Engine 5 Wishlist

[Anonymous_Jonze]

9 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

The option for more than one AI controlled faction (neutrals/co-belligerents etc.).

I would like this feature to happen someday. Sometimes I want to play a huge battle, but I don't want the responsibility of commanding a huge amount of troops. Maybe just a Company or a Platoon out of a Battalion. That being said... the AI would need to be drastically improved.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Anonymous_Jonze

[LongLeftFlank]

Building on Freyberg's point, I'd like to see some incremental features that make the game less 'fiddly' and micro intensive.

(The below comments focus on infantry, as I don't play the tank shooter scenarios much -- for me, AFVs are taxis and gun platforms).

1. I'd love to be able to assign Formation Orders to platoons. These are point/area objectives or phase lines, set more or less like plotting artillery missions is done now. Once assigned, the sub units will move on those objectives and continue to do so so  for as long as they are in good order/ unpinned, or not overridden by me.

2. In issuing Formation Orders, I can also give choices akin to the existing AI logic: e.g. advance aggressively/cautiously, set up an ambush at the objective, etc.

3.  I then hit go and watch my plan unfold (and then not survive contact with the enemy). I can intervene, or not, when and where I choose. I can also cancel the formation orders and issue new ones, but as with Artillery these may take a lot of time to process depending on a bunch of factors.

4.  As it is now, we have to set and then tweak long chains of orders and routings, subunit by subunit. These are either obeyed slavishly, with no deviation for self-preservation until they've hit the point of panic, or just dumped, after which the unit sits there until I notice. So even a modest company scale action just seems to drag on and on and on while I cycle through every freekin counter to see what it's doing. Which after a while gets tedious numbing, even for an old time hex gamer like me.

Yes, you can certainly just lasso and Zerg rush clusters of units around the map on Quick, dispensing micro in exchange for a bloodbath, but why not just play Starcraft?

6. I get that TacAI is hard to program, and you get unintended consequences like the infamous 4.0 bug. And I don't mind my pixtruppen skulking for a while, especially rattled, exhausted or green troops with poor leaders. But it would be nice for formations that aren't too badly beaten up to revert to their orders on their own after a bit without me doing it all again.

.... Failing the above, I'd at least like my troop icons to give me some 'hey, I need some micro here' feedback, beyond just blinking at the moment they're under fire. Just for example: 

- regular coloured icon = unit is in good order, has orders active or is shooting

- translucent icon = unit has no active orders (i.e. needs micro soon)

- red background, unit is Pinned or worse (i.e. needs micro NOW)

All the above is FWIW, and I make no  demands here.

[stikkypixie]

18 hours ago, SlowMotion said:

If these annotations could be also moved during later turns, it would be easy to make plans on big maps. This is useful if you play H2H against someone who might sometimes send file once a week.

If they do it I hope it will be editable. I don't play regularly, so when I load up a game, it can be struggle to remember what my plan for the scenario was or where high priority targets were for example.

[Lethaface]

8 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I guess these suspected positions would be suspected for a reason, and represented in the game by a contact marker.

Well you guess wrong. See that building over there, I don't like the look of it. It must come down and I have 10x125mm to help me. How is the game supposed to know and give me contact markers? That's not how contact markers work. They are about spotting/hearing contacts, not suspected enemy positions or just buildings or area's that can be threatening without anyone spotted..
You are proposing heavy regulated ROE like we are in a city with heavy civilian density and fighting with Blue Helm UN troops  

I don't see any valid reason to limit direct fire HE weapons from suppressing anything they wish to suppress. Look at WW2 footage, or any recent war for that matter, so see what I mean.

The only practical way to stop units from firing at targets they haven't known themselves about is discipline by the player. At least without impairing core functionality.

[chuckdyke]

3 hours ago, RepsolCBR said:

I can...

To reduce friendly casulties !

 

PIR: Priority Intelligence  Requirements, The Acronym is SALUTE: Size of Enemy, Activity, Location, Time, Equipment. Enemy in a house is very like to be for observation. SALUTE is not my invention. Give you the link to learn some RL tactics. 

Captain DeLeon - YouTube 

[chuckdyke]

@LongLeftFlankAFV stands for Armoured Fighting Vehicle. There is no such a thing as a poor leader. -1 and a veteran? He is more suited for spotting not to lead an assault. +2 suited for leading an attack. Spotting and recon for Veteran and above. I select - for leadership scouting is a lonely business. 

