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Must have feature for the TacAI -> Area Target


Wiggum15

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Yeah, @Vanir Ausf B is correct I totally screwed up the way I wrote it.  Sorry - correcting someone else and making as big a mistake = not a good day for me.  oops.

 

I should have said:

 

And that difference is why I personally don't like it - because I have to click all over the place to figure out what is going on while watching the playback because I can either tell what is happening around my platoon or I can feel the extra immersion.  In the end I would rather know what is going on.

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For the record I certainly wouldn't mind having area fire ability for the AI, but I can't think of a way that it could be executed in a satisfactory way.

 

How about along the lines of @Wiggum15's house rule (which I think is pretty good actually - going to try that out).

 

The TacAI will:

If a team is under fire from the enemy the other nearby friendly teams that have ? contacts from the rough direction of the enemy fire they will area fire at the strongest of those ? contacts.

 

No changes to their current shoot at known enemy contacts in fact the area fire should be done if they do not have a higher priority solid contact.

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How about along the lines of @Wiggum15's house rule (which I think is pretty good actually - going to try that out).

Yeah, another house rule i use, i never use the god-like camera to zoom in on enemy positions to identify for example if i had hit them.

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I have to click all over the place to figure out what is going on while watching the playback because I can either tell what is happening around my platoon or I can feel the extra immersion. In the end I would rather know what is going on.

Ah, that is interesting. When I am watching for immersion I always deselect any unit I have selected anyways to get rid of the unit bases. When zoomed out looking for information I have no reason to have a unit selected unless I want to know what a specific unit is spotting. For me iron mode works seamlessly.

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But doesn't that mean you don't really benefit from that extra immersion if you are watching the turn with no unit selected. Mind you it really doesn't matter: you should play the game the way that you like and I don't have any desire to try to convert anyone that would be silly. Not an important question.

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But doesn't that mean you don't really benefit from that extra immersion if you are watching the turn with no unit selected.

Not at all. Like I said, even if I was playing in Elite I would deselect anyways just to get rid of the immersion-killing unit bases.

Or are you thinking of watching the playback with the camera locked to a unit? I do that all the time. I deselect the unit to banish the pulsating green glow but keep the unit lock.

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That is true, but there are more than one type of situation to receive a contact marker. I didn't make clear in my post (my bad), but I meant to refer specifically to "Lost Contact" type of markers. A spot where the AI definitely observed enemy units but subsequently lost contact might be worth the AI issuing a "Target Briefly" order on that action spot.

You certainly wouldn't want the AI to area fire on every single marker that pops up, only the most recent, and only for a limited time.

What if the conditions for the AI conducting an (1 min) area fire are:

A.) Area firing unit has a contact marker.

B.) Another friendly unit has LoS to an enemy unit at a location within one action spot of the contact marker.

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I think the first step to AI area fire should be area fire if:

 

1. Unit is not under restrictive fire order. (Ambush orders for AI player.)

 

2. Unit is receiving fire from the direction / location of a newly acquired ? contact

    or

    Unit is receiving fire from the direction  / location of an aged contact, either the unit's own or shared

    or

    Unit has just lost a positive contact (already implemented, but volume/duration of fire is far too limited).

 

3. ? contact type is susceptible to area fire (no area firing on AFVs)

 

This would provide for limited, realistic reactionary fire without the AI player going crazy targeting every ? on the map it has LOS to.

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Who plays on Iron mode ?

Isn't the only difference from Elite that you have FOW for your own units too ?

 

I play on Iron mode. And your units have FoW to each other, but as commander you can just click off the unit and get to see the entirety of your force.

 

As I understand it from my own admittedly few attempts to play in Iron mode, it simulates a "top down" command structure by only being able to issue orders to units within an HQ's Command and Control. Spotting information is also restricted to Command and Control as well.

As a player who firmly believes that Corporals and Sergeants actually possess brains enough to say, "let's clear that house" or "fire on that machinegun", I avoid Iron difficulty mode.

The best example I can think up is from Band of Brothers Ep. 3 "Carentan", when they get into the fight outside of town, and you see Lt. Winters walking up and down the line directing the fires of his squads and encouraging his men. Iron difficulty mode simulates that behavior by requiring the presence of HQ's to direct their subordinates.

