Spotting still too easy!

[slysniper]

If these guys were such CMx1 fanboys, what are they doing here anyway. They are always on the CMx2 forum. So they must be involved with CMx2, they just want to whine, thinking it will bring them closer to their goal of getting the game they want.

Wait a minute, that is what I do, but I am at least smart enough to not try to tell Steve he has no clue what he is doing, since his new game is not like the old. He is aware of that.

So having opinions are not bad no matter what camp you are in, but at least try to suggest solutions to improve the present game that goes beyond, why did you not put this in the game again.

[sburke]

That being said I hope this thread doesn't get bogged down in the usual CMX1 vs. CMX2 arguments that don't move the ball down the field. My main goal with this thread is to be able to design scenarios that add the surprise and tension that I was able to achieve with CMX1. I worked around things in CMX1... I'm sure I can do the same with the new engine. My thanks to Womble for the advice on more light forest tiles to conceal guns. I realize the engine is more complex but I hope progress can be made toward making spotting more difficult, which in "my experience" has been too easy. When you spot the enemy too easily it makes battles too "anti-septic." Spot a gun...launch some mortars....move in the armor.

Sorry Skelley. Things do tend to go sideways here pretty easily.

I don't have any easy advice, but I can pass on a few things I have learned or more correctly, been taught.

Foliage has 2 aspects. Trees and brush. Trees actually offer little themselves in ground level concealment. The base terrain and brush are what actually provide ground level concealment. Light and heavy forest tiles, wheatfields, tall grass and brush. Distance is the other item. CMBN because of the preponderance of bocage gets you thinking in shorter engagement ranges than what most weapons systems were designed for. JonS and I played one of the Shadow of the hill battles and I was questioning the AT gun placement, but figured what the hell. I have found a lot of times scenario designers specifically design keyhole terrain. What I found wasn't so much that Pete had designed the terrain, he simply set up the guns following their intended use. They were way back in concealed terrain (wheatfield) and I think JonS was never actually able to spot them though he knew generally where they were firing from.

The heavy rock terrain is new and honestly, I haven't had much time to really get a feel for it.

[Mord]

What was it called? "The sunburst of death"?

LOL do you remember that pic somebody posted, where there were a crap load of yellow target lines from all over the map connecting to his AT gun? Yeah, it was a lot like a star burst.

The single greatest thing BFC did with CMX2, was get rid of the Borg...and they did it without Star Fleet's help. Eat that, Picard!

Mord.

[JonS]

LOL do you remember that pic somebody posted, where there were a crap load of yellow target lines from all over the map connecting to his AT gun? Yeah, it was a lot like a star burst.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking of

[womble]

Is it just possible that BF might have provided some guidance on spotting limitations /advantages in the manual? Page 72 does not address the importance of the underlayer at all which means other than beta-testers every one is going from scratch. Why the secrecy if it is fundamental?

Lose the tinfoil hat. Your head won't itch so much.

It's not secrecy. BFC just haven't spent enough time writing and revising the manual. There is at least one error in the FI manual that was an error in the CMSF manual, which is amongst several which have been pointed out and not yet corrected between SF and BN.

[Heinrich505]

sburke - "...I used to go to a park in PA called Tyler Arboreteum."

My father used to take me to that park all the time. I never thought I would see it mentioned in this forum, all those many years later. Nice memories.

Oh yes, it was a good example for terrain, cover and concealment.

Heinrich505

[sburke]

sburke - "...I used to go to a park in PA called Tyler Arboreteum."

My father used to take me to that park all the time. I never thought I would see it mentioned in this forum, all those many years later. Nice memories.

Oh yes, it was a good example for terrain, cover and concealment.

Heinrich505

Small world. I later moved down to Roslyn VA before heading out this way.

Yeah I have a lot of good memories of Tyler and the adjacent Ridley Creek State Park. Took my wife there about a year and a half ago during a snowstorm. We don't see snow here.. ever. She was thrilled, she had never had a decent snowfall in Beppu Japan so this it was like something out of a movie.

