Squads not splitting???

[slysniper]

What is the logic in not letting Italian squads split.

I can see it as to poor training maybe. but it is not working well in the game.

The units are so big, they are not working well with your action spots.

Examples. Assault is only allowed to one action square, 12 men in one square is not very good tactics

basically, ties the italians hands as to no scouting units. scoting with a squad is not very stealty.

To keep my men spread out, I need them to move to a 2 or 3 action spot location. problem is, since the game selects them spots, many times only 1 of the 3 action spots will have troops with the line of sight I need.

when inside bldgs, since I cannot split the squad and spread them out on floor levels, the old problem of too many men at one window is showing up.

So what is the logic again, because they are already at a great disadvantage without you doing that to them. With their large squad size, they should at least be able to split into 2 units or something.

[Ranger33]

Yeah, it's annoying and makes about as much sense as not letting Syrian regular army troops split in CMSF. I get that this is supposed to represent a lack of training, poor leadership, etc. but the blanket approach isn't really fair or, arguably, realistic. In my mind that limitation should be applied based on the experience level of the squad and not nationality. Maybe Italian squads need to be Veteran level to do it, while German/Allies only need to be Regulars? That would seem fair to me and take training doctrines into account versus combat experience. I'm guessing the same issue will pop up on the Eastern front with Soviet infantry, maybe something to consider then.

This is one of those fun vs realism things that should lean towards fun. If only to avoid the frustration of having 10 guys trying to look through two windows, and then watching half your squad get taken out by a single HE round.

[eltorrente]

Yeah, it's strange that the Italians have the doctrine of never, ever, being separated by more than an arms length - no matter what the situation. I feel like these guys are in the circus, all cramming into a clown car or something..

[Chek]

Your gonna have to think differently using these puppies.May want to give it a little more than 24 hours before throwing the towel in.

They got a whole lot of concentrated fire power,splitting them up would seriously weaken that.

[noob]

Your gonna have to think differently using these puppies.May want to give it a little more than 24 hours before throwing the towel in.

They got a whole lot of concentrated fire power,splitting them up would seriously weaken that.

I feel the same way about British Infantry, although they can be split, after playing a couple of games with them i would be inclined to keep them together, as the Bren is weak and cannot augment their comrades bolt action rifles the same way an MG42 can, so the Italians, like the British, have to be played differently.

[Ranger33]

Your gonna have to think differently using these puppies.May want to give it a little more than 24 hours before throwing the towel in.

They got a whole lot of concentrated fire power,splitting them up would seriously weaken that.

The problem right now is that sometimes you can't bring all that firepower to bear, because the action spots don't line up how you want them to. So you end up with one section of the squad looking over a ridge, but the others can't see anything, and you can't micromanage their positions without splitting them. It doesn't happen that often, but it's frustrating when it does.

It's certainly not a game breaker or anything, just annoying.

[Sergei]

The LMG team is also part of the squad, so in that sense they're already split. The biggest weakness is that you can't have a two man scout party so either you have to scout with the LMG team or use the assault order for 'scouting'.

[Battlefront.com]

I've covered this in more detail in this thread:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105542&page=4

While I agree that there are times when the lack of splitting is a bit draconian, overall it is entirely realistic.

Guys, you have to remember that there is DOCTRINE which goes above and beyond Experience. It governs training, equipment, ranks, etc. The Italians are using WW1 doctrine and just everything that you see follows from that. Now, do you think that WW1 doctrine was the same as WW2 doctrine? Man, I hope not So yeah, you should see some HUGE differences in tactical flexibility between Italians and everybody else. Giving them the same tactical flexibility would be wrong. Very, very wrong. So on the whole, restricting the ability to Split is beneficial to the aspect of realism. Not beneficial to the aspect of playing as the Italians, but our job isn't to make them unrealistically easier to play.

The primary reason why the Italians are clumped together so much is they had no leadership structure to do otherwise. A WW2 Squad, using WW2 doctrine, had two dedicated leaders; Squad and Team. Modern units have usually three; Squad and two Team. WW2 Italians had effectively one for the same number of men.

If you don't think that should have a serious impact on tactical flexibility, then we're just going to have to agree to disagree because I know of no reason why it shouldn't.

The only problem I had with the Syrians not being able to Split was the inability to get the RPG out on its. That was an arguably realistic request. It is now possible with the changes made to the game engine since Shock Force, so when we get back to Modern this will be an option.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

The LMG team is also part of the squad, so in that sense they're already split. The biggest weakness is that you can't have a two man scout party so either you have to scout with the LMG team or use the assault order for 'scouting'.

