4.0 Upgrade Looks Fantastic --Thanks, BF!

[Macisle]

On 1/10/2017 at 4:18 PM, Bulletpoint said:

I think the problems with the AI trying to fall back and running into the street is due to the pathfinding being unable to plot a path through buildings.

You can see the same happening if you have a squad in front of a long block of buildings, and you plot a single movement order to the street on the other side of the block. The guys will not go through the buildings, they will run around - even if it's a long detour.

So basically the evade AI is trying to do the same thing in your example with the courtyard and walls, @Macisle.

That's possible. As long as the unit is under command, the player can plot waypoints to help units follow smart paths. Once the TacAI takes over...

On 1/10/2017 at 9:11 PM, JoMc67 said:

Yeah, I also feel in CM the Attacker (with only a 3 to 2 Odds, let alone the more realistic 2 to 1 needed in RL) has an easier job against Defender compared to RL, and now seems it's going to get a little easier w/v4.

If you think it's bad now, just wait until you play the game where the Attacker lays down a Barrage on your troops in Buildings/Foxholes/Works (doesn't matter) just to watch them skedaddle loosing Real Estate & more Casualties (instead of suppressing, and taking low casualties pre v4).

Yeap, CM already plays out relatively quick, and v4 is going to make that a little quicker...I always envisioned that 1 minute in CM is equal to like 2.5 to 5 minutes in RL.    

For my next playtest, I'm going to pump up the defending units to all "High" Motivation levels. That may need to be the lever designers lean on to balance things out. So, for example, if the Attacker has all normal/low mix, perhaps the Defender should have all high or above, depending on the situation. I haven't tested anything yet, though. So, I don't know how much traction this will give. I really like what 4.0 is doing for the Attacker. It just seems to be an issue for the Defender. So, if pumping up Defender motivation solves things, then that's at least a temporary solution. We'll see.

On 1/11/2017 at 1:31 AM, RockinHarry said:

Evade uses the fast move command toward the evade waypoint. That means the path chosen between the original and destination waypoint would be one that have least possible obstacles (or bottlenecks) present. I´ll set up a test to see if buildings are overally treated as an obstacle, or if it´s just the doors providing a bottleneck. I´ll remove walls (front and back) for this purpose.

It seems the path finding routines do attempt finding paths for each single soldier seperately and not quite in organized ways for the whole unit. That´s were bottleneck terrain (doors, bocage gaps...) causes squad members when not finding a path in limited time choose an alternative route to the destination waypoint. That´s also where squad members get seperated most the time. A better SOP for this situation would be for single soldiers stand up and move through the bottleneck one after the other and not all (attempt moving) the same time.

Thanks for your continuing detailed analysis, RH. -Very glad you're in the community! One idea that popped into my head for future Upgrades...perhaps the player can set a fallback point (or even multi-waypoint path) in advance, with routing/evading units falling back there when their morale level triggers the action. Prolly too complicated, but a first idea. I know that in RL, things like MG units will have at least one pre-designated fallback point and sometimes two or three.

Okay, here are a couple more suicidal rout examples. The first is the one I mentioned previously.

Context for unit position and threat locations.

 

The team begins to run for it.

 

They are gunned down (camera view reversed from previous shots to show all casualty positions).

 

I mentioned earlier that attacking units were wading through a lot of fire, but on closer inspection, I realized that some of my men were cowering and that the HMG did a barrel change, so what looked like a lot of firepower zoomed out wasn't when zoomed in. I don't think there is currently a problem with the Attacker's motivation and ability to dodge fire. Rather, the Defender's willingness to hold terrain and what happens when he evades/routs are more in question.

The second example (they may make it, don't know yet):

The team takes fire.

 

This time, there are no safe movement options, but the TacAI's preference for long paths means the team avoids the first door on their right after crossing the street and continues on.

 

At turn end. No casualties yet!

 

Work is heating up again, so I'm probably going to be in my cave for awhile. What time I have, I'm going to devote to working on my scenario. Like I said, I really like what 4.0 has done for the Attacker--especially the AI. Challenging Defensive SP scenarios are definitely possible now. However, there will be a learning curve to using the available tools to give the Defender what he needs and what feels "realistic" in terms of his units' willingness to hold onto key terrain.