[c3k]

...and now that we all have image of a happy Japanese woman spinning in the snow-laden parks and running to her husband, fading to the "happy ending" that Hollywood always brings...I interrupt this message.

Spotting easy vs. hard: Years ago one of my buddies, flat broke, with an unexpectedly pregnant wife (child number 3 or 4, all very difficult pregnancies), laid off, living on credit cards, went out and bought 8 paintball starter kits. As he told his bed-ridden (at 6 months in) wife, "If I buy it, they will come!" So, we all stepped up and threw down the cash.

The first game was in the woods, back of a guy's house. Storm-clouds in the offing. I was the only guy with military service. It was 4 on 4, hunt 'em down, in 4-6 acres of heavy underbrush New England hardwoods. Rolling terrain, rocky crags, brush, leaves, ticks, mosquitoes, leeches, 85 degrees and humidity high enough you just had to sweep a glass through the air to fill it with water. Boo-yah.

The game had only gone on for about 45 minutes before the skies opened up. It was a torrential downpour. One by one everyone got picked off...except for me and one enemy. I knew roughly where he was. I knew what I had to do. My team's honor was at stake, as was my street cred' being GI Billy Badass. I belly-slithered, in the rain, mosquitoes, and ticks, through an acre of pachysandra-like growth. I prayed it wasn't poison ivy, but, what the hell, I had a job to do. I set out, in the drenching rain with visibility through paintball goggles measured by how far I could reach out my arm, to find him. I crawled in a clover leaf pattern, inch by inch, on my belly. Mud, muck and filth everywhere. Move, listen. Crawl, stop, listen... Finally, after over an hour, soaked by the non-stop rain, covered in bites and fast-crawling insects I didn't want to identify, all muddied up, I just stood up in the middle of the patch of overgrowth. I was alone.

He had gone.

I walked through the woods back to the house in the pouring rain, where all seven of my buddies were sitting on the porch drinking beer. "We wondered how long you'd stay out there", one said, as he tossed me a beer.

The other guy had quit an hour earlier.

The moral of the story? Bring beer if you play paintball.

The other moral? If spotting is too hard, it stops being fun.

Ken

[Heinrich505]

c3k,

Sounds like you should have hit the beer before the match. Spotting might have been easier...

You did nail the New England terrain to a T. No briars? I was reliving it, including the humidity. Over by the coast the humidity was so thick you could slice it with a knife and spread it on bread.

Heinrich505

[sburke]

Move, listen. Crawl, stop, listen... Finally, after over an hour, soaked by the non-stop rain, covered in bites and fast-crawling insects I didn't want to identify, all muddied up, I just stood up in the middle of the patch of overgrowth. I was alone.

He had gone.

I walked through the woods back to the house in the pouring rain, where all seven of my buddies were sitting on the porch drinking beer. "We wondered how long you'd stay out there", one said, as he tossed me a beer.

The other guy had quit an hour earlier.

The moral of the story? Bring beer if you play paintball.

The other moral? If spotting is too hard, it stops being fun.

Ken

Friggin hysterical, hope you opened fire at point blank range... after they gave you the beer of course.

Had a similar but slightly different ending story playing a game of capture (our version of tag) in the woods near our house. I was pretty adept at sneaking around and at one point was crawling up to free all our guys currently held at "base" I was within about 25 feet when two guys on the opposing team who were going out looking for more passed by not 15 feet away, I froze and one just happened to look my way. His face was priceless. It took a second to register what he was seeing despite me being in plain view.

And yes the snow scene was something like that. It is a pretty good memory.

[LongLeftFlank]

Terrific story, C3K told with great, ummm... FLARE!!!!

But that said, it is simply indisputable that spotting the exact locations of infantry in cover is FAR too easy. It is by far the biggest flaw in the only game I have played for the last 6 years. And with much respect, this has little to do with playability or "fun".... quite the reverse in my opinion.

This game differentiates itself from the shooters in that it rewards using both period authentic weapons and tactics. Moving forward additional troops to put more eyeballs on a troublesome area, or hosing down areas from which fire has been received with copious suppressive Area Fire is no less "fun" than needing to use any other kind of RL tactics, even though it doesn't deliver instant gratification or certain results.