 

It definitely does not do this. I think you're mixing it up with (similarly named, admittedly) Ironman rules, which are informal limitations some players take on.

Edited by Apocal
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No it is not. During the orders phase you see all friendly units at all times, just as in Elite or any other mode.

Well it must have been changed at some point because it did used to be as I described.  It has been a while since I've played a normal game against someone though as I spend most of my time now in Author Test Mode.

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Something tells me that there is no way that the game will consider an icon as a valid target.  The truppen don't target the icon, the truppen target the troops or the vehicle, action spot, etc. that is being fired upon.  Making a contact icon an eligible target is probably something that Charles would say 'can't be done', even assuming that targeting contact icons would be a good idea to begin with - something I'm not sure I would agree with.  If your goal is to use area fire to fire upon recently spotted units that break contact all you have to do is increase the amount of time that the firing unit spends firing at the recently spotted enemy unit after contact is broken.  That's something Steve already indicated was done in the past and could probably be done again in the future if it is deemed to be necessary.  Where I would see AI area fire as being most useful would be in beating the bushes to ferret out player ambushes, and in those instances the AI probably won't have any contact icons to target (even if a contact marker could be deemed an eligible target by the game in the first place). 

Edited by ASL Veteran
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I can think of a situation, common in all the CM titles, where providing the AI with area firing capability improves realism. There are scenarios in which the battlefield is dominated by a tall building or a church steeple or windmill. The first thing a human player does is send an FO team scrambling up to the top floor. Where it remains, enjoying total immunity from speculative fire from the enemy. Against another human opponent? Fughedabouit

Edited by Childress
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Sorry, only had 1.10 installed.  But found this from the 1.10 readme...

 

"Elite" mode changed so that friendly troops are always displayed, even when not spotted by the current unit. A new mode called "Iron" behaves like the old Elite mode."

 

Elite became Iron and the friendly FOW was removed from Elite.  I ran it and Iron operates like it does today.

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Hmm, well I think that during the beta for CMBN friendly units were not shown unless spotted and I think it was like that in CMSF.  They still only show spotted enemy units when a unit is selected now though don't they?  Anyway, it's not really important ... perhaps just a memory lapse.

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I want to make sure we aren't talking past each other.  There is no difference between Iron in CMSF and CMBN.  Never has been in released versions.  I just played CMSF 1.10 and CMBN 3.XX.  No difference.

 

edit...can't speak to Elite...never played it after CMSF 1.10...and then before that, it was the equivalent of Iron.

Edited by Thewood1
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I want to make sure we aren't talking past each other.  There is no difference between Iron in CMSF and CMBN.  Never has been in released versions.  I just played CMSF 1.10 and CMBN 3.XX.  No difference.

 

edit...can't speak to Elite...never played it after CMSF 1.10...and then before that, it was the equivalent of Iron.

Yes, I think that Elite in CMSF was changed so that friendly units when selected would only see spotted friendly units during the orders phase when a friendly unit was selected.  This setting was probably carried over to CMBN during beta and perhaps dropped or altered before the game was released.  Just goes to show how often I play this game these days. :P  Sometimes I do try to play through a scenario with one of the normal FOW settings just to see what it looks like for the player, but most of the time I have to see what the AI is doing in order to make the play through worthwhile.

 

Anyway, this doesn't really have much to do with the topic - I probably just didn't read Ian's comments or the replies carefully enough to make an informed response.

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I can think of a situation, common in all the CM titles, where providing the AI with area firing capability improves realism. There are scenarios in which the battlefield is dominated by a tall building or a church steeple or windmill. The first thing a human player does is send an FO team scrambling up to the top floor. Where it remains, enjoying total immunity from speculative fire from the enemy. Against another human opponent? Fughedabouit

 

Good point !

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So was there ever a time when Iron had friendly FOW during the WEGO orders phase?

Initial CMSF Iron mode the spotting rules when a unit was selected were all the time. A few patches in it was change so while you still needed to spot friendly units for C&C purposes in the orders phase all your units were visible no matter who you selected.

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