CM WWII: Are tanks "overpowered"?

[Pelican Pal]

Adding additional turn length only really works if you "game it". Perhaps by writing out intentions that you then carry out until you are able to write a new intention for a given platoon. So you are indeed locked into attacking a village for ~5 minutes before being able to do something else.

The player needs to be able to act as platoon or even squad leader, because the TacAI is purely reactionary and has no sense of context or positively taking action. An AT team, for example, could reliably be expected to fire their bazooka and then fallback to a safer location on their own initiative. However, without player input they cannot do this.

[Heirloom_Tomato]

3 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

Regarding the idea to increase the time intervals between orders: 

In fact I wondered what would happen to the game if you increased the reaction interval for ALL troops to 5 minutes (!)? What would happen if players were only allowed to give new orders to their troops every 5 minutes, instead of every single minute? Theoretically, we should end up with a lot of coordination difficulties and friction? And that's exactly what I (and some others) are missing in Combat Mission. Thanks to very sophisticated waypoint system in CM, playing with bigger reaction intervalls would be perfectly viable. 

Once I have a bit more time at my hands, I'd really like to try that out in a multiplayer battle. Are there any volunteers?

 

The only thing stopping you from playing with 5 minute intervals, is you. There is no in game limitation say you HAVE to give orders every minute. The problem is this is a game, and we all want to win. It will be difficult watching your men get shot to pieces and knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it for the next few turns because of a simple rule. I think most players would break their own rule.

That said, the greatest lessons I have learned in this game have come from watching my many failures and trying to figure out what I did wrong. A battle where you can only give orders every 5 minutes would definitely be a harsh teacher. 

If an H2H battle was to feature orders every 5 minutes and use the no enemy icons mod, there would be a lot of lessons being learned by both sides.

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, Pelican Pal said:

An AT team, for example, could reliably be expected to fire their bazooka and then fallback to a safer location on their own initiative.

Have long been asking for a "shoot 'n scoot" order for snipers and AT teams - so that they would wait in ambush and only after firing would they immediately displace to a 2ndary or safer location.

[Kaunitz]

17 hours ago, IanL said:

That was a reference to the way command delays were done in CM1. The more way points you plotted for a unit the longer they took before they did anything at all. So that's all I was referring to there. So, if you had to lay down 4 way points to navigate 100m to a safer location you were punished more than if you could do it in 2 because the third and fourth way point slowed down the overall reaction time more than it should.

Oh I didn't know that! Thanks for clearing that up. 

15 hours ago, Pelican Pal said:

Adding additional turn length only really works if you "game it". Perhaps by writing out intentions that you then carry out until you are able to write a new intention for a given platoon. So you are indeed locked into attacking a village for ~5 minutes before being able to do something else.

The player needs to be able to act as platoon or even squad leader, because the TacAI is purely reactionary and has no sense of context or positively taking action. An AT team, for example, could reliably be expected to fire their bazooka and then fallback to a safer location on their own initiative. However, without player input they cannot do this.

14 hours ago, Erwin said:

Have long been asking for a "shoot 'n scoot" order for snipers and AT teams - so that they would wait in ambush and only after firing would they immediately displace to a 2ndary or safer location.

I don't think that it's technically hard to follow the rules. There is no need to write down anything. It shouldn't come down to role-playing, the intention is just to increase the difficulty of coordination between troops and the effects when coordination goes wrong. Players would just need to understand that they may only give orders on every turn that falls on minute 5/10/15 etc. Accordingly, they need to set more waypoints. 

Being "locked" into attacking a village for 5 minutes doesn't sound bad to my ears at all. 5 minutes is not a lot of time, really. Transmitting orders or catching a breath/reorging the squads would probably take at least 5 minutes. Even on a platoon leaders own initiative, instructing his squads about his ad hoc plan would take more time than 5 minutes. I think a 5 minutes delay (at maximum, it can be shorter depending on when a new idea comes to the leader's mind during the turn) is more realistic than the 1 minute twitch reaction. And again, player borg spotting is a real issue. You can make leaders react to enemy positions that should be unknown to them, if it wasn't for the player's god view. 

Now, as to whether there are situations in which the players need to interfere in shorter intervalls in order to keep things plausible/relaistic and compensate for "deficiencies" of the tac AI? Probably yes. The handheld-AT-ambush situation is an example that warrants an exception to the rule. But this is the only important situation that comes to my mind where quicker reaction is needed and plausible. 

15 hours ago, Heirloom_Tomato said:

The only thing stopping you from playing with 5 minute intervals, is you. There is no in game limitation say you HAVE to give orders every minute. The problem is this is a game, and we all want to win. It will be difficult watching your men get shot to pieces and knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it for the next few turns because of a simple rule. I think most players would break their own rule.

That said, the greatest lessons I have learned in this game have come from watching my many failures and trying to figure out what I did wrong. A battle where you can only give orders every 5 minutes would definitely be a harsh teacher. 