I am afraid I have quit all too many CMSF and CMBN scenarios where an incredibly crude infantry "fire superiority" dynamic rules supreme: you locate some tactical high ground, induce the enemy to reveal himself, and then proceed to shoot him out of his holes at standoff ranges with superior weapons. Or if his weapons are superior, he does it to you.

No need for close assault, intelligent use of ground, etc. A couple of mad minutes with all weapons blazing result in total annihilation and walkover.

Here's a concrete example. I am playtesting a historical beach landing on Makin Atoll. Second wave reinforcement consists of a dozen medium tanks (I'm using M4s, although they were really Grants); by the time they arrive the first wave is already on the beach and engaging the defenders -- mostly snipers in dense jungle and bunkered MGs.

The Shermans arrive on the edge of a broad reef 200-250m offshore; in the real deal, they had to carefully pick their way across, and even then only a couple of crews reported "seeing" any living Japanese; they basically Area Fired terrain all day on request from the infantry.

What happens in the playtest is that within seconds their massed guns are systematically laying waste to the entire Japanese shoreline defense, snipers included, at ranges from 250-650 metres. The entire affair is concluded in under 3 minutes. > (EDIT: yes, no Orders were issued; I didn't get the chance. Green crews too)

Were that anything remotely close to their RL capabilities, WWII beach landings would have been completely different.

Screenshot here:

[stikkypixie]

I assume that the Shermans fired on their own?

[womble]

But that said, it is simply indisputable that spotting infantry in cover is FAR too easy. There is simply no argument.

I'd say it's too easy. How far, I really can't say for sure, because I don't know how you'd go about generating a metric in real life and comparing it to how the game performs. And I'm afraid your "concrete example" comparing that map as presented in that img simply doesn't seem to support any kind of comparison with real life. You say:

...snipers in dense jungle and bunkered MGs...

Perhaps the pic doesn't do it justice, but it certainly doesn't look much like dense jungle how I'd imagine it in CM foliage terms.

I am afraid I have quit all too many CMSF and CMBN scenarios where an incredibly crude infantry "fire superiority" dynamic rules supreme: you locate some tactical high ground, induce the enemy to reveal himself, and then proceed to shoot him out of his holes at standoff ranges with superior weapons. Or if his weapons are superior, he does it to you.

Is that actually ahistorical, per se? Surely, if the enemy shows themselves wholesale to your overwhelming firepower, they should be shot out of their holes. The lead broom also often works if they don't reveal themselves, if you've enough high ammo units to saturate a potential line of resistance. Is this actually wrong?

Or is it a flaw in scenario design? Or AI behaviour (it is, I agree, too easy to induce an AI opponent to reveal themselves too early - they don't, in CMBN at least, seem to use covered arcs nearly enough on the defense and this is perhaps the biggest handicap a static AI defense has to deal with: reconnaisance by fire is too effective on the AI).

No need for close assault, intelligent use of ground, etc. A couple of mad minutes with all weapons blazing result in total annihilation and walkover.

I have to say that even against the AI, I don't recognise this as the way games play out. Even once targets in good cover are identified, it usually takes a lot longer than a couple of minutes to break them and make them bug out, even with 2 or three to one superiority. Once they're suppressed they get very hard to hurt, and getting some assaulters up to winkle them out is much quicker. The trouble with hyperbole is that it's difficult to tell where it starts and where it ends.

Were that anything remotely close to their RL capabilities, WWII beach landings would have been completely different.

Frankly, I'd look at other aspects of the simulation before you start getting hyperbolic about infantry spotability. Bunkers and other fortifications do seem to assist the whole spotting thing; there should probably be more concealment afforded by these, since bunkers were prepared defenses and could be well camouflaged. In general, it's best to consider CMBN fortifications as of the hastiest kind, and so not a very good model for a well-prepared jungle fighting position.

