Had a great but at the same time devastating moment today..

[Wodin]

I was doing OK in this particular scenario.. and had pretty much wiped out what I imagine to be all the tanks up against me for no loses..

Anyway I had kept back a platoon of Panzer Grenadiers as my reserve force which I was going to need as I was involved in an infantry fight in woods which depleted my other two platoons to the point they'd have no chance in taking the next OBJ or if they did very little would be left for the final Obj..

Anyway I thought I heard a plane very far way right near the end of a turn..and thought to myself well never heard that before sounds like a background noise rather than a actual plane in game..next turn I heard it again but not loud and nothing happened and was busy concentrating on this battle in some woods..anyway the next turn about 15 secs before the turn finished that plane sound got panic inducing loud then WHAM...right ontop of my reserve 3rd platoon..wiping out more than half of it, the next turn they where in panic so couldn't do anything with the..WHAM WHAM more bombs hit taking some more of my pixeltruppen as well as one bomb going right through the top of a recon armoured car..

That was that..I knew I couldn't take the 4th Obj now..even with so much armour as they where running out of ammo..I also sent my ammo bearers to the truck to acquire some rounds for my 1 mortar and then as soon as they got into the truck..wham..plane hits all dead..no more ammo for my mortar.

This episode really brought home how much the Germans must have dreaded the sound of planes approaching or circling.

I ended up doing a ceasefire and ended up with a minor tactical defeat. I just didn't have the boots on ground left to take on defending infantry. I had taken out 17 US Tanks and they had one M10 left and one AT gun..my 4 Panthers and two Jagdpanzers had done stirling work from distance ( I will admit to many ahem restarts and going back to an older svae,,however for the last 20 turns I had stopped myself from doing it I very much doubt I'd have had any tanks left if I hadn't ). I think the tank side of the game is pretty much there but when i play I do feel the Inf tac ai needs work.

An issue that bothered me when i was playing last time was how Inf react when under fire no matter what order I give..I hate it when you see them loose one then another and then another casualty yet keep on moving even when the enemy is right near them..I'd much rather the tac ai once at least two men have gone down try and find abit of cover and start returning fire..especially in woods..I was trying to work out what order was best..hunt or Assault but really both of them they took an awful lot of casualties..and barely took any Amis out..I had six squads from two platoons assaulting in and still nearly half the force was wiped out and I feel when watching the replay that many time they could have dropped down and starting shooting back with intense firepower and it never happened..it seems that most of the time just one or two of a squad where shooting back..I think the tac ai needs help in finding some cover..or at least under as much cover as possible try and find a firing point to return fire..

ANyway thats a quibble my post really was about the nerve racking experience of CAS.

[ridethe415]

I hate it when you see them loose one then another and then another casualty yet keep on moving even when the enemy is right near them.

I agree. You would think that moving infantry, once they come under fire and take losses, would immediately stop and hopefully try to hide...

[Baneman]

Yeah, I really miss the old "Move to Contact" command - as soon as they took fire they would stop and return fire.

I recently had some troops moving Quick through woods and they encountered enemy - sadly right at the beginning of the turn - so I had to sit and watch as each man was shot one after the other as they reached a particular point - until the whole squad had been mowed down

Now I know "Hunt" theoretically achieves the "Move to Contact" - but at extreme fatigue cost, whereas the old command was in fact a "Move" command so engendered none of the tiring inherent in "Hunt".

[Broadsword56]

You can make your troops move a bit smarter if you use QUICK moves with 10sec pauses every 30m or so. They'll fire every time they drop, and if you stagger the pauses among adjacent teams some will be firing while the others are moving. I think maybe some newcomers to the game might give their troops order paths that are much too long and continuous. It's a lot more work to plot all the shorter rushes, but troops will behave and survive better that way.

[SlowMotion]

It's this "lot more work to plot..." part that is the big problem.

[Wodin]

You can make your troops move a bit smarter if you use QUICK moves with 10sec pauses every 30m or so. They'll fire every time they drop, and if you stagger the pauses among adjacent teams some will be firing while the others are moving. I think maybe some newcomers to the game might give their troops order paths that are much too long and continuous. It's a lot more work to plot all the shorter rushes, but troops will behave and survive better that way.