[Ivanov]

After playing sometime with 3.0, I'm not too happy with how the infantry acts right now under fire. I got an entire squad running away in a random direction under fire from one enemy rifleman ( in CMBS game ). This doesn't seem realistic and is frankly suicidal. I think I'll start using 3.0 again.

[snarre]

well they doed same random running in 3.0 . 

[JoMac]

On 1/14/2017 at 10:06 PM, Macisle said:

Work is heating up again, so I'm probably going to be in my cave for awhile. What time I have, I'm going to devote to working on my scenario. Like I said, I really like what 4.0 has done for the Attacker--especially the AI. Challenging Defensive SP scenarios are definitely possible now. However, there will be a learning curve to using the available tools to give the Defender what he needs and what feels "realistic" in terms of his units' willingness to hold onto key terrain.

Ok, The Attacker already has a good chance of winning in game with just 3 to 2 Odds (thou, it takes 2 to 1 odds in RL to accomplish same task)...Now, you mentioned that's it's getting even easier for the Defender to break and fall back which is leading to Scenarios ending quicker then they should. 

You also mentioned that the Attacking Troops are also taking cover a little quicker when advancing (falling back, attacking again...rinse repeat)..Now, do you still feel that you will need to Beef up for Defender to give it an equal chance against Attacker ?

Well, At least the Inf Spacing, and willingness of Troops to Attack/Fall Back seems to help keep casualties down a little in v4 (good thing). However, if the end result is having the Attacker take an Objective to quickly, then I don't know...I rather see Firefights last longer (not quicker), especially in built-up areas where it took several hours (not minutes) to take an objective.

Edited January 16, 2017 by JoMc67

[JoMac]

1 hour ago, JoMc67 said:

Ok, The Attacker already has a good chance of winning in game with just 3 to 2 Odds (thou, it takes 2 to 1 odds in RL to accomplish same task)...Now, you mentioned that's it's getting even easier for the Defender to break and fall back which is leading to Scenarios ending quicker then they should. 

You also mentioned that the Attacking Troops are also taking cover a little quicker when advancing (falling back, attacking again...rinse repeat)..Now, do you still feel that you will need to Beef up for Defender to give it an equal chance against Attacker ?

Well, At least the Inf Spacing, and willingness of Troops to Attack/Fall Back seems to help keep casualties down a little in v4 (good thing). However, if the end result is having the Attacker take an Objective to quickly, then I don't know...I rather see Firefights last longer (not quicker), especially in built-up areas where it took several hours (not minutes) to take an objective.

Also, Bodkin, mentioned using Arty in v4 against Troops in Foxholes and in Town only to have the Defender leave their protection and loosing more casualties, and real estate at same time. I also agree with akd, in that Arty should Suppress and not Kill. 

The above doesn't sound to promising...At least in v3 troops stood ground for most part (unless several turns of Arty Barrage) with minimal casualties.

Edited January 16, 2017 by JoMc67

[Macisle]

4 hours ago, snarre said:

well they doed same random running in 3.0 . 

That's true. The behavior is not unique to 4.0. It's just that units seem to be evading/routing more quickly now--thus, the behavior comes up more often, especially in urban environments.

1 hour ago, JoMc67 said:

Ok, The Attacker already has a good chance of winning in game with just 3 to 2 Odds (thou, it takes 2 to 1 odds in RL to accomplish same task)...Now, you mentioned that's it's getting even easier for the Defender to break and fall back which is leading to Scenarios ending quicker then they should. 

You also mentioned that the Attacking Troops are also taking cover a little quicker when advancing (falling back, attacking again...rinse repeat)..Now, do you still feel that you will need to Beef up for Defender to give it an equal chance against Attacker ?

Well, At least the Inf Spacing, and willingness of Troops to Attack/Fall Back seems to help keep casualties down a little in v4 (good thing). However, if the end result is having the Attacker take an Objective to quickly, then I don't know...I rather see Firefights last longer (not quicker), especially in built-up areas where it took several hours (not minutes) to take an objective.

I didn't mean that it's good that the Defender has been weakened relative to the Attacker. I meant that, taken in isolation, I like what changes 4.0 has brought to the Attacker in terms of casualty reduction and what seem like more realistic behaviors (as you mentioned, taking cover faster when under fire). I definitely want to see the Defender having realistic staying power, though.