Remember, too, that CMBN "Sniper teams" are misnamed, and should be called "Marksman teams". They had received no training beyond any other trooper in concealment and camouflage, they're not wearing ghillie suits. They're just good shots. Maybe if you crank their Experience up, they're comparable to a "Sniper School" sniper, but still, they're not actually Snipers.

Some of what you're trying to model really isn't represented well by BN units, and from the look of your pic, the jungle hasn't been heaped up heavily enough to even begin drawing comparisons with RL.

IME, infantry in good concealment (i.e. barely able to target out of their cover) are pretty close to invisible until they open fire.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I have to say that even against the AI, I don't recognise this as the way games play out. Even once targets in good cover are identified, it usually takes a lot longer than a couple of minutes to break them and make them bug out, even with 2 or three to one superiority.

With bullets, true. But if direct-fire HE -- even small caliber stuff like 37mm -- is applied to anything outside of a bunker or the thickest stone buildings the issue is decided in less than a minute, in my experience.

[sburke]

Honestly, I don't have a solid opinion about spotting in the game one way or the other yet. That is largely because I think it really depends on 2 things

1 The map

2 Your opponent

In my battles with Broadsword, spotting has been really really difficult. A recent example is our Hamel Vallee battle where we both fought really hard for this wheatfield. What surprised us both was how difficult it was to spot units in it. Once they went to ground they vanished. You knew where they had been, but that was it. Broadsword was actually able to creep some teams up to the next hedgerow, but unfortunately I think they were really worn down by the time they got there and had little support. Fact is however they got really close with me having no clue they were coming.

Playing the AI has it's own shortcomings. It is what it is and in the near term it isn't going to change. The AI doesn't think, it does what it is told. I have seen some very creative AI plans in a number of scenarios, but that is about as close as you'll get. The AI will never roll a Tiger up behind a wall then blow it down to catch some Churchills on the other side by surprise nor will it smoke the hell out of an immobile Tiger and close assault it.

As to the Makin Island example I have to ask, what is the elevation difference for the tanks versus the Island. I would think theoretically there should be very little possibility of them seeing forces beyond the immediate beach regardless of foliage etc. Water level has to be some degree below land or there'd be no land.... LLF I know the detail level you go to in mapping so I feel stupid even asking, but what is the elevation difference for the Shermans relative to the main Japanese forces?

[c3k]

Makin looks cool.

In regards to spotting being too easy, my paintball story was meant to bring attention to the other side of the spectrum.

Let's agree that spotting is too easy right now. Okay, put that thought up on a shelf.

In CM:HS (Combat Mission:Hard Spot), non-moving infantry in concealment are invisible. These men use shadow, flora, fauna, and light-bending to hide. When they move, it is almost as hard to see them. They are covered in camo and use tiny depressions and slow, irregular movements to get from one spot to another. A bush can hide a platoon.

Imagine what the battlefield would look like: a 1km^2 of beautifully rendered terrain with nothing moving. If a deer runs out of the woods, the player would know to rain down the Hammer of Thor, or a 150mm battery, upon the woods. A covey of birds just flew up: unleash the machineguns! Birds stop tweeting? Yeah, bring up the flamethrower!

In short, the battlefield would appear unpopulated. The only way to find, fix, and destroy the enemy would be by area fire and scouts. "You and you, up! Move to that hedge. We'll fire near where we think the enemy is after you get hit."

The "flow" of the game would be very slow and difficult. (Given a map with plenty of concealment.)

Okay, CM:HS is an extreme, but it shows how bad a game it could be if invisibility (or camo abilities near that) were used. Put that next to CMBN/CMFI's spotting model.

If perfection is somewhere between these two extremes, is it better to approach from the too easy side and get closer, or from the too hard side and work closer?

(Hint: this _is_ a game!)

Spotting does seem too easy right now. But, and this is the hard part, how do we quantify what makes it too easy? Given that, how would we quantify what it should be, once we've defined what it is?

While you guys ponder that, I'm going to grab my paintball marker and go crawl through the bushes...or just get right to the beer.