Ok will do this..I think the game needs a move to contact or an attack order not just assault that does something similar as even hunt doesn't work aswell as I'd like it too.

[Michael Emrys]

You can make your troops move a bit smarter if you use QUICK moves with 10sec pauses every 30m or so. They'll fire every time they drop, and if you stagger the pauses among adjacent teams some will be firing while the others are moving. I think maybe some newcomers to the game might give their troops order paths that are much too long and continuous. It's a lot more work to plot all the shorter rushes, but troops will behave and survive better that way.

Amen. If they are moving through any kind of undergrowth or uphill, keep the legs of the movement under 15-20 meters and they won't get tired out either. I suspect that many players aren't doing nearly enough to preserve their troops.

Michael

[Wodin]

Micheal I agree..but it would be great if the tac ai was improved to lessen the amount of micro management..most likely as the game was really designed for realtime where you could step in this wasn't probably seen as too much of an issue..but playing WEGO it does become one.

Now I know what to do I shall try i out..seemsa touch long winded buy if it works then fair enough.

Another issue\problem is the fact they always move roughly in column formation and don't spread out in line formation..the day this is implemented if it ever is is the day I will do a dance naked through the street..................well maybe not..I'd scare to many people and get arrested..still I'd be very happy indeed.

Anyway this is becoming a moan thread..partly my fault..when really it was about an exciting event that out fear into my heart just like it was for the gemrans when they heard those planes overhead..

[Sgt Schultz]

Air strikes suck, no doubt about it. Much more of a dice roll than artillery though, so I do not worry about Jabos too much. If I hear them, I just figure I am about to lose a few hundred points.

---------------

Hunt will get more of a line-abreast formation(or at least offset) as well as Team use, as opposed to full squads. At least this has been my experience, especially in rougher terrain. Keeping an extra tile or two between the teams helps as well it seems.

Deep woods are a cast iron biotch to deal with when they are occupied by the enemy, but there are ways to deal with troops that are dug in like ticks. I got tired of the same behavior that you experienced. The lead man dies before spotting anyone, and no one else "saw" anything either, so the death march continues.... lather rinse repeat.

I used to get frustrated that my area fire commands did not reach to where I "knew" the enemy was, so I would try to ease up another few action spots. This resulted in death from the unknown ghost troops.

Now I just spray the area fire as far as it WILL reach in the general direction of last contact. Enough suppression effects reach beyond to give the enemy pause, although it takes an extra turn or two to get them to break or leave.

Attacking with Slow, with tiny forward cover arc from an angle works well. I have had crawling troops with a cover arc set BEHIND them spin around and zap troops coming up behind them... then turn back and keep crawling the way they were going. Do not think that Slow is a moving Hide... your boys are looking and listening hard. Acute and short cover arc really focuses their attention.

[Battlefront.com]

One mistake people make is trying to cover too much unknown ground too quickly. In real life soldiers would probably take 10-15 minutes to do what is asked of them in 1 minute of game time. What's the major advantage of moving slowly? Assessing what's in front of you and not getting ahead of yourself. Which is no doubt why battles unfold much slower in real life than in games. What we call the "time compression" problem.

When I play I find that when I'm calm, deliberate, and take extra time to do things I get rewarded. When I don't I quickly (literally) remind myself why I usually move things at a slower pace

The TacAI could be smarter, no doubt about it. As good as it is (and arguably it's the best out there) there's always room for improvement. However, there's also room for player perception improvement. For example, should soldiers be able to tell comrades are hit when they can't see them? No, arguably not. So that means as your guys stream across open ground and the 2 trailing guys get hit, the forward guys should do what? Probably not know and keep going.

Think of this like a mom who loses her kid in a mall. She let's go of Johnny's hand for a second to look at something and whadda know... the little tyke is gone. The "perfect world" TacAI for mom's in crowded places would never have this happen. Yet how realistic would that be?

Just pointing out that one must remember that what we want our pixel warriors to do is not necessarily what they would do if they were real guys. Especially since they probably wouldn't follow 1/4 of your orders anyways

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

As to the bit about the nasty hits from the air...