[Glubokii Boy]

15 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

PIR: Priority Intelligence  Requirements, The Acronym is SALUTE: Size of Enemy, Activity, Location, Time, Equipment. Enemy in a house is very like to be for observation. SALUTE is not my invention. Give you the link to learn some RL tactics. 

Captain DeLeon - YouTube 

SALUTE or no SALUTE...

If i'm tasked with taking a village for example and my force includes some AFVs with a decent amount of HE...

I would much rather use that HE (ROE permitting) to find, kill, wound, suppres, force to relocate etc... an unseen (potential) enemy before they are able to fire their first shots at my advancing infantry. If the enemy is hiding they tend to be able to get the first shot off...before being spotted....even ONE single round fired could cause you one casualty !

Why not try to avoid that If you have the resources acaliable ?

[chuckdyke]

By observing for a few minutes with a minimum force for a few turns you get far more intel. If your briefing says recon do your recon. Depends what mission you receive, by all means follow the link of the YouTube channel. Do yourself a favor and watch some of it. A Captain who lectures tactics at the university of Iowa. Whatever I know I know from somebody else, and Captain DeLeon has some useful information. Normandy invasion and the bombardment prior the invasion we all know how effective it was to fire at an unseen enemy. I tested on Iron difficulty 155 mm shelling on a suspected MG 42 position in a building. 2 turns on heavy and when I approached the building the MG 42 was still active. What got rid of him was a direct contact of an infantry squad. 

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

Well you guess wrong. See that building over there, I don't like the look of it. It must come down and I have 10x125mm to help me.

First of all, I don't think WW2 commanders and tank crew usually levelled random buildings they "didn't like the look of". If you look at German tank manuals, they tell the crew to conserve ammo and especially HE ammo. It's a long way to Moscow if you have to blow up every single Dacha on the way.

But I agree there could be some corner cases where restricting the player's ability to target any spot freely at any time might cause inconvenience. I just believe that it would be worth it.

Overall it would be a big improvement to the way it works currently, where tanks can instantly react to anything spotted by infantry (and in many cases not even actively spotted enemies, but just the player seeing tracers and using his magical flying camera to pause time and follow the bullets back to the place they are fired from).

Remember that your tank will still be perfectly able to do overwatch and spot the firing enemies on its own and return fire. It will also be able to area target the enemy position once your tank receives the contact info through radio or from nearby infantry.

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[chuckdyke]

17 minutes ago, RepsolCBR said:

SALUTE or no SALUTE...

If i'm tasked with taking a village for example and my force includes some AFVs with a decent amount of HE...

I would much rather use that HE (ROE permitting) to find, kill, wound, suppres, force to relocate etc... an unseen (potential) enemy before they are able to fire their first shots at my advancing infantry. If the enemy is hiding they tend to be able to get the first shot off...before being spotted....even ONE single round fired could cause you one casualty !

Why not try to avoid that If you have the resources acaliable ?

Recon SLLS, Stop Look Listen and Smell we can't smell on the PC. But we can stop a unit well in front of an advance. Scouts don't spot much if there is no stimuli in the area. We hear fire in the game click on the unit where the sound is loudest. Look for places with hard cover. By clicking for example a house it is obvious without an icon where the MG is located. Then do your area fire by all means. Here my recon was by Apache and Scimitar AFV. The Scimitar is designed for Recon not to fight. Its strength is its speed. I lost one Scimitar but No2 was very successful. Apaches spot AFV's from the air the ATGM gave their position away by firing on the Scimitar No2. 

[chuckdyke]

4 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

First of all, I don't think WW2 commanders and tank crew usually levelled random buildings they "didn't like the look of". If you look at German tank manuals, they tell the crew to conserve ammo and especially HE ammo. It's a long way to Moscow if you have to blow up every single Dacha on the way.

But I agree there could be some corner cases where restricting the player's ability to target any spot freely at any time might cause inconvenience. I just believe that it would be worth it.

Overall it would be a big improvement to the way it works currently, where tanks can instantly react to anything spotted by infantry (and in many cases not even actively spotted enemies, but just the player seeing tracers and following thjem back to the place they are fired from).

Remember that your tank will still be perfectly able to do overwatch and spot the firing enemies and return fire. It will also be able to area target the enemy position once your tank receives the contact info through radio or from nearby infantry.

 

 

Recon by fire was the job of the .50 Cal machine gun not the main gun. Infantry will pass on their intel to nearby tanks if you unbutton the tank. Infantry HQ can do a horizontal C2 with HQ of an Armored unit. If you do a proper recon with your C2 in place your armor receives the contact icons two or three turns later. 