If an H2H battle was to feature orders every 5 minutes and use the no enemy icons mod, there would be a lot of lessons being learned by both sides.

Well, but if the "Hard Cat" rules (which are much more complex) can be observed by gentlemen players, then the 5 minutes rule should be easy!

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

The idea is that 5 minutes turns should be a slight remedy against the "borg spotting" problem, i.e. players being able to let units react extremely fast to things the units cannot be aware of. This includes both movements and positions of enemy as well as friendly units. It gives chaos more time to develop before the hand of the player can intervene and re-arrange. As a side-effect, it also makes area-targeting a bit more risky (the longest "target briefly" command is 1.5 minutes, if I remember correctly?).

 

[Bulletpoint]

It's an interesting idea. I think it would basically mean a much more difficult game for the attacker. He would either advance too slowly, or he would have to be really clever about pre-programming long sets of elaborate move paths with pauses etc.

A variable turn length setting would be nice. Manually having to start up the game, load the savegame, click the red button, then wait till dropbox uploads it, then wait for the opponent to do the same, etc five times in a row sounds pretty darn boring though

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Bulletpoint

[Pelican Pal]

6 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

Now, as to whether there are situations in which the players need to interfere in shorter intervalls in order to keep things plausible/relaistic and compensate for "deficiencies" of the tac AI? Probably yes. The handheld-AT-ambush situation is an example that warrants an exception to the rule. But this is the only important situation that comes to my mind where quicker reaction is needed and plausible. 

 

Because CM has gone increasingly 1:1 there would be more situations than you might think. 

A squad in a building giving a facing order will all look that way. So it would be entirely possible for 9 men to be looking East, know that enemies (I.E. spot them) are coming from the North, but be unable to engage because of the given facing order. You could write this off as a player failure, but any squad leader with half a brain could reorient his men within the same floor of a building.

Essentially I think you would quickly run into a huge number of problems because CM's scale is such that what window is being used can change the outcome of a fight. Something like Armored Brigade where the scale is slightly higher (or even CMx1) would be much better fit for having larger time lapses.

[MOS:96B2P]

43 minutes ago, Pelican Pal said:

A squad in a building giving a facing order will all look that way. So it would be entirely possible for 9 men to be looking East, know that enemies (I.E. spot them) are coming from the North, but be unable to engage because of the given facing order. 

This is somewhat true of a Target Arc order but not so much for a Facing order.  They Tac AI will turn to shoot an OpFor unit it has spotted even if it was ordered to Face a different direction.  If a unit was ordered by the player to only shoot east, with the use of a Target Arc, and the OpFor approach outside the arc the unit will attempt to follow orders and not react.  This is sometimes what is needed for ambush situations OP/LP teams, FO teams, etc.  Depending on the soft factors the AI will sometimes override  the Target Arc order and engage anyways (often after taking a casualty).  IMO this is fairly reasonable AI behavior.            

[Pelican Pal]

I've had a few experiences with squads not shifting after given a facing order within a building in the past. With only a handful of men moving to give fire until the enemy begins to return fire. In retrospect it was likely just a one off, but since then I've tended to keep better track of my facing orders and haven't really had a chance to see men do it on their own.

[MOS:96B2P]

44 minutes ago, Pelican Pal said:

I've had a few experiences with squads not shifting after given a facing order within a building in the past. With only a handful of men moving to give fire until the enemy begins to return fire. In retrospect it was likely just a one off, but since then I've tended to keep better track of my facing orders and haven't really had a chance to see men do it on their own.

I think a contributing factor to this situation may be the use of un-split squads instead of fire teams.  I noticed a few posts up you also referred to squads but thought you probably intended to type "teams" so I did not comment.   If you are actually using full squads in urban terrain I would suggest you try fire teams instead (unless you are playing with some Italian units).  The use of fire teams will help to prevent pathing problems, facing problems, mass casualties, etc.  Admittedly it does take more time / effort to place the additional waypoints needed with the teams.  In my experience it is well worth it and is my SOP.

I guess a counter point could be made that the AI should be smart enough to move, position, face, etc. full squads in urban terrain.  But for the sake of your blood pressure and gaming enjoyment I respectfully recommend fire teams in urban terrain (or any close terrain to include bocage).              

[DougPhresh]

Fired up Red Thunder for the first time since the last patch - I'm having difficulty getting Soviet squads to close assault German tanks. Squads with good morale, experience, hidden, not suppressed, with ideal shots at tanks within the 5-30m throwing range are not throwing grenades, despite fire orders. I remember previously if a tank dared get that close, especially with infantry in trenches or buildings it would rain hand grenades and more importantly, anti-tank grenades and molotovs. Similarly, sappers within 1-5ms of a tank are not using their satchel charge, despite fire orders.