Good point. You just have to get it straight that the Italian concept of LMG is more like a MMG in terms of crewing.

The standard WW2 doctrine for platoons has about 30 men split up around 3 LMGs (later 6). The LMGs were doctrinally designed to be left on their own with between 2-3 men and the rest being used as a maneuver element.

Italians, on the other hand, have about 40 men split up around 2 LMGs, each crewed by 9 men.

This is the difference between a triangular system vs. a binary system. There's a reason almost nobody was using binary systems by 1943 and nobody uses them today as far as I know. Heck, I think by 1943 even Romania (which started out with WW1 doctrine) had converted to triangular. Can't remember about Hungarians.

Steve

[slysniper]

I've covered this in more detail in this thread:

While I agree that there are times when the lack of splitting is a bit draconian, overall it is entirely realistic.

Guys, you have to remember that there is DOCTRINE which goes above and beyond Experience. It governs training, equipment, ranks, etc. The Italians are using WW1 doctrine and just everything that you see follows from that. Now, do you think that WW1 doctrine was the same as WW2 doctrine? Man, I hope not So yeah, you should see some HUGE differences in tactical flexibility between Italians and everybody else. Giving them the same tactical flexibility would be wrong. Very, very wrong. So on the whole, restricting the ability to Split is beneficial to the aspect of realism. Not beneficial to the aspect of playing as the Italians, but our job isn't to make them unrealistically easier to play.

The primary reason why the Italians are clumped together so much is they had no leadership structure to do otherwise. A WW2 Squad, using WW2 doctrine, had two dedicated leaders; Squad and Team. Modern units have usually three; Squad and two Team. WW2 Italians had effectively one for the same number of men.

If you don't think that should have a serious impact on tactical flexibility, then we're just going to have to agree to disagree because I know of no reason why it shouldn't.

The only problem I had with the Syrians not being able to Split was the inability to get the RPG out on its. That was an arguably realistic request. It is now possible with the changes made to the game engine since Shock Force, so when we get back to Modern this will be an option.

Steve

I was not saying it is wrong in concept, but can there be some flexability as to how they work in the game. Still restricting them but able to work with the game system better.

Maybe, like a feature to at least pick the 2 or 3 action points that are touching each other so at least you can try to position the whole squad to be able to maybe see desired point. like lining up along a ridge line. (right now it is shear luck if you can find the machine giving you the correct multi action point locations.)

Or maybe a feature, that allows limited splitting but prevents the squad from willing leaving each others sight, they are required to stay within verbal command or something like that.

Having some different restrictions are not a issue. But it should be fair to what they were able to preform. (Now you cannot tell me they fought in R.L., by requiring the whole squad to storm and assault the building at once).

[ZPB II]

A really, really cool feature now that we have moveable waypoints would be the ability to paint a move order over 2-3 action spots and thus spread the squad on these tiles. This would easen micromanagement load of splitting squads and placing them right next to each other to have good fields of fire and allow a bit more flexibility with the Italians.

[slysniper]

A really, really cool feature now that we have moveable waypoints would be the ability to paint a move order over 2-3 action spots and thus spread the squad on these tiles. This would easen micromanagement load of splitting squads and placing them right next to each other to have good fields of fire and allow a bit more flexibility with the Italians.

Something like this would be good for all units, just not the Italions.

I think having to play with them has just drawn my focus to the fact that I have never liked how the game allows you to select the multi square locations.

Steve plays without splitting squads. I always am splitting squads. Not that I dont want to keep them together. But for the fact that I find it is the only way to get all my unit in position to see the enemy. And face command does not solve the problem.

[Battlefront.com]

I was not saying it is wrong in concept, but can there be some flexability as to how they work in the game. Still restricting them but able to work with the game system better.

Maybe, like a feature to at least pick the 2 or 3 action points that are touching each other so at least you can try to position the whole squad to be able to maybe see desired point. like lining up along a ridge line. (right now it is shear luck if you can find the machine giving you the correct multi action point locations.)

Or maybe a feature, that allows limited splitting but prevents the squad from willing leaving each others sight, they are required to stay within verbal command or something like that.

Answers from the other thread:

The first suggestion (trying to have common LOS to stuff) is actually in there already. The problem is that anything automatic is going to run into problems with doing something automatically in the wrong situation. We've played around with this aspect a lot since 2006 and it's gotten a lot better. Might be time to look into further tweaks again.