I think we have all been there. We're doing just fine, or at least adequate, and then all of a sudden something really unexpected happens. I was playing a game recently where I was forming up in some light trees for an assault. I had figured out where the enemy was and had already taken a bit of a drumming in doing so. By my calculations I could start sweeping the little village with my remaining force without too much exposure to my flanks from other possible defensive positions.

And then the 81mm mortar rounds came in.

Sunnnovabhatch!

What was left of my company was not sufficient to do anything. So I played for the fun of it at that point since clearly I wasn't going to win and, realistically, should quit the battle.

After the game I looked at the map and found that the Germans had a TRP where I was forming up. Bastards were one step ahead of me and I never knew it.

Needless to say I didn't win that battle even though I did manage to wipe out nearly all the defenders. Some satisfaction in that!

Steve

[Sgt Schultz]

TRPs make for great -2 moments for the enemy. I have a battle buddy that I have played so many times that I can guess where he will go in many situations.

I have a few screenies of his boys sitting on my TRPs.

-

[Reaper28]

Much can be said for using hide command for unused forces. They look for better cover and are trying not to be seen. And next time you hear a plane move units you have grouped together.... i try not to have units grouped together period.

Also I always split into teams and do my own maneuvering instead of assault command. It gives you much more flexibility and control in how your assault actually is executed. Like others have stated. Plot your movements with pause commands and target areas of known enemy positions.

Also i believe its been stated before that if you use fast command your troops will most likely not engage and charge to waypoint. And as you go from fasts to slow they become more likely to stop and engage. That being said when performing bounding overwatch movements. Makes sure to use the fast command for your bounds.

Bounding Overwatch for the win...

[Sublime]

Not funny Schultz. Not funny.

Hey btw BFC - Im glad I caught you on a thread about air support. Has air support been looked at by you guys with any idea to revision? It's nearly universally felt that the bullet streams from CAS are grouped very tight for WW2 aircraft. I also take issue with planes going several hundred miles an hour spotting say a 4 man tank crew when a Panther tank I have is sitting about 40 yards away from the crew. It makes no sense to me that a Typhoon would strafe 4 little figures running instead of an active tank in the open in the same field.

Even then all this would be fine if we had AAA use of some of the 20mm and whatnot - I dont care about shooting the planes down but give us a % modifier to drive off the CAS attack?

[Reaper28]

Id rather like to see the planes actually modeled instead of phantom killers

[Wodin]

BF I undertsand if the pixel truppen can't see who has been shot but in this case they where al pretty much together and three where wiped out before they even decided to stop and look for where the shooter was..

Thats what I'd like to see worked on..pixeltruppen response to when squad members have been shot in sight of them..I don't just want them to drop but to also drop and then try and listen and try and find a good return fir point..Eventually what I'd love to see is the tac ai for a squad to be clever enough to hit the deck assess where the fire is then the pixeltruppen have say two giving covering fire (maybe the lmg's) and the others try and out flank or find a flanking fire point. Thats for the future though.

If Steve could at least look at tac ai behaviour and Inf response I'm sure a few minor changes could make all the difference..

I should use slow more often...but it tires the troops out so much you can ahrdly do it through a forest. Maybe Hunt command needs some more work with improved awarenss when rounds start coming in and improved response once they see where the fire is coming from..when one or two soldiers see the enemy in a sqaud they are bound to tell the rest of the squad with hands if not voices where they are and how to deal with them.

So maybe it's a case of the individual squad members communication between each other needs abit more modelling. I'd say the scream from a squad member if not hit in the head would be enough to alert the squad that they are being fired on..to drop down, assess where the fire is coming from then communicate to each other so they all know where the enemy is and then move to get into fire positions.

This sort of thing wasn't an issue in the old CM (though I never liked three men a squad and much prefer CMx2 way) because you couldn't see the workings with in a squad..as we can now I still think it needs some work, again inter squad communication modelling.

[Wodin]

Moments that make CM so damn fie despite quibbles..please have a read of my post above. As your aware I'm not one normally to say anything negative about CMx2 and I;m usually one of those fanboys who go on the defensive but I'd like this at least looking at some time in the future.