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:

Recon by fire was the job of the .50 Cal machine gun not the main gun. Infantry will pass on their intel to nearby tanks if you unbutton the tank. Infantry HQ can do a horizontal C2 with HQ of an Armored unit. If you do a proper recon with your C2 in place your armor receives the contact icons two or three turns later. 

Yep, and that's how armour and infantry should cooperate. Not by the magical mouse cursor of the all-knowing player.

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yep, and that's how armour and infantry should cooperate. Not by the magical mouse cursor of the all-knowing player.

You make my day, somebody who agrees with me. Now please click my YouTube link above and get some proper lectures about the subject. My mind boggles the amount of free information available.  

[chuckdyke]

3 hours ago, Anonymous_Jonze said:

I would like this feature to happen someday. Sometimes I want to play a huge battle, but I don't want the responsibility of commanding a huge amount of troops. Maybe just a Company or a Platoon out of a Battalion. That being said... the AI would need to be drastically improved.

My tip for huge battles if you have excel use it or Google spreadsheets. You need to put in place proper administration. 

[Glubokii Boy]

Having officers being flexible and using their own initiative when it comes to solving a problem as opposed to being locked to ONE WAY to do things...as stipulated in some manual...

Is apprisiated in most armies today i belive..

Using MGs to suppres an enemy might work well in some cases...using HE might very well be preferable in others.

Why limit youself to one option ?

Using infantry to find unsuppresed enemies might work in some situations....In others using preemptive fire against suspected enemy locations might be better.

Why limit yourself to one option ?

 

[Glubokii Boy]

44 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

First of all, I don't think WW2 commanders and tank crew usually levelled random buildings they "didn't like the look of". If you look at German tank manuals, they tell the crew to conserve ammo and especially HE ammo. It's a long way to Moscow if you have to blow up every single Dacha on the way.

 

Obviously we as CM players as well as RL soldiers need to use some common sence..

If we have no or very limited amount of ammo we can't waste it on maybees...

But if we do have that ammo...why not use it ?

And simply because you CAN use it does not mean that you HAVE TO use it...

 

[Bulletpoint]

11 minutes ago, RepsolCBR said:

Using MGs to suppres an enemy might work well in some cases...using HE might very well be preferable in others.

Why limit youself to one option ?

Using infantry to find unsuppresed enemies might work in some situations....In others using preemptive fire against suspected enemy locations might be better.

Why limit yourself to one option ?

Because it's more fun for the game to limit the player a bit and because it's more realistic that way. Same as when we play on Elite and Iron difficulty - buddy aid takes longer, why not just get it done fast? Artillery takes longer to call in, why wait? Why is my tank bogging down, why is it running out of ammunition? I want to keep shooting. Why are my troops running away when they take fire? It would be more fun if they didn't. Etc.

[Glubokii Boy]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

 Why is my tank bogging down, why is it running out of ammunition? I want to keep shooting. Why are my troops running away when they take fire? It would be more fun if they didn't. Etc.

No it wouldn't

[Lethaface]

33 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

First of all, I don't think WW2 commanders and tank crew usually levelled random buildings they "didn't like the look of". If you look at German tank manuals, they tell the crew to conserve ammo and especially HE ammo. It's a long way to Moscow if you have to blow up every single Dacha on the way.

But I agree there could be some corner cases where restricting the player's ability to target any spot freely at any time might cause inconvenience. I just believe that it would be worth it.

Overall it would be a big improvement to the way it works currently, where tanks can instantly react to anything spotted by infantry (and in many cases not even actively spotted enemies, but just the player seeing tracers and using his magical flying camera to pause time and follow the bullets back to the place they are fired from).

Remember that your tank will still be perfectly able to do overwatch and spot the firing enemies on its own and return fire. It will also be able to area target the enemy position once your tank receives the contact info through radio or from nearby infantry.

 

Of course it was a bit tongue in cheek regarding the not liking looks of buildings. And we all have our rights to opinions. 

But I would highly dislike it and think of it not as an improvement but rather the other way around. 

So: infantry, crew served MGs, tank coax & .50s, artillery are allowed to suppress where we want to, but if the barrel happens to fire HE it isn't allowed? That would be very weird for players from a usability perspective as well (apart from not being realistic imo)

The problem is that the player has too many hats so he knows about stuff from hat A when he is actually giving orders for hat B. 

The 'solution' too disallow area fire with HE all together is that there are too many cases where this would artificially limit players to do what they would do when they were a particular hat.