In my playtest, I got some nice, long firefights early on, but once my men started getting brittle, things went downhill pretty fast. I ended the playtest, as I expected to be wiped out before my reinforcements arrived. However, there were more variables at play than just the 4.0 morale changes. My playtest involved a tighter AI Plan, which, combined with AI Area fire, made things a lot different.

For the next playtest, I'm planning to have all the Germans at High Motivation, with all the Soviets at Normal, with a few Low. Then, if needed, I'll keep dialing up the German motivation. I'm also tweaking the force mix.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Macisle

[JoMac]

48 minutes ago, Macisle said:

That's true. The behavior is not unique to 4.0. It's just that units seem to be evading/routing more quickly now--thus, the behavior comes up more often, especially in urban environments.

I didn't mean that it's good that the Defender has been weakened relative to the Attacker. I meant that, taken in isolation, I like what changes 4.0 has brought to the Attacker in terms of casualty reduction and what seem like more realistic behaviors (as you mentioned, taking cover faster when under fire). I definitely want to see the Defender having realistic staying power, though.

In my playtest, I got some nice, long firefights early on, but once my men started getting brittle, things went downhill pretty fast. I ended the playtest, as I expected to be wiped out before my reinforcements arrived. However, there were more variables at play that the 4.0 morale changes. My playtest involved a tighter AI Plan, which, combined with AI Area fire, made things a lot different.

For the next playtest, I'm planning to have all the Germans at High Motivation, with all the Soviets at Normal, with a few Low. Then, if needed, I'll keep dialing up the German motivation. I'm also tweaking the force mix.

Ok, at least we are both in agreement in that this New AI Tactical behavior is going in the right direction (spacing, taken cover faster, etc), but need the Defender to have a little more staying power.

It's interesting thou, you would think the Attacker would have a Higher Motivation vs Normal to Low for Defender...Yes, you may have to do the opposite now in your next play test as a work around to get desired results. You might also want to include a Russian Arty Battery as I'm curious to see what it does if it hits concentrated troops.

Anyways, you could do the following Attack/Defend Play Tests to give you the overall big picture. 

- First Play test...Inf vs Inf, - Second Play Test...Inf vs Inf & Arty, - Third Play test...Inf vs Inf & Armor.                                                                                      

*Side Note*...Ok, I know the New tactical AI behavior (spacing, taken quicker cover under fire, etc) is good for keeping tactical casualties down to more realistic levels. However, does the New Grand Tactical AI Stances that's present in Scenario designing (Evade, Fast, etc) also kick in for QB's somehow (or, is it just Scenario related) ?..I have a bad feeling that my QB Troops (that uses Maps from Scenario's) will end up crawling or somefink when an Arty Barrage lands a hundred yards from them (instead of obeying my Waypoints), or wlll my troops crawl or run out of their Foxholes in one turn if an Arty Barrage lands on them. 

Edited January 16, 2017 by JoMc67

[Ivanov]

7 hours ago, snarre said:

well they doed same random running in 3.0 . 

The problem is that in 4.0 this behavior seems to be exaggerated.

[snarre]

battles and camppaings what im playing right now , im not honestly notice that big difrense . only when unit get under arty then they try find better cover faster.

[JoMac]

21 hours ago, snarre said:

battles and camppaings what im playing right now , im not honestly notice that big difrense . only when unit get under arty then they try find better cover faster.

Yes, if Arty is being dropped on your Troops in open, then taken cover is a Good Idea...However, if in one turn the Arty Barrage lands on top of your troops in Town or Foxhole/Trenches, then leaving to find other cover is not a Good Idea. 

[Hister]

All the beta testers out there, why missing such an obvious downside to the otherwise very good upgrade? 

[RockinHarry]

On 16.1.2017 at 5:32 PM, Macisle said:

That's true. The behavior is not unique to 4.0. It's just that units seem to be evading/routing more quickly now--thus, the behavior comes up more often, especially in urban environments.

I didn't mean that it's good that the Defender has been weakened relative to the Attacker. I meant that, taken in isolation, I like what changes 4.0 has brought to the Attacker in terms of casualty reduction and what seem like more realistic behaviors (as you mentioned, taking cover faster when under fire). I definitely want to see the Defender having realistic staying power, though.

