BDW Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 ***GOLD DEMO SPOILER INFO WITHIN!**** - - - - - - - Steve - it's been a while since the old days when I hassled you so bad about the AI. I'm baaaaaaack. Actually, I am blown away at how good the AI is now. However, one very strange thing happened today... In the Valley of Trouble I played the US side. When the Panther appeared, it stayed on the German bunker hill for a few turns, then it headed over to the US side. I had no armor left and I thought it was moving over to chase my remaining infantry down. I watched it as it went around and behind the large forest and and then backed into the absolute corner of the map on the US side. Then it shut of it's engines and that was that for the remainder of the scenario until I finally ran at it with two infantry squads and easily killed it. Why in the world did the AI take that Panther completely out of the action? It could have done some serious damage, and while it was hiding in the corner I was able to take out a wooden bunker. Bizarre...! any ideas?? (I have the saved game to prove it, too) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 Personally I'd file that under "So the AI isn't perfect" . Sorry but that's about the only thing to say in this case IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All American Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 Maybe the gun had been damaged without you knowing it. All American Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demangel Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 I must say I just had a somwhat similar thing happen to me tonight... I was playing hotseat against a friend On the Chance encounter map (gold version) We used all standard setup elements, neither team having an advantage... I was axis: My stugs performed Pitifully against the five Shermans, I was happy to have given as good as I got, but The remaining two shermans where definately a headache. When I played this as Alies Against the ai the stuggs put up a better fight, than they did when I used them, In fact when I played the ai I usualy had to concentrate fire from multiple angles to knock one out... This time My stugs never took any hits before being knocked out I mean they took on hit, front armor at a decent defensive angle and poof knockewd out every time... The Alies where spotting my units hiden Deep in the woods from nearly 400 yrds away which also annoyed me... But the instance that really pissed me off was one of my panzershrecks... Although I had no armor and my arty was more like fireworks (pretty but harmless for some reason) I had sufficiently bled my openent to ouitnumber him nearly three to one... SInce I had no armor I had to try to use Panzerschrek and pnz-fuast, to try and kill his two remaining tanks... My right flank (near the church) took the ally hill, but soon a sherman came in and started chewing up my troops, I came up with a nice sneak attack on the sherman from the side first with a fuast... The dumb asses totaly missed, the divit on the ground was well nehind the tank... Then I was bleeding bad... I turned to my tired and weary veteran schreck team and sent them after the tank on a end run sneak attack on the tank on the side armor. My openant had no Idea I was just over the rise of the hill smiling knowing my schrek was about to sneak over and put a rocket in his shermans side... then just as it was about to hit the tank, it stood up changed faceing and ran into a house full of allies... I watched the movie ten times and checked the status of the unit each time, It was not scared or panicked or whatever, and though tired and just about to have it's prey in sight it changed it's mind and basicly ruined a perfect plan that would almost surely have wiped out his buttoned tank with it's turret facing away from me... I figure close range side armor with a flat angle would have more than done the job. But to dope ran the other way to try and attack the house... WHY!!!!! If the allies lost that tank I could rush in with my huge remaining forces and just ran over the alies all grouped up on the road near the starting position. I think the Ai is pretty damn good now myself, definately improved over the other betas, but I was so upset I had to surrender and stop playing... It seems every time I pay something wierd like this happens either to me or the enemy. always at a crucial moment in the battle... I hope that whatever this was if intentional on the part of the programmers is toned down... I understand the randomness of the game, but also in real life in that situation a bazooka or panzerschrek team that is not panicked or routed, would not pass up a jiucy side armor shot on enemy armor to run across an open expanse to look at the shingles of a house... only to be shot by everything on the map... Ok so enough bitching... It's still an awesome game, and I think I would have won the match but with that loss I would have won just barely and it would have been one of those wins nobody likes... My losses would have been staggering, and the win would cost me lot! I mean I had only used 1/4 my forces in doing the damage I had done, the rest was hidden over the hill out of sight figuring my oponent would be more brave instead of being as defensive as I was being. My arty did a lot in the opening rounds, but afterwards they missed all the units that where clumped together... Swiss cheese landscape with few casualties. Anyway if anyone knows why the incident with the schrek occured the way it did I'd love to hear it... I figure if it wasn't an AI bug, perhaps the schrek team saw the people inthe houses a second before he would have seen the top of the tank, and since I had them on "Sneak mode" they went after the first target they saw... But if I had not tried to sneak I would have been spotted early and smoked... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Charles Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 Gee, that's a long post and it's late, so I won't answer in detail, but did you try setting an ambush marker with your schreck? I think they can set their own markers now. I bet you are correct about the sneak command. Your schreck probably engaged the first unit it saw. Unfortunately, it was infantry. ------------------ Not THE Charles from BTS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 Hey BDW Welcome back and thanks for the praise. My guess is the same as All American's. Panther gun was damaged. Right now the AI is a little over cautious when this happens and removes it from threat, assuming that it is in fact threatened. It doesn't know that there isn't another Sherman lurking around waiting for a free flank shot, only you (the US player) knows that for sure So from your vantage point it looked stupid, from the AI's it didn't seem to be that dumb at all. Either that or it was some sort of freak numbers thing Demangel, glad to have you here. But could you do a favor? I have to read hundreds of psots a day, and having basically one HUGE paragraph is pretty rough on me. Shorter points, broken up into paragarphs, would allow me to really understand what you are talking about. But I am going to take a stab at yours now in any case It is absolutely impossible for me to speculate on why your Schrek team did what it did. I suspect it had something to do with being over tired. They are more likely to not do what you want in those situations. Not always, but something probably spooked them. And instead of toughing it out, went to a safer position. One thing you have to remember is that each unit is basically out for itself. It doesn't give a rat's ass about your big plan if it thinks it is going to be wiped out In WWII the best way to use a rocket AT weapon was to let the tank come to you, not the other way around. Boldly going after a tank is therefore less likely to bring good results. As for making judgements about the TacAI's (the part that moves your units around) abilities based on a few games in one or two scenarios... not a good thing to do You are bound to see odd things. So did our testers, and so do we. But more often than not there is a reasonable explanation. Of course, without seeing the actually conditions it is very hard to speculate as to what that reasonable explantion is. In general, the more you ask of your units, the more likely things are NOT going to go as you would like. Also, the laws of physics and chance lead to all sorts of wildly different results. But any superficial study of war will show that oddball stuff happens more often than not. Best laid plans will be laid waste, but the better you plan the less waste there will be. And that is what makes the difference between a good player and a great one. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest -panzershreck- Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 same thing happened to me bdw except the other way round, my pill box has taken out all shermans, except for one, this one took out my bunker then went and hid in a corner ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 I had a Sherman hide the corner for nearly 20 turns. It finally came out to "play" later on when the AI thought it was safe. I reported it as a bug and sent the file off to Charles. Its gun had been damaged. So I suspect that somehow this happend. To let you know why the AI does this... before it used to keep the thing out in the field blazing away with its MGs. This was great when an enemy AT threat didn't come up all of a sudden. If it did, one more dead AI tank. And these things count heavily against your score. So the new behavior is to get the thing out of harm's way. Not saying the behavior couldn't use some improvements (hehe... but then again, what part of any AI couldn't? ), but it is better than what it was before. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neutral Party Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 I was playing VoT as US vs. AI (and doing badly I might add). All my armor was smoking before I even saw the Panther. So I was a wee bit worried and plastered it with 105 arty. Must have rattled it's brain because it came charging down the hill, did a pirouette and shot off up the lane in reverse towards the US map edge eventually getting popped up the ass by a bazooka. It was sort of like it was trying to get away but in the wrong direction Most strange. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BDW Posted May 12, 2000 Author Share Posted May 12, 2000 Charles and Steve, OK I buy the damaged main gun thing....HOWEVER: why in the world would the Panther continue to travel deep behind my lines - all alone? Maybe I did not make this clear: the Panther manuevered all the way down the road and up the hill and around the trees to get behind the US forest on the right hand side of the map (from the US perspective). At that point I was able to gang up on it and knock it out with infantry that was not too far away. I guess what I don't understand is: if the main gun was damaged, why didn't it retreat?? Cleary it was safer to retreat than to advance! Right? ? [This message has been edited by BDW (edited 05-12-2000).] [This message has been edited by BDW (edited 05-12-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 Not always actually. Often it is much safe to continue deep into the enemy's rear if you have punched through than it is to retreat back through his front line. I can definitely see some rationale for the Panther doing what it did. I've done it in PBEMs myself on occasion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zamo Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 I too had my panther go daffy. Panther advanced to contact, got ambushed by an M1919, took no casualties, threw itself into reverse, neutral steered so it's ass was facing the ami hords and backed right into the LOS of a nearby M4. End of Panther, never even fired a shot. I was aghast... While I know troops do wierd things in combat, I think we are deffinatly seeing the first traces of a potential "Patch" concern. Though, right now I am having so much fun with this "Demo" I could care less!!! Zamo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 I have yet to encounter Panther doing strange things, but this stuff sure isn't sounding too good. Panther turning its backside to the enemy (Zamo's post above) in order to get popped and seemingly running around like a chicken with its head cut off (take this w/ a grain of salt BTS ). Sure sounds a lot like the whacked out stuff I remember seeing tanks doing in Close Combat series of games. I at least hope that when the players are controlling such tanks that the TacAI is not doing these sort of things as well. That would be just like when I used to get tanks popped in CC series where they were moving out into open, turning in circles, then turning into flaming wrecks after they got popped VS. doing what they'd been ordered to do. Sounds like this is a potential AI player control problem and not necessarily a TacAI problem that would affect us players. At least I hope that is the case. Mikester out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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