks quicker than German tanks? What brought this discussion up was the AAR that showed a PZIV sitting still, facing down the road, and a moving Sherman saw it first. It might be interesting to see if there is a major difference between Shermans and other tanks, or if they actually have equal chances.

testing them in the same testing and comparing spotting times would be a easy way to compare that

[Paper Tiger]

It would have been interesting to see this tested with dissimilar tanks. Do Shermans see tanks quicker than German tanks? What brought this discussion up was the AAR that showed a PZIV sitting still, facing down the road, and a moving Sherman saw it first. It might be interesting to see if there is a major difference between Shermans and other tanks, or if they actually have equal chances.

I have actually done this myself when testing the Scottish Corridor campaign. Prior to receiving Brit units, I was using US units in their place. I drove a Sherman tank FAST down a road and as soon as it reached the bend, the crew literally instantly spotted a Panther tank positioned 45o to their right facing in their direction. It didn't happen ever time I ran this test but it happened often enough that it was wrong.

Once the Churchills arrived, I noticed that the Churchill could do the same, albeit slightlyless frequently, but that could just be the God of Random Numbers screwing with me. So it's not a Sherman issue, it's a tank spotting issue.

[GSX]

I'm Scottish - can you explain what emotions are?

Oh panties - I get them? In a twist? Hhhmm panties....

See sburke's post. He's way more rational and lucid than I am.

Now why the feck do I have forty fingers and toes...

Being Scots means you do have the following emotions:

Dour

sullen

Nae bad

However, not all on the same day.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

If tis nae Scottish, tis crrrrrrrrrrap!