The second suggestion of allowing units to spread out only if they stay with LOS sounds simple on paper, but computationally it is extremely difficult to pull off. First there is the performance hit from all the LOS checks between Teams. That would likely kill the idea right there because LOS checks are extremely expensive from a CPU standpoint. Suddenly doubling the infantry based LOS checks would likely not be viable (I can almost promise it wouldn't be). And even if it weren't a problem, then we would have to write some pretty spiffy TacAI to keep the units together under a variety of tactical circumstances. That doable, but again it comes at a cost and would open the floodgate to a host of problems that would probably take years to tweak out.

Having some different restrictions are not a issue. But it should be fair to what they were able to preform. (Now you cannot tell me they fought in R.L., by requiring the whole squad to storm and assault the building at once).

Actually, that probably would have been the norm for any building greater than the size of a hovel.

Standard rule of thumb... if a player asks for more control and more flexibility, it is almost always not realistic though he will try to justify it as such.

Just saying

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Steve plays without splitting squads. I always am splitting squads. Not that I dont want to keep them together. But for the fact that I find it is the only way to get all my unit in position to see the enemy.

Then I must be a SUPER great player because I can win games, no problem, without splitting my Squads up. I think you guys should all be glad I don't have time to play multiplayer (especially RT TCP/IP), because it sounds like I'd crush you like grapes

Or it could be that your perception of deficiency is out of line with the actual deficiency. This is a common problem with Humans as a species, so it wouldn't be surprising. Especially because gamers tend to perceive most restrictions as having negative impacts that could otherwise be alleviated by giving the player more control (less restriction). Yet completely not thinking through the knock on effects which, often, are so bad that it makes the game experience change a net negative.

Remember, you guys might have been playing games for 20 years, but I've been designing them for about that amount of time. You guys have been focused pretty much only on game play, whereas I have to pay a lot of attention to game players. So I know of what I speak

And face command does not solve the problem.

Correction... "face command does not *always* solve the problem". Change that and I agree. I also agree it's a problem that would be best to keep working at fixing without opening Pandora's box.

Having said all of that, I definitely would like to see some sort of ability to easily override the TacAI's other concerns and get it to bring all it's firepower to focus on one spot. It's not entirely realistic since in real life this sort of efficiency isn't guaranteed, but overall I think the game would be better for it PROVIDED we don't significantly increase micromanagement UI.

Steve

[slysniper]

Good points as always Steve. And I understand, you most definitely understand the game you have designed better than I could ever.

So thanks for the text and explanations.

As for beating me in a real time game, I am sure you would. Since I am at the point in life where real Time is just a area of stress that I do not enjoy. I only play that format if I am playing the machine. then I can pause when I want and give out turns to many units just like I was playing Wego.

Plus solves my two left hands on the computer keys also:)

[Childress]

On the non-splitting Italian squads: Some players pine for more flexibility. Steve defends BF's decision based on historical inflexibility. I recall that in CMBB Russian squads below a given level of experience were prohibited from dividing. I don't remember much angst back then. Maybe because there was more abstraction- no 1:1- in that series of games anyway.

My question is: what's the expiration date on this controversy? It's starting to get tiresome already.

[ZPB II]

On the non-splitting Italian squads: Some players pine for more flexibility. Steve defends BF's decision based on historical inflexibility. I recall that in CMBB Russian squads below a given level of experience were prohibited from dividing. I don't remember much angst back then. Maybe because there was more abstraction- no 1:1- in that series of games anyway.

My question is: what's the expiration date on this controversy? It's starting to get tiresome already.

That's not the crux of the issue. What people complain about is the fact that even if a squad has only one leader, he will order his men to spread out more than they do in the game currently. Being able to spread a squad over a couple of actions points would alleviate this problem and yet retain the realistic feel of having only a single leader in a squad.

It is not realistic to shoot at huge blobs of men. Not a single picture or video of Italians in WW2 comes to mind that depicts that kind of scene currently in the game. I could understand a large group of men cowering behind a single piece of cover, but it's not about that. There is plenty of cover around but it's not utilized.

It's not a massive gamebreaker but indicating that people who want it fixed somehow don't want realism or historical accuracy is meh.

[cool breeze]

OK first, I LOVE CM:FI, I expected to love it, upon opening it and playing it i LOVE IT! The graphics are amazing, so good that I am finally succeeding getting a friend to try it, and the Italians are a blast. Even the new menus and GUI are amazing.

OK now why I'm posting here.

"play multiplayer (especially RT TCP/IP), because it sounds like I'd crush you like grapes "

I think a lot of people on the forum would love to see an AAR of a you vs forumite RT game. I would!

[Childress]

OK first, I LOVE CM:FI, I expected to love it, upon opening it and playing it i LOVE IT! The graphics are amazing, so good that I am finally succeeding getting a friend to try it, and the Italians are a blast. Even the new menus and GUI are amazing.