Ken

[LongLeftFlank]

Perhaps the pic doesn't do it justice, but it certainly doesn't look much like dense jungle how I'd imagine it in CM foliage terms.

The redraw distance doesn't allow display, but this IS dense foliage.... a bunch of bocage and hedge tiles create an impenetrable series of thickets (as actual thickets or 10-20' stands of young trees regrettably are not part of the CMBN terrain set -- that's my other hobby horse). The snipers are in there pretty deep. See the Makin thread for more if you care.

I generally agree with the rest of your post, except the hyperbole part.

I am in already in the process of retesting with the Japanese defenders not in bunkers or otherwise entrenched, since as you observe, bunkers are especially easy to spot. I believe this is because the game engine seems to treat fortifications as vehicles for many purposes (e.g. bunker occupants will bail out, they can burn), presumably including spottability.

Another workaround may be to reduce visibility (simulate Fog or twilight conditions).

"Recon by fire" can absolutely be effective for forces with the necessary firepower. And I agree with Rev. Burke that a lot of my force quits of CMSF and CMBN scenarios have been a simple function of overly sparse map design. It's made me a right picky bugga when it comes to maps.

[sburke]

And I agree with Rev. Burke that a lot of my force quits of CMSF and CMBN scenarios have been a simple function of overly sparse map design. It's made me a right picky bugga when it comes to maps.

Rev. Burke?

Rotflmao You have no idea just how wrong that is.

[LongLeftFlank]

As to the Makin Island example I have to ask, what is the elevation difference for the tanks versus the Island. I would think theoretically there should be very little possibility of them seeing forces beyond the immediate beach regardless of foliage etc. Water level has to be some degree below land or there'd be no land.... LLF I know the detail level you go to in mapping so I feel stupid even asking, but what is the elevation difference for the Shermans relative to the main Japanese forces?

They're at level 5, sitting on a bridge held up by Shallow Ford tiles. The Japanese would all be pretty much at level 6. The beach grade on the lagoon side of Makin, an atoll almost totally devoid of hills, was not very steep relative to some other storied Pacific landing beaches; hence the elongated and "shelflike" reef area just offshore.

And irony was intended. I know you tolerably well by now, at least the digital persona.

[stikkypixie]

I am playing "The Main Event" right now, and my Shermans finally spotted <?> after sitting for 8 minutes in overwatch, while my infantry is getting cut to pieces by enemy MG fire. The distance is only 600m mind you, so they are in the thick of things.

Edited to say: I wonder why experiences differ so much among players?

[Childress]

Honestly, I don't have a solid opinion about spotting in the game one way or the other yet. That is largely because I think it really depends on 2 things

1 The map

2 Your opponent

And -3- the game engine. LLF is trying to replicate an operation which the game was not designed to simulate. At least on that scale and with that unique vegetation.

[dieseltaylor]

Lose the tinfoil hat. Your head won't itch so much.

It's not secrecy. BFC just haven't spent enough time writing and revising the manual. There is at least one error in the FI manual that was an error in the CMSF manual, which is amongst several which have been pointed out and not yet corrected between SF and BN.

Thats encouraging - not. I would have thought some enthusiast could have been enlisted to make a more user friendly manual - if not in the actual manual at least linked deliberately as a must read. Something like this:

"

Infantry don't go much out of their way to grief you. You've been herding some particularly compliant cats if CMx2 infantry are worse. Don't use anything but Quick and Slow to start with, and I still haven't found a use for "Move". Quick is not a "slow Fast", it's your default movement mode. Fast is for when you've got to get a team there ASAP, and you don't want them to think about anything else. and "There" has to be pretty close. Running a long distance at "Fast" just runs a short distance at Fast, the rest at Quick and leaves your troops too knackered to Fast when they need to.

Where they do have minds of their own: they're lazy little feckers. If you want them to stay in a ditch's muddy bottom, you have to give them a waypoint pretty much every Action Spot, or they'll think "It'd be much easier to climb out the ditch and scurry along next to it, then jump back in where the looie said to regroup. I'm sure that HMG over there whose rounds are currently passing harmlessly across the top of the ditch above our heads is undermodelled, so it'll be perfectly safe."