In my playtest, I got some nice, long firefights early on, but once my men started getting brittle, things went downhill pretty fast. I ended the playtest, as I expected to be wiped out before my reinforcements arrived. However, there were more variables at play than just the 4.0 morale changes. My playtest involved a tighter AI Plan, which, combined with AI Area fire, made things a lot different.

For the next playtest, I'm planning to have all the Germans at High Motivation, with all the Soviets at Normal, with a few Low. Then, if needed, I'll keep dialing up the German motivation. I'm also tweaking the force mix.

Yes there´s quite a number of factors to be evaluated properly for the changed V4.0 infantry behavior. Beside motivation and experience, I´d also have a watchful eye on the leader ratings, since it´s them having a deciding influence on the whole units final actions. In my last playtest the automatic evade reaction saved a platoon of infantry that got blasted with Arty in a small forest from total destruction. It still had 50-60% casualties from that barrage, but without that instant evade reaction, things would´ve been even worse (stayed in the forest longer and catching more salvoes). The one case where an 88 Flak ammo bearer team escaped their foxholes when the enemy barrage was just about to begin, could probably be related to the team beeing green and low morale. Considering CM foxholes/trenches are not of the overhead cover slit and spider hole type (small and deep), it´s likely no wonder that they are beeing vacated during a heavy barrage, at least from low quality troops. Needs more testing.

I could think of the new evading behavior paying off in campaign battles, when you need to preserve more of your forces for the next battle.

Also my play style has now changed in a way that I give even more consideration to defensive positions beeing really tenable, particularly with lower quality troops. If a position is overly exposed, particularly from multiple directions and no cover terrain to the rear, then most likely just a veteran+, high morale unit with good leader would hold fast for more than 1-2 minutes. Proper terrain evaluation was important before, but with V4.0 now even more so.

A weak point remains with the oftenly suicidal TacAI evade waypoint setting and paths. Cover terrain should be used better and more than the biggest enemy threat considered. A buildings front side setting can help an evading unit choosing the best exit to new cover, but it´s not something to count on in most cases.

I like the formation "rally point" idea which also is a well functioning feature in Steel Panthers WaW. It won´t always work though, since the path to the rally point could be cut off or interdicted by the enemy, but In combination with better evade waypoint selection and more use of intermediate cover terrain, it should provide more realistic results in the game.

[Macisle]

8 hours ago, Hister said:

All the beta testers out there, why missing such an obvious downside to the otherwise very good upgrade? 

My first thought would be that someone playing SP as the Attacker may not notice a problem and that most beta testing would be done in that mode. The increased fragility of the Defender didn't reveal itself to me until I started playtesting my SP-only defensive scenario under 4.0. A second thought would be that it makes life easier for the new player playing in SP mode (as most will be doing). However, I don't see that as having legs because of the downside for H2H players on the defense. So, my guess is the first reason--beta testers being pleased with the feeling of enhanced play as the Attacker in SP mode, but not spending enough time as Defender in situations that highlight the new issues created.

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

Yes there´s quite a number of factors to be evaluated properly for the changed V4.0 infantry behavior. Beside motivation and experience, I´d also have a watchful eye on the leader ratings, since it´s them having a deciding influence on the whole units final actions. In my last playtest the automatic evade reaction saved a platoon of infantry that got blasted with Arty in a small forest from total destruction. It still had 50-60% casualties from that barrage, but without that instant evade reaction, things would´ve been even worse (stayed in the forest longer and catching more salvoes). The one case where an 88 Flak ammo bearer team escaped their foxholes when the enemy barrage was just about to begin, could probably be related to the team beeing green and low morale. Considering CM foxholes/trenches are not of the overhead cover slit and spider hole type (small and deep), it´s likely no wonder that they are beeing vacated during a heavy barrage, at least from low quality troops. Needs more testing.

I could think of the new evading behavior paying off in campaign battles, when you need to preserve more of your forces for the next battle.

Also my play style has now changed in a way that I give even more consideration to defensive positions beeing really tenable, particularly with lower quality troops. If a position is overly exposed, particularly from multiple directions and no cover terrain to the rear, then most likely just a veteran+, high morale unit with good leader would hold fast for more than 1-2 minutes. Proper terrain evaluation was important before, but with V4.0 now even more so.

A weak point remains with the oftenly suicidal TacAI evade waypoint setting and paths. Cover terrain should be used better and more than the biggest enemy threat considered. A buildings front side setting can help an evading unit choosing the best exit to new cover, but it´s not something to count on in most cases.