I think a lot of people on the forum would love to see an AAR of a you vs forumite RT game. I would!

During the early years of the Nazi movement Hitler's colleagues were continually urging him to join their pick up football games. His response was 'how would it look if their Fuehrer were to be seen losing a game!'. (Hanfstaengl)

Agree. CMFI is the best Battlefront game to date. My only issues so far are the somewhat narrow scope and that it won't let me delete saved games from within the program (and I could be missing something there). CMFI will, imo, really bloom when it adds the CW troops and moves to the mainland, presumably in the next module.

[sburke]

OK now why I'm posting here.

"play multiplayer (especially RT TCP/IP), because it sounds like I'd crush you like grapes "

I think a lot of people on the forum would love to see an AAR of a you vs forumite RT game. I would!

Yeah baby

A Steve challenge tournament! Woohoo!!!

[Chek]

My only issues so far are the somewhat narrow scope and that it won't let me delete saved games from within the program (and I could be missing something there).

You most certainly did miss something as you can delete saved games from within the program and I assume CMBN will soon be able to once the v2 update becomes available.

[sfhand]

Is a Skirmish Line command which would halve the amount of troops per action spot (doubling the action spots for each unit) doable? It would be a first step toward infantry formations (the only one?) and it would solve the oft repeated criticism of "CM bunches up the infantry too much".

[GerryCMBB]

One can now delete saved games from inside CM.

Gerry

... My only issues so far are the somewhat narrow scope and that it won't let me delete saved games from within the program (and I could be missing something there).

[Battlefront.com]

One thing I'd like to challenge is the notion that troops bunch up unrealistically in CM. We had this discussion back in CMSF's early days and it's continued on and will likely keep going.

The answer is SOMETIMES for SOME units from SOME nations it can be argued that Squads are too bunched up. I definitely agree with that and won't try to say CM's depiction is perfect. However, I think the average player vastly overestimates how likely soldiers are to spread out in real life.

I remember one of the earliest debates I had with people I used a couple of YouTube videos of veteran US units fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. There were times when the soldiers were more bunched up than they are in CM. Repeat... more.

From what I've seen and read there are two reasons for bunching:

1. It's Human nature. Sorta like a herd mentality. If you're with others you feel safer. When you're alone you feel less safe. So there's an inherent drive to bunch up. Anybody who has been through boot camp will tell you that a lot of training time is spent trying to counter this natural urge. It's something that just isn't easy to counter, no matter how technically better more spacing might be for a given situation.

2. Spacing isn't always a good thing. Bunching allows for more concentrated, better coordinated fire. It reduces the chances of friendly fire. It reduces the "penny packet" problem too, especially when casualties occur (see below). It increases the chances of covering either an advance or a withdrawal. More soldiers in more places increases the chance of observation. And other issues as well.

Which is to say that player expectations of spacing are not inline with reality. Which means people are exaggerating the problems with CM's portrayal and basing arguments on (at the very least) situational arguments instead of absolute ones. Further, CM does reduce the effects of HE based on density and that means the visual perception of bunching isn't as severe as the a ingame effects.

I mentioned "penny packet" problem. This is an age old dilemma that goes right up the scale from individual soldiers to divisions and probably even corps. The problem is if forces are spread out too much this affords the enemy local superiority. That can attrit the spread out forces, for little to no gain, at a rate in excess of what it might have experienced if more concentrated. Here's an example.

You have a platoon of 30 men. The enemy has a platoon of 30 men. 1:1 odds in theory, correct? Well, if you spread out and 2 of your men come into contact with 6 of the other guy's men, you now find yourself at 1:3 disadvantage. All else being equal, those two men have a higher chance of being taken out and a lower chance of harming the enemy than if it was 6 men on 6. Correct? This causes a trickle down effect. You lose your two men and cause no casualties back. Now you're at 28:30 which is means a 1:1.07 ratio now. This happens to you again and it is now 1:1.15. Worse, you have now taken 13% casualties and 20% is often considered a tipping point. Loose 2 more men and you're at 20%.

Again, I am not saying all this to justify CM's system as being perfect and not without it's areas of criticism. I'm simply trying to put the criticism into a realistically balanced context.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

You most certainly did miss something as you can delete saved games from within the program and I assume CMBN will soon be able to once the v2 update becomes available.

Yes, absolutely it will be part of the Upgrade 2.0 package for Normandy. Any game feature that is directly relevant will be included. Obviously something like deleting save files is directly relevant. I can't think of any improvements seen in Italy that won't be included, but it will happen when you consider the scope of CM as a whole. For example, an improvement to how thermal weapons are used will apply to Modern but not WW2.

Steve