First: split your squads all the way, not just AT teams. Peel off AT teams and assault/fire or two even teams (if your squads are big enough). Having more maneuver elements is a large advantage, your LOS judgements will be more precise (since LOS is only being judged for 3-4 individuals, not 9-12), and having one team pinned/rattled etc won't be as much of a strain for the other teams of the squad. Your movement orders will be more precise, too. That ditch example above was true for one team. If you have a squad of three teams, you'll have the non-leader teams wandering along on the lips of the ditch however many waypoints you plot.

Fire discipline should be set at battle setup. Draw a big selection box over all your troops and set a 50m circular arc on everyone. Then find your FOs and draw a 2m arc for them (having deselected the rest of the rabble). When you split your AT teams and ATGs, give them a 10-30m arc. From that default, you can start to adjust according to task and deployment.

You can't, once they're disintegrated. Once they've been Shaken (I think; might vary according to troop characteristics), they're "brittle", and even if they recover (in a very long scenario) to "OK", even very light incoming of any kind will quickly "Shake" them again. You can recover morale if it's not been utterly destroyed. Say most of your lead platoon has got beaten down to Rattled (there will probably be elements worse hit than that, but perhaps 5 of your 9 teams are salvageable), they'll recover to Nervous/Cautious eventually, if you keep them out of the line of fire, faster if they're better led and have solid C2. The art is in not breaking your troops in that first use. Tell me how you manage it, when you can; I haven't yet (the HQ is usually leaderless and only 2-3 of 9 teams are in a state to rally). You won't manage it without splitting your squads into their component teams, since all the squads will have been "embrittled" unless you're very fortunate.

If you're using the mortars as called fire support, it's dead easy. Put them all near one another and their Company or Platoon HQ within 30m or so and in good LOS. They'll share their ammo (so you can always use your best team if you only have one mission at a time) and be in radio contact. You're overthinking something if Company Mortars are hard to keep in C&C, or you're trying to be clever and have them available both for direct fire and radio calls, which is more involved, as eating your cake and keeping it too ought to be."

Priceless info and amusingly told. Something similar for terrain/cover and concealment without getting into boring statistics would be so so useful. : )

[sburke]

Thats encouraging - not. I would have thought some enthusiast could have been enlisted to make a more user friendly manual - if not in the actual manual at least linked deliberately as a must read. Something like this:

Priceless info and amusingly told. Something similar for terrain/cover and concealment without getting into boring statistics would be so so useful. : )

That is actually a great idea LOL Something written somewhat tongue in cheek but with appropriate comments as to what to expect from units in different situations.

On a more serious vein what would also I think help is if we had pics of terrain as it is supposed to be represented in CM. For example the heavy rock terrain is actually really low if you put it side by side with XT grass or crop 4. What I don't know is what it is supposed to represent. If I go at face value, it offers almost no concealment value whatsoever just some place to let your tank throw a tread.

[Steiner14]

LLF,

interesting thoughts. I'm wondering what impact it would have, if

1. camouflaged ATGs/HMGs/inf would be less easy to spot

2. heavily entrenched units would be protected (much) better

3. if infantry density could be widened (more actions spots/unit).

Maybe 1 + 2 alone would be sufficient for a more realistic outcome (but a much more difficult game against entrenched positions)?

The problem i see: how many players would welcome much more protective defensives? When it get's MUCH harder to crack them? When you need all kind of combined heavy weaponry, to achieve a small breakthrough? When you spend half your arty and still don't know, how the shape of the defenses is, until the storm attack and then you recognize the HMGs are still all intact and your units are already the third time in a crossfire?

Maybe a solution could be, if these realism factors could be made flexible and be defined with the chosen difficulty level.

[JonS]

For example the heavy rock terrain is actually really low if you put it side by side with XT grass or crop 4. What I don't know is what it is supposed to represent.

AIUI, heavy rocks is intended to be rocky terrain that vehicles cannot traverse (sort of like shallow ford vs. deep ford)