I like the formation "rally point" idea which also is a well functioning feature in Steel Panthers WaW. It won´t always work though, since the path to the rally point could be cut off or interdicted by the enemy, but In combination with better evade waypoint selection and more use of intermediate cover terrain, it should provide more realistic results in the game.

On arty, assuming you can't get away from it, pre-4.0, I thought your best chance was to stop and Hide. I haven't tested it, but I would think that getting your units to do that may be harder now. In that case, if you can mostly get away in the first place, you might take less casualties now, but if you can't and your units won't stay put in Hide mode, then you may take more than before.

You might want to do some testing with trenches vs. foxholes. One of the early SP QBs I played under 4.0 as the Attacker saw some enemy infantry bounce back and forth between two close (but not connected) trench formations. They also took a lot of tank fire with what seemed like fewer casualties than pre-4.0. It was pretty cool, as the guys left one trench for the other and then left that to return to the first when the second fell under attack. They stayed in the trenches a lot longer than I'm seeing them stay in foxholes (which makes sense, of course).

The trench thing gave me an idea to perhaps create a kind of rally point. For my scenario, if the block of buildings layout allows it, perhaps I can put a square-shaped trench formation in the inner courtyard that will attract fleeing troops who would otherwise head for the streets surrounding the block. I haven't tried it yet. If it works well, then SP-only scenario designers could use a series of trenches (and/or foxholes/bunkers if they do the same thing) to "lead" routing/evading AI units to planned fallback positions. I say SP-only since the number of fortifications required could be problematic for scenarios offering H2H play mode.

I haven't had time to do much testing under my new Motivation level adjustments yet. Initial impressions are that a single level jump (above Normal) helps, but units are still not as "sticky" as they were at Normal pre-4.0, especially once their morale state begins to decrease (ie. Nervous, Shaken, etc.). Can't say for sure, though, as that's me just running some turns to test AI Plan/Unit changes with my guys sitting in place as targets. In actual play, things might feel different. I don't have a second install, so I can't test under pre-Upgrade conditions. Time is also very limited right now, weekends being a bit better.

I do wonder how this impacts Campaigns and SP scenarios--especially those that feature lower-quality defending troops, like the early scenarios in CMBN's TRTM. If anything, I would hope that Upgrades would make them more challenging,  but I can't help but think they just got significanlty easier. New players to the series may like that, but as an old hand who keeps waiting to start some Campaigns until "just one more" Upgrade hits, I may have to keep waiting.

[sburke]

10 hours ago, Hister said:

All the beta testers out there, why missing such an obvious downside to the otherwise very good upgrade? 

because we suck.  Okay maybe not all of us, but I suck.  Unfortunately we only caught a s**tload ton of things and missed a couple.

[Macisle]

Guys, don't be hard on the beta testers. What seems obvious when you have the whole community pushing CM through its paces from every angle is a whole different ballgame than applying the limited resource of beta tester time vs. the vastness of CM. Given the beta tester resource to CM task-size ratio, I think they do a very good job.

The questions are:

How much of an issue is there?

What can/needs to be done about it?

[Hister]

I'm not being hard on beta testers. I was wondering how this happened. 

Intended or not intended, seems as if it was not intended to me but 'cos it was a pretty obvious one I am asking how coild it have been missed? 

Could be that when you have been tasked to monitor specific things in the game you get a kind of a tunnel vision and are oblivious to what a player not tasked with anything is able to spot.

CM pushing out patches takes a long time (in comparison to other games that spoiled me) so it's normal if you ask me that those kinds of things stirr me up a bit. We'll have to wait months before we get this fixed. Still I'm not saying you beta guys suck sburke, c'mon!

[JoMac]

Ok, Macisle, do you have any new updates with your further playtesting...

I downloaded V4 Upgrade Bundle for all my WWII Titles (except FI, until it's re-release), and also noticed a big change in the AI behavior.

 

[Macisle]

I've mostly been working on my scenario (The Radzy Award). That is the one I was using for testing and screenshots. I did do some separate testing on a slice of the same map, trying to use foxholes and trenches as fallback points by placing them in the courtyard areas of building blocks. I only ran it a few times. Foxholes didn't seem to attract evading/routing troops much at all. Trenches did a bit, but not consistently enough to make it a reliable tactic.

