AI precise fire?

[Joao Perru]

Hi all.

Long time single player combat mission player here. Long time but not as sucessful as i liked, or as i hoped, considering all the time i've invested in it.

I've got this concern: i'm playing aachen campaign right now. 1st done, i'm at 2nd mission. Though i won a total victory at the first, i find that the enemy TacAI is kinda cheating. The enemy is way better than i am at small arms fire. I know that my pixel soldiers are governed by the same TacAI, but everytime some weird situation come up. 

Examples: (I'm talking about infantry vs infantry urban tactics and combat: house to house. I mean, my men are in a stone house, so is the enemy).

- Enemy 4 man platoon leader squad. Firing what seems to be pot fire with k98 and 1 mp40. Against them i got at least 15 men with garands, and 1 tripod .30cal HMG. Firing and firing. i see all 4 of them. I got no kills in 3-4 minutes of firing. The sporadic fire from them killed 3-4 of my men. I repeat: windows from windows firing. At the end, overwhelmed by fire they run away. and even when they were in the open, i dropped none of them. They finally run to another house. Had to repeat all from scratch with the new building. Finally came a Sherman and did the job. My men were regular experience, dont know the enemy, anyway, but, damned, they're supposed to be Volks.

-Two guys with mp40, 70 meters from my men wreck havoc on a squad in a building, killing 2. 9mms submachineguns, 70 meters aiming at windows in a stone house, what-the-hell.

-When soldiers run in the open it takes hundreds of rounds to hope to drop one. Enemy first burst almost always drops one of my men.

-Another enemy guy. 2 .30cal HMG on him, some garands. Finally he's pinned, fired 1 shot every 20-30 seconds. Drops one or two of my guys with that pot fire. Then escapes.

-Final score usually show that my men have the aim of an Imperial Stormtrooper. Can't hit the broad side of a barn. The real kills come from tanks. Wonder if i didn't have them... what will happen in a pure infantry vs infantry situation? And i'm not talking about melee assaults, or 10 meters engagements, those are weird too, though i accept that it's a game and has his own limits.

SO: am i missing something here? Does someone has an explanation or disagree with me? I really hope to improve my game.

Thanks a sorry for my english, it's not my main language

Edited January 15, 2017 by Joao Perru

[akd]

Hi Joao, the AI side does not "cheat" and is governed by the same rules as the player.  A lot of factors feed into success with small arms: cover, experience, suppression, etc., and then, of course, as in real life you can simply be unlucky.

Also building textures are just textures and don't directly tell you anything about cover (every buidling has multiple textures to provide more visual variety, and even more can be modded in).  Building cover is tied to the model itself, and generally larger, more urban structures (e.g. Large modular, church) provide better cover than smaller, more rural structures (e.g. Small barns are worst cover).

Edited January 15, 2017 by akd

[Joao Perru]

Ok, that's what i call a lot of unlucky situations then. Houses were big ones for me and for AI too. I was even wondering if the difficulty level (i play on elite), has something to do with it, apart from stripping you of aids. But i think not.

[mjkerner]

Joao, were your 15 men with garands all in the same  building/on the same floor? If they were, they presented more targets for bullets, ricochets and the like, as opposed to the lean, mean, 4-man German team. I always split my squads into teams and play them separate all the way through, except for odd occasions, and by and large seem to take fewer casualties compared to when I first started playing CMx2 6 years ago.  Not scientific, but I am certain overall casualties in any given battle are much lower.  Learning use of proper tactics within the game system probably helped me too!

The Aachen campaign is tough...I'm not quite through the 1st battle, and I'm prevailing but hurting! I haven't checked, but seeing as it's the AI on defense, the author may well have boosted the Volksgrenadiers soft factors to give them a fighting chance.

Your english is excellent, by the way.

[Holman]

Not only that, but I don't believe a whole squad on the same floor will find enough windows to shoot from.

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, mjkerner said:

Joao, were your 15 men with garands all in the same  building/on the same floor? If they were, they presented more targets for bullets, ricochets and the like, as opposed to the lean, mean, 4-man German team.