[Bulletpoint]

5 minutes ago, DougPhresh said:

Fired up Red Thunder for the first time since the last patch - I'm having difficulty getting Soviet squads to close assault German tanks. Squads with good morale, experience, hidden, not suppressed, with ideal shots at tanks within the 5-30m throwing range are not throwing grenades, despite fire orders. I remember previously if a tank dared get that close, especially with infantry in trenches or buildings it would rain hand grenades and more importantly, anti-tank grenades and molotovs. Similarly, sappers within 1-5ms of a tank are not using their satchel charge, despite fire orders.

Are your squads inside buildings? In that case, they can't assault.

[DougPhresh]

9 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Are your squads inside buildings? In that case, they can't assault.

Yes they were.  I thought they could still throw their AT grenades while inside buildings. Is that not the case?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

AFAIK they can.....Someone lobbed one from a building at one my panzers the last time I played RT as the Germans.

[Bulletpoint]

5 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

AFAIK they can.....Someone lobbed one from a building at one my panzers the last time I played RT as the Germans.

AT grenades are probably a different thing. I don't have CMRT, so I don't know. But I know troops cannot assault tanks from inside buildings (shown as throwing regular hand grenades at the tank)

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Are you sure? 

Perhaps it's not represented the same way, but parking a tank next to a building full of hostile infantry never seems to end well for me.....Regardless of the game title or nationality of the OpFor.

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Are you sure? 

Perhaps it's not represented the same way, but parking a tank next to a building full of hostile infantry never seems to end well for me.....Regardless of the game title or nationality of the OpFor.

I'm absolutely sure. Just yesterday I was playing the Mission to Maas scenario (CMFB) and happily drove my tanks around inside the towns and parked them next to buildings, spotting the troops and machinegunning them little by little.

Infantry can fire rifle grenades though, that can't really hurt a Tiger II, but also M9 bazookas, that can.

I believe infantry should be allowed to assault tanks from inside buildings. But they can't currently.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

I believe infantry should be allowed to assault tanks from inside buildings.

I quite agree.

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

But they can't currently.

That doesn't match my recent experiences.....Are you sure those infantry weren't broken?

Edited January 5, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[DougPhresh]

It just might be the soviets are the most sensitive to infantry behavior around tanks because they don't have the PIAT, Bazooka, Panzerfaust or Panzerschreck. Doing a bit of reading, the Soviet infantry were tank killers. Their tactics were very different from Germany and the Western Allies however.  The RPG-6, RPG-43, PTRD and PTRS were deadly all of the way through the war, though their use is very different from the other side's AT weapons (There's no "target optics" command for AT rifles ). Similarly, those 45mm AT guns proved useful enough to drag all the way to Berlin at least.

In any case, I hope this gets looked at, even though I think we might see captured Panzerfausts in the upcoming Red Thunder module.

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

But they can't currently.

That doesn't match my recent experiences.....Are you sure those infantry weren't broken?

Yes.

Also the first time I noticed it, it was me sneaking a team through an alley and into a building where a tank was on the other side. They didn't assault it, and after a little while the tank spotted them and took them out.

But when playing against a human opponent, he can of course order troops to run out of the building and next to the tank, and then they will assault. The computer cannot do this.

[DougPhresh]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes.

Also the first time I noticed it, it was me sneaking a team through an alley and into a building where a tank was on the other side. They didn't assault it, and after a little while the tank spotted them and took them out.

But when playing against a human opponent, he can of course order troops to run out of the building and next to the tank, and then they will assault. The computer cannot do this.

Seconding this. I've had tanks with severely damage optics drive up to buildings occupied by my troops, issued fire orders and watched the infantry (with 13 grenades!) sit for minutes until they were eventually spotted and machinegunned.

e: In built up areas, especially with a height advantage, dropping grenades, especially the shaped charges from height would make the most sense both in game terms and reality.

Edited January 5, 2020 by DougPhresh

[Sgt.Squarehead]

That seems very odd.....Did you give them a Target or Target Briefly command?

Which title was this please?

@IanL  I think this merits official investigation.....What actually is the score here?

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[DougPhresh]

Just now, Sgt.Squarehead said:

That seems very odd.....Did you give them a Target ot Target Briefly command?

Which title was this please?

@IanL  I think this merits official investigation.....What actually is the score here?

 

Target, Combat Mission Red Thunder.
Quick Battle, September '44, Soviet Rifle Battalion (44).

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I'm off to try & blow up some tanks.....If this isn't working it makes Soviet Tank Hunter Teams a pretty pointless investment.

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I'm off to try & blow up some tanks.....If this isn't working it makes Soviet Tank Hunter Teams a pretty pointless investment.

Well they can assault from outside buildings. And I don't know if they can throw specialised AT grenades.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Well they can assault from outside buildings.

Safer from inside.....More realistic too, as @DougPhresh's image shows.