I also ran 4-5 tests lining up a platoon of Soviets with Normal motivation vs. a platoon of German Stragglers in same-motivation sets ranging from High up to Fanatic. Stragglers have 3 SMGs & 7 rifles per squad. I cut the fourth squad and added 3 LMGs for the test. Each side was in a line of facing buildings right across the street from each other.

Results had units on both sides taking 0-3 casualties before falling back on their own. Regular units still fell back even at higher motivation levels like Fanatic. It just took a bit longer in the turn for them to start the behavior. Also, units that had not taken casualties still fell back. During the first turn of play, both sides fired and disengaged with fallback behaviors. However, I did notice that a German Vet LMG team that I accidentally had there (I thought they were all Regular) did not fall back (I changed him to Regular after that). So, it looks like the motivation level must be used in combination with unit quality to have a real impact on reducing the rout/evade behavior. I haven't done further testing, but a first impression is that a Vet High unit has roughly the same staying power as a Regular Normal unit used to. Don't quote me on that, though.

As for impact on real gameplay, it is difficult to say yet, since there are so many other variables going on. My current feeling is that new scenarios can balance things out, but existing scenarios/campaigns may now be rather easier for the Attacker -- especially on small maps. I haven't done any testing, however. Also, I'm not seeing issues on this mentioned in the forums, other than what we have talked about in this thread (but I'm not able to spend too much time on the forums right now, so I may just not have seen them). As discussed, people playing SP as Attacker are not likely to notice/care. Only people playing as the Defender. And, since there aren't many defending SP scenarios, that largely limits the affected group to H2H Defenders.

I haven't done any H2H in ages, so I can't comment. Anybody out there have any feedback on this?

Edited January 30, 2017 by Macisle

[JoMac]

11 hours ago, Macisle said:

I've mostly been working on my scenario (The Radzy Award). That is the one I was using for testing and screenshots. I did do some separate testing on a slice of the same map, trying to use foxholes and trenches as fallback points by placing them in the courtyard areas of building blocks. I only ran it a few times. Foxholes didn't seem to attract evading/routing troops much at all. Trenches did a bit, but not consistently enough to make it a reliable tactic.

I also ran 4-5 tests lining up a platoon of Soviets with Normal motivation vs. a platoon of German Stragglers in same-motivation sets ranging from High up to Fanatic. Stragglers have 3 SMGs & 7 rifles per squad. I cut the fourth squad and added 3 LMGs for the test. Each side was in a line of facing buildings right across the street from each other.

Results had units on both sides taking 0-3 casualties before falling back on their own. Regular units still fell back even at higher motivation levels like Fanatic. It just took a bit longer in the turn for them to start the behavior. Also, units that had not taken casualties still fell back. During the first turn of play, both sides fired and disengaged with fallback behaviors. However, I did notice that a German Vet LMG team that I accidentally had there (I thought they were all Regular) did not fall back (I changed him to Regular after that). So, it looks like the motivation level must be used in combination with unit quality to have a real impact on reducing the rout/evade behavior. I haven't done further testing, but a first impression is that a Vet High unit has roughly the same staying power as a Regular Normal unit used to. Don't quote me on that, though.

As for impact on real gameplay, it is difficult to say yet, since there are so many other variables going on. My current feeling is that new scenarios can balance things out, but existing scenarios/campaigns may now be rather easier for the Attacker -- especially on small maps. I haven't done any testing, however. Also, I'm not seeing issues on this mentioned in the forums, other than what we have talked about in this thread (but I'm not able to spend too much time on the forums right now, so I may just not have seen them). As discussed, people playing SP as Attacker are not likely to notice/care. Only people playing as the Defender. And, since there aren't many defending SP scenarios, that largely limits the affected group to H2H Defenders.

I haven't done any H2H in ages, so I can't comment. Anybody out there have any feedback on this?

Thanks for the continued discussion, Macisle...I'm sure there is enough players using V4, and ran this discussion down (as there is nothing left to say) in hopes BF will look into any possible problems or concerns...Thou, I'm still Surprised, Steve, hasn't commented on anything yet as he usually does with a New Release.

