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Annoying withdrawal towards the enemy behaviour


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I am developing a scenario for CMBN and playing it to test it. I have now frequently observed situations where troops in cover behind a hedgerow come under machine gun or artillery fire and react by moving out of cover towards the enemy firing on them. This is pretty stupid behaviour. 

I have checked the Allied Friendly direction in the editor and it is W for the Allies and E for the SS. The Brits are withdrawing in an Easterly direction to the front of their cover, the SS are withdrawing in a westerly direction, also to the front of their cover. Am I setting the friendly directions wrong? I am setting them as the direction towards which units should withdraw, is it supposed to represent the direction towards which they are attacking?

 

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

Edited by usgubgub
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A known issue introduced by the 4.0 upgrade's "01" patch with much discussion about it on the CMBN forums.

It's caused by a conflict between the retreat logic code and certain type of bocoage.  BF is aware of the issue, but have so far only succeeded in limiting it with the "02" patch.  It was far worse with the 01 patch.  It's strictly a CMBN issue because it's the only CMx2 game that has bocage.

There has been no word as to when it will be completely fixed.

Edited by Myles Keogh
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My scenario is not uploaded anywhere yet, it is very rough and all the presentational elements are in a mess. I have worked on about 15 scenarios across CMBN and CMFI on and off for the past ten or so years. Most of them are crap, but I do enjoy developing them. This one approaches reasonable quality. It is the latest and many lessons learned developing the earlier ones have been put into practice here.

It could do with playtesting by someone not involved in the production. It is a head to head (I don't have the editing skills to produce good AI plans).

I attach it below for what it's worth. If anyone is interested in trying it out, let me know and I'll give you some background.

Incidentally, most of the time I get around that bug by giving units halt orders. That seems to nail them in place. It's annoying each time the situation changes and I give them orders to move, forgetting to remove the halt order.

0 [FM] Le Haut de Audrieu.btt

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4 hours ago, usgubgub said:

I believe it was version 2

If this is the case, the issue is now a part of your scenario and most likely not going to be fixed soon.

That said, I have a few more questions about this scenario.

First off, it looks great and should be a really fun challenge. Tip of the hat to you for your efforts!

How important to you is the current layout of the map and the force composition? Consider replacing all the hedgerow gaps with solid tiles and then add in some breach teams, Rhinos, Pioneers or engineers to each side. The men can't run through a gap that doesn't exist. Since your battle is H2H, each side can make gaps where they want them with no worries the AI would be unfairly restricted. 

If you don't want guys blowing holes everywhere and potentially giving away their positions try replacing the hedgerow gaps with a low stone wall or fence tile. In some situations this might help reduce of running into oncoming fire. It doesn't always work, but it is worth a try. 

Add craters all over the map in the "safe" sides of the hedgerows. Sometimes panicked troops will seek shelter in a nearby shell hole as their first choice.

Increase the troop quality and motivation for all units a few levels. Better quality troops will take more incoming fire before breaking, giving the player a chance to withdraw their men before panic and make poor choices. 

Include a note in your briefings explaining that this scenario has been know to demonstrate this behavior. Encourage the player to intervene quickly when the men behind hedgerows start to become suppressed. 

None of these ideas are a perfect fix but they should help to make the issue less noticeable or less of an angry surprise when it does show up.

Again, great work on your scenario!

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