As to the bit about the nasty hits from the air...

I think we have all been there. We're doing just fine, or at least adequate, and then all of a sudden something really unexpected happens. I was playing a game recently where I was forming up in some light trees for an assault. I had figured out where the enemy was and had already taken a bit of a drumming in doing so. By my calculations I could start sweeping the little village with my remaining force without too much exposure to my flanks from other possible defensive positions.

And then the 81mm mortar rounds came in.

Sunnnovabhatch!

What was left of my company was not sufficient to do anything. So I played for the fun of it at that point since clearly I wasn't going to win and, realistically, should quit the battle.

After the game I looked at the map and found that the Germans had a TRP where I was forming up. Bastards were one step ahead of me and I never knew it.

Needless to say I didn't win that battle even though I did manage to wipe out nearly all the defenders. Some satisfaction in that!

Steve

[womble]

BF I undertsand if the pixel truppen can't see who has been shot but in this case they where al pretty much together and three where wiped out before they even decided to stop and look for where the shooter was..

Or maybe they thought, "****, better not stop here! We'd be sitting ducks; they just nailed 3 of us!"

I should use slow more often...but it tires the troops out so much you can ahrdly do it through a forest.

That depends entirely on how fast you feel you have to cross the forest. I've certainly "Slow"ed entire platoons through a hundred metres of woodland over 30 minutes. Slow is a great movement command: they stay down even more than Hide (cos "Hide"ing troops come up to a knee to spot, a lot of the time, but retain their situational awareness.

I tend to prefer what I call "caterpillar overwatch" where the fire team division catches up to the assault team who've attained some sort of security, and then the assault team moves forward from there, rather than bounding overwatch where the rear element overtakes the front element and their roles are swapped. I've not found a term for this sort of movement; it's not "travelling overwatch", as that's where all the elements are in motion at once, with the short range elements forward and the fire support elements to the rear.

Maybe Hunt command needs some more work with improved awarenss when rounds start coming in...

Don't "Hunt"ing teams stop and go to ground when fired upon? I have to admit to hating that particular command, since troops stop for irrelevancies as well as threats or opportunities, and no progress gets made, so I don't use it very much.

[Reaper28]

http://www.shu.edu/offices/upload/FM-7-8.pdf

Great refereance for how to properly use infantry platoons, Im sure its been posted before but ...

[Battlefront.com]

Moments that make CM so damn fie despite quibbles..please have a read of my post above. As your aware I'm not one normally to say anything negative about CMx2 and I;m usually one of those fanboys who go on the defensive but I'd like this at least looking at some time in the future.

Definitely no need to qualify your criticism. Presented reasonably and respectfully, criticism is a great thing to have. It's the reason why CM has continued to improve over the years. There's only so much we can do ourselves without broader feedback.

Without a doubt there is much work that can be done on the TacAI. Which is exactly the problem. Even fairly small, seemingly narrow scoped behavior requests are a lot of work. Especially at this point after 6 or so years put into the existing TacAI, plus the learning experience from 5 years of the previous CM games.

Changes, even small changes, to the TacAI behavior tend to have a big ripple effect. Frustratingly many of them are subtle or fairly situation specific. It also often happens that we make a change that improves 90% of the situations it was intended to address, but either makes 10% worse *or* (more usually) makes something else that wasn't a problem before a problem now.

Anybody that has experience with complex AI programming, of any sort, will back me up here... it sucks to do, it sucks to test, and it sucks to find out it still doesn't do what you want it to do. This all takes time. Lots and lots of time. If we're doing that, then we're not doing other things.

For example, the other request in this thread to look into straffing bullet spreads. THAT is relatively easy to do since it's isolated, involves physics instead of decision making, and there's a more simplistic real world comparison to make. But if we just spent 2 weeks making units reasonably react to casualties while on the move, that's 2 weeks we didn't have available for anything else.

Having said that!!!

Yes, my intention is to make v3.0's improvements more focused on low level gameplay things like TacAI behavior. There will be less "bullet points" on the Upgrade feature list. Less obvious changes, if you will, but that's the tradeoff because AI programming is inherently a subtle (though important) part of the overall game experience.