 

[akd]

 

Well, the change in behavior was supposed to be specific to receiving HE fire, so I am bit skeptical of these claims of a global behavior change for any unit that receives fire.  It's possible that the reaction to HE is achieved by a global change to the threshold for displacement, but I think we need a direct engine 3 vs. engine 4 comparison to determine this.

Edited January 30, 2017 by akd

[Frederico]

Just a thought - some are saying that the early routing now favors the attacker, but I have found that to be the opposite in urban settings. You have to fight the same guys multiple times now, where in the past you could often destroy them in place. Also, before you can fight them again you must find them again and in urban settings that is a pain. (Except for the occasional route path that takes them towards you.) Not sure yet how I feel about this change overall, but it has made urban fighting more challenging for the attacker. I just finished the Aachen campaign - the last battle especially bore this out, but chasing ghosts in the cemetery was also difficult. 

[Macisle]

9 hours ago, akd said:

 

Well, the change in behavior was supposed to be specific to receiving HE fire, so I am bit skeptical of these claims of a global behavior change for any unit that receives fire.  It's possible that the reaction to HE is achieved by a global change to the threshold for displacement, but I think we need a direct engine 3 vs. engine 4 comparison to determine this.

It does seem different. But, like you say, without an engine 3 vs. engine 4 controlled test, it may just be mind tricks. It would be great if someone with both engines installed and the time could run a direct comparison.

7 hours ago, Frederico said:

Just a thought - some are saying that the early routing now favors the attacker, but I have found that to be the opposite in urban settings. You have to fight the same guys multiple times now, where in the past you could often destroy them in place. Also, before you can fight them again you must find them again and in urban settings that is a pain. (Except for the occasional route path that takes them towards you.) Not sure yet how I feel about this change overall, but it has made urban fighting more challenging for the attacker. I just finished the Aachen campaign - the last battle especially bore this out, but chasing ghosts in the cemetery was also difficult. 

Actually, one of the first things I did under engine 4 was finish a QB as the Attacker on a slice of Aachen. It was a grind, but I also was fighting 1 to 1.4 as Amis vs. VG, so I expected it to be. Although I noticed the suicidal rout path problem a few times there, I also noticed what you say about the new heightened difficulty of having to find and dig out displacing defenders. However, they had map space with buildings to fall back to. So, the new behaviors making things harder or easier depends a lot on the map situation. If things are more open and/or they don't have a lot of fallback options to locations providing cover, I think things are easier than in engine 3. On urban maps with plenty of space and buildings, then they might be harder.

On more open maps in CMBN, I've noticed that displacing AI defenders will sometimes fall back to the player's side of bocage with them facing away from the player. Makes them sitting ducks. I've also seen AI defenders pretty readily swept out of buildings and foxholes on smaller maps. One exception is trenches. I saw some defenders take a lot of 75mm fire and hold up surprisingly well. Trenches may provide better cover now (but I haven't tested).

A couple of other things I've noticed under 4.0:

• Large teams/squads sent to a building will sometimes have men out in the street upon arriving and taking position. In order to fix the problem, squads must be split with a team sent somewhere else (different floor, etc.). Sometimes it is necessary to have the remaining team move to the same building location again to get the men outside to join their team members inside the building.
• Often, some of an ATG's crew members are spread out away from the gun shield, making them easier targets for small arms.

At this point, my time is very limited, so I'm just going to plug away at my scenario and see what thoughts and feelings bubble up in the community. Overall, I love what 4.0 brings. There just may need to be some tweaking here and there on some things.

 

[Warts 'n' all]

I have also noticed what Macisle said about having some men stay out in the street when they arrive at a building. At first I just gave the squad a "Face" command in the hope that they would then all move indoors. I'll have to try his tips in future.

[RockinHarry]

51 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

I have also noticed what Macisle said about having some men stay out in the street when they arrive at a building. At first I just gave the squad a "Face" command in the hope that they would then all move indoors. I'll have to try his tips in future.

Not entirely sure, but I think it mostly happens with buildings that partly (1/2) share another action spot, or diagonal ones. Already saw that before V4.0,

[DougPhresh]

I agree that when troops in foxholes/trenches/buildings break cover and run because of a few mortar rounds falling nearby, and get wiped out in the process it can be very frustrating.

I'm not expecting anyone to fight their position to the last man, or for every attack to be pressed home by the bayonet but some tweaks to their endurance would be nice.