Obviously there will be mention in manuals to conserve ammo when you can. But there are also mentions in various doctrines and manuals to use ammo because conserved ammo doesn't help you in the afterlife. Especially on the attack.

And yes taking out a building which blocks LOS/LOF and or allows ambushing by enemies is a common thing. You don't have to see something to suspect something.

For example in a PBEM I'm playing I'm defending as the FJ against US combined arms. I have ambushed tanks using Pz Schrecks from buildings. They are on hide with covered armoured arcs to prevent giving away anything until the time is ripe to fire. 
My opponent has about 9 tanks left and he is rightfully / wisely shelling the other buildings with anything he can muster (mainly 75 HE) before he moves close to them.

Now in an ideal world he would only be able to 'know' about this ambush when commanding troops who witnessed it and or in C2 with troops/tanks who witnessed it. But imo the cure is worse than the illness if we would disallow his tanks to shell the other buildings and either destroy them or suppress potential other Schreck teams etc waiting for him. 

Could he use the .50 or infantry small arms for suppression? Yes and no, because his infantry is getting fired upon by MGs and snipers, same goes for his unbuttoned TC's. Were I in that situation in one of those tanks all buildings in the village would be suspect and I'd shell the hell out of them with the most effective weapon I have on hand (in this case the 75mm HE).

Another RL example; look at video's of tanks fighting in Syria. They come under attack by RPGs or ATGMs from a certain direction, but didn't see the actual unit firing. So they put 125mm HE and or 30mm HE in every window that could have possibly been used to attack them.  
Your suggesting that they should use MGs for that because... 
Anyway I guess my point is clear enough. This discussion has been had a number of times on this forum IIRC.

[Bulletpoint]

3 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Anyway I guess my point is clear enough. This discussion has been had a number of times on this forum IIRC.

Yes, I think I made my point as well. What I find odd is that you will go to such lengths to argue against a proposed optional difficulty setting.

I would highly enjoy playing using this setting, you wouldn't. Ok, that's fine. Then just don't use it then? We already have a system of various difficulty/realism settings. Not everyone likes playing on Iron mode, but they are happy using Elite instead.

[Lethaface]

27 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes, I think I made my point as well. What I find odd is that you will go to such lengths to argue against a proposed optional difficulty setting.

I would highly enjoy playing using this setting, you wouldn't. Ok, that's fine. Then just don't use it then? We already have a system of various difficulty/realism settings. Not everyone likes playing on Iron mode, but they are happy using Elite instead.

I just argue against it being more realistic and explain why/how I think that the implementation would not work as intended.

If someone has an idea, others can have idea's about the same subject. 

In an utopia world everyone has their own version of things, but I think it is good to discuss idea's and make clear the pro's and con's. 

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Lethaface said:

I just argue against it being more realistic and explain why/how I think that the implementation would not work as intended.

If someone has an idea, others can have idea's about the same subject. 

In an utopia world everyone has their own version of things, but I think it is good to discuss idea's and make clear the pro's and con's. 

I agree, and I don't think your counterargument is silly. We just disagree about the basic way of looking at it.

You think the cure is worse than the disease. I see my proposal as a workable solution to a big problem, which in turn introduces a smaller problem.

And I'd rather live with the small problem than the big one we have currently, as I see it.

[Lethaface]

Just now, Bulletpoint said:

I agree, and I don't think your counterargument is silly. We just disagree about the basic way of looking at it.

You think the cure is worse than the disease. I see my proposal as a workable solution to a big problem, which in turn introduces a smaller problem.

And I'd rather live with the small problem than the big one we have currently, as I see it.

And that's all fine!

I think the 'hardcat' rules are a good workaround for the issue. But I think we agree to disagree. 

[Freyberg]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

Recon by fire was the job of the .50 Cal machine gun not the main gun. Infantry will pass on their intel to nearby tanks if you unbutton the tank. Infantry HQ can do a horizontal C2 with HQ of an Armored unit. If you do a proper recon with your C2 in place your armor receives the contact icons two or three turns later. 

I love .50 cal against buildings.

In the WWII titles, my favourite is the White Scout car - it has 1200 rounds.

If .50 cal can't deal with occupants of a building, 75mm won't do much better.

[chuckdyke]

15 minutes ago, Freyberg said:

I love .50 cal against buildings.

In the WWII titles, my favourite is the White Scout car - it has 1200 rounds.

If .50 cal can't deal with occupants of a building, 75mm won't do much better.

Exactly in SF 2 house cleaning they can breach the outer wall. First thing in the editor, make a test range and see the effect of the different weapons. My mistake I ignored it for too long.