Long winded answer, I know, but it's important for you guys to understand our thinking and how that translates into the features in CM.

Steve

[Sgt Schultz]

Aside from the occasional wonkiness, which could and does happen to either side and therefore falls into the "war is hell" category, CM AI is the best thing going from what I have seen to date.

I still get jaw-dropping moments when team members displace to better positions all on their own hook. More than makes up for those times they behave more like other games' AI.

50% increase in strafing area-of-effect would be nice, but as you say, that is a much simpler thing to change if it turns out needing it.

I am used to the amount of input required to keep my boys healthy now. With the 2.0 addition of moving waypoints, there is very little reason to take casualties due to movement issues now.

When it comes to waypoints now I say ... Pile 'em on and drag 'em around. Add pauses. Take breaks. Slow and Hunt are fine.

Never a need to rush. You have to be alive to be tardy. Otherwise you're just "late".

-----------------

Back to the OP... I want to see screenies of the Moments of Doom here. Come on now.

[Mord]

A low level game play feature that would be nice, would be to allow us to split a tank crew for the purposes of scouting.

Mord.

[Battlefront.com]

Never a need to rush. You have to be alive to be tardy. Otherwise you're just "late".

OOO!! I really like that quote! Of your own making?

I think the single best way to lose a game is by rushing.

I think the single best way to win a game is by not dallying.

The former gets your guys chopped down because you don't know what's ahead of them. The latter prevents the enemy from having time to tailor his plans to yours.

It's a tough balancing act. My previous post about getting chewed up by 81mm mortar fire is a fun one. At first I took it on the chin because I moved too quickly. I then spent too much time licking my wounds and wound up being set back worse than I was before.

In my defense I only started that game to look for a particular bug fix. I wasn't playing seriously at first. After that my excuses run thin

Steve

[RockinHarry]

BF I undertsand if the pixel truppen can't see who has been shot but in this case they where al pretty much together and three where wiped out before they even decided to stop and look for where the shooter was..

Thats what I'd like to see worked on..pixeltruppen response to when squad members have been shot in sight of them..I don't just want them to drop but to also drop and then try and listen and try and find a good return fir point..Eventually what I'd love to see is the tac ai for a squad to be clever enough to hit the deck assess where the fire is then the pixeltruppen have say two giving covering fire (maybe the lmg's) and the others try and out flank or find a flanking fire point. Thats for the future though.

If Steve could at least look at tac ai behaviour and Inf response I'm sure a few minor changes could make all the difference..

I should use slow more often...but it tires the troops out so much you can ahrdly do it through a forest. Maybe Hunt command needs some more work with improved awarenss when rounds start coming in and improved response once they see where the fire is coming from..when one or two soldiers see the enemy in a sqaud they are bound to tell the rest of the squad with hands if not voices where they are and how to deal with them.

So maybe it's a case of the individual squad members communication between each other needs abit more modelling. I'd say the scream from a squad member if not hit in the head would be enough to alert the squad that they are being fired on..to drop down, assess where the fire is coming from then communicate to each other so they all know where the enemy is and then move to get into fire positions.

This sort of thing wasn't an issue in the old CM (though I never liked three men a squad and much prefer CMx2 way) because you couldn't see the workings with in a squad..as we can now I still think it needs some work, again inter squad communication modelling.

I much feel the same, seeing lots of infantrymen getting hit, by not reacting to obvious hazards properly, of which some is reloading weapons in full exposure (instead of going prone or take cover) and non prone stance buddy aid possibility. Also seeing squad members getting hit, does not hinder more squad members run into the same enemy line of fire and get them also hit. And all that has nothing to do with unit experience unfortunately. Even crack/elite lack some the basic SOPs.

[MikeyD]

A QB recently I had decided to have some fun an give myself lots of airpower. After the game ended I went back to review my map and was surprised to see the enemy (AI) tanks had all parked themselves directly beneath trees! I don't know if this was a coincidence or if AI armor really did have a fall-back plan for when airpower showed up.