Yeah, it sounds like you were providing the enemy with a "target rich shooting environment" where they almost couldn't miss if they tried. If possible, you might try playing the scenario over, only this time if you can, break your squads into teams and spread them out over more ground. That way, they can concentrate their fire on a single target, but the enemy has to divide his fire among many targets. That's how you achieve firepower superiority.

Michael

[Joao Perru]

They were split into half squads with 2 half squads every building tile, and there were 3 or 4 of them. Not every one was shooting, i know, but looking from the view of the enemy ther was a rellay high volume of fire, compared to the one of the enemy which was almost non existent. I was puzzled. Anyway, regarding ricochets and the like i  agree, and i thought it myself, but to create a consistent volume of fire i needed those men.

Important thing is: i'm the only one that thinks like that, and i'm glad, so i understand it's my fault, no more, no less, and not a problem of the game.

 

Thanks

[Michael Emrys]

16 minutes ago, Joao Perru said:

They were split into half squads with 2 half squads every building tile...

Ah yes, there you go, see? That placement is too dense for the conditions that pertained. You are lucky that the enemy had no artillery. One team per tile is the absolute maximum you should use in that situation. If it were me, I'd like to have an empty tile or two between teams or more. If you can pin the enemy down and slip a couple of teams around their flanks and even get behind them, you can really break their morale and either butcher or capture them.

Michael

[Bulletpoint]

@Joao Perru I have an idea about what could cause the situation you describe. In this game, some big buildings are in fact barns, and they offer very poor cover. But to a beginner, they may look quite sturdy. So it is possible that you were fighting from barns and your enemies were in real buildings.

Especially if you use mods, this can be a problem. For example, there's a mod that makes barns in Normandy look like this, but even though it looks like a sturdy stone house, it still only offers the protection of a wooden barn in the game.:

 

 

[JonS]

5 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

In this game, some big buildings are in fact barns, and they offer very poor cover. But to a beginner, they may look quite sturdy.

Seems like this is a situation ripe for some enterprising modder to team up with someone interested in doing in-depth tester to produce a set of building skins that clearly and unambiguously indicate how "strong" a given building is.

While not as sexy as yet another King Tiger skin (I can't wait to collect my 35th KT skin! Gotta catch 'em all!), it's probably more useful.

Edited January 15, 2017 by JonS

[Bulletpoint]

10 minutes ago, JonS said:

Seems like this is a situation ripe for some enterprising modder to team up with someone interested in doing in-depth tester to produce a set of building skins that clearly and unambiguously indicate how "strong" a given building is.

Not sure it would need heavy testing.. I think most buildings (apart from the churches) offer exactly the same (quite decent) level of cover. It's just the barns that should be shown as being made from wooden planks, since that's the level of protection they seem to provide in the game. 

Also if I remember right, there's one modular building in CMBN which looks like the bottom floor is made from wood, but it's giving the same cover as the other brick buildings.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Bulletpoint

[JonS]

I seem to recall that some of the standalone buildings are a bit rubbish?  and the churches are awesome?

[Joao Perru]

Nono, buildings were fine... i mean... mine was a multistore, modular factory building, their looked like a stone 1 floor building. So it was mine that looked more promising.

Anyway if you say that the issue here is overcrowding i can understand

Edited January 15, 2017 by Joao Perru

[Frederico]

I know how you feel. I do not have any hard numbers, just lots and lots of time playing the game and I swear quite a bit that the AI has a fudge factor. Rather it is the lone rifleman making kills at 400 meters or an enemy mortar round that kills someone way out of the kill zone it seems that my guys never have such skill. I defer to those who know, but it still will not stop my swearing.

[Holman]

The thing to remember is that you don't register it when it happens to the AI.

[user1000]

I noticed garands are terrible inaccurate in game might be that. I can tell you on several occasions of enemy tankers running off unscathed from a full rifle squad shooting at them at less than 100m

Edited January 16, 2017 by user1000

[MG TOW]

The O/p gave an example, and I'm not trying to explain all aspects of his experience. However I have played that camp a few times. When the AI is prepositioned on the defence, especially with a range order, as in no fire before enemy enters X meters its tough for the attacking player to recover from the initial volley. Sometimes they never do. The allied units have a tough time even reaching the buildings and are cautious to nervous or worse before they get there.