Silly Infantry -- bug?

[patboivin]

Picture this.

You have a Panther (in Valley scenario), sitting on a slight slope in open ground.

U.S. troops are plotted (as a desperate measure to knock the tank out) to rush toward the panther to engage it in close combat.

During the movement phase, I see the Panther start up and go in reverse for a few meters, then stop.

Meanwhile the hardy (stupid?) U.S. troops keep heading for where the Panther USED TO BE, instead of adjusting their destination to head for the Panther.

Since the troops were coming from three separate directions, one almost from behind, I would have expected at least ONE of the squads to clue in and head for the Panther.

No, they didn't. Good thing the Panther was buttoned up and too busy to notice the troops, because if it had it could have mowed them all down in one MG blast. (the troops were all just standing there, in open ground, about 20m in front of the Panther)

Is this a bug in the game? (I know it was foolish to rush the tank in the first place, but movement plotting seems to only take the map locations into considerations, not actual targets troops should try to rush.

A turn later I did get the Panther, I timed the two Shermans to come over a crest at the same time. By sheer luck they appeared just as the Panther was rushing in another direction, and the Shermans had plain view of its side (it took them three shots still to get it).

Comments?

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[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by patboivin:

Comments?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have been wondering about this as well. I guess we just have to live with it, unless the manual tells us differently. It happened a couple of times when I tried to rush cowering US squads in VoT, trying to capture them. They either ran away or died (the bastards) before my men got to them, making the whole action look rather foolish.

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Andreas

The powers of accurate perception are often called cynicism by those who do not possess them. (forgot who said it)

[robertpat1]

I had the same troubal to with a U.S. squad chasing a MG.

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A 2x4 and a kind word work better than just a 2x4

[G4A]

Yes, it would be good to have some way of telling your men to follow something, or just some way of giving orders relative to other units.

[Juju]

Ah, interesting suggestion. Sort of like an intercept movement order where you target a specific unit to engage/intercept/follow. Sounds like a good idea. Works for ships and planes, so why not for infantry? Maybe something for CM2 perhaps?

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Combat Axiom 46. Do unto others, before they do unto you.

[krm]

You answered your own question. You have to remember that your troops don't know you want them to 'close assault' the Panther. All they know is that you want them to move to grid position x y.

Secondly, they probably weren't too happy about pursuing a Panther, given the lack of AT capability of most US Rifle squads (Engineers excepted).

I know I wouldn't be

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krm - King of useless posts;)

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by krm:

You answered your own question. You have to remember that your troops don't know you want them to 'close assault' the Panther. All they know is that you want them to move to grid position x y.

Secondly, they probably weren't too happy about pursuing a Panther, given the lack of AT capability of most US Rifle squads (Engineers excepted).

I know I wouldn't be

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I am sure this must have been discussed somewhere, but with our current server performance I can't bring myself to search. So apologies for that.

I guess the point is that it would be good to be able to give your units the order "close-assault/rush enemy unit X", instead of the current "go to grid location X/Y". This is not very realistic, and can lead to very bad results (for your troops). And it seems to me to be a quite common occurence in the confused close quarter fighting you can get in scenarios like LD or VoT. Maybe some combination of the move and targeting order would help? Not sure if that is possible to code and how much work it would be, it would be good to get some input from Steve or Charles on this one, or maybe a link to where it has been discussed before from somebody.

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Andreas

The powers of accurate perception are often called cynicism by those who do not possess them. (forgot who said it)

[Mikester]

Patboivin,

Did you just issue your troops a movement order toward the Panther, or a move order plus a targeting order which locked a targeting line onto the Panther. You can do both at once and I've done this many times with tanks vs. any type of target and infantry vs. other infantry type targets, but never tried it with infantry against tanks. Since I havn't tried to do what you suggested yet, I'm not sure if that would work. Also, if none of the squads had any real AT capability (bazooka, satchel charge, etc.) they may have been remiss to engage the tank, ergo why they stood there. They went where you told them to and what else were they supposed to do? Throw rocks at the thing and maybe crack off a few rounds. And since the Panther didn't see them, or decide to attack them, for whatever reasons they just continued to stand there. I'm not sure I'd necessarily call this a bug. In fact, I might actually think it was just plain insanity

Mikester out

[This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 06-06-2000).]

[Ben Galanti]

Germanboy said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I guess the point is that it would be good to be able to give your units the order "close-assault/rush enemy unit X", instead of the current "go to grid location X/Y". This is not very realistic, and can lead to very bad results (for your troops). And it seems to me to be a quite common occurence in the confused close quarter fighting you can get in scenarios like LD or VoT.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree something like this would be helpful on occasion. In a recent PBEM turn, I had an occurance like this. I (playing the Germans) had a platoon in the village, and my opponent had the reminents of a couple of platoons just outside of it. On the same turn, I decided to charge my units out of the buildings to mop up these straglers, and he decided to charge into the building in an attempt to at least cause a few more casualties. So, we had the odd occurance of our troops running past each other and switching positions.

I'm not sure how something like this could be implimented though. Another problem that would have to be dealt with is what happens if you want to 'intercept' an infantry squad that routs in mid turn? Your troops would then run blindly after this routing unit. Chances are this wouldn't be what you wanted either.... Until the mind reading command is implimented in CM, situations like this might be difficult to iron out...

[Screamin Demon]

Ok, I have one question for you, patboivin. Why did you desperately try to knock out a Panther with 3 infantry squads, when infact the situation wasn't all that desperate, due to the fact that you still had two Shermans (maybe more) ?????? If I were those boys mother I wouldnt be too happy with you!

[Black Sabot]

Boy, does this thread bring back an ugly memory...

I was in a PBEM game of CE as the Germans. I decided to advance 2 platoons of infantry across the open ground to the left of the church with the smaller ridge as the objective. My opponents surprised the hell out of me by blitzing all his Shermans with inf. embarked to the church. As a result my inf. platoons were caught in wide open ground with no hope of making it to cover alive. I did the only thing i could do, Split my squads and charge the tanks with the hope of popping a couple with my fausts. Needless to say they just ran right up to the tanks and just sat there taking 75mm HE rounds in the face

Aaron, is that you i hear laughing?

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"I do like to see the arms and legs fly"

[Doug Beman]

The only things that will cause units in CM to break your movement orders during a turn are immobilization, intense danger, or loss of morale (to name a few). Units will not react to enemy movements or move to follow them. This places greater emphasis on the ability of the commander to anticipate events or plan for the unexpected. The ability to tell your units to follow an enemy unit around would eliminate a lot of the guesswork that makes CM so much fun.

I personally would not want to see an order such as "follow target" as players would then start complaining about units getting into great trouble by blindly following targets into unknown ambushes, etc.

DjB

If you have a switch with more than one setting, there will always be people dissatisfied with the current setting.

[Black Sabot]

Doug,

I respectfully disagree. I believe a "close assault" command (not follow target) will be both beneficial and realistic.

Now correct me if i'm wrong, but right now we cannot command an inf. unit to move to and attack a tank or other large target. We instead tell them to move to "x" and hope the threat function kicks in and instructs them to attack. To me that is unrealistic. I certainly can picture a CO telling his men to close assault the pillbox rather than move next to it and see what develops.

On the point of people bichin' about their units stumbling into an ambush, oh well. Remember that each turn is only 60 seconds long. If the target has moved or is destroyed you can always cancel the order. If someone decides to have an inf. squad continue to chase a moving tank for longer than a turn, than they deserve to get popped.

Although i understand that they'

ll be no more changes to CM1,I would still like to hear Steve or Charles take on this

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"I do like to see the arms and legs fly"

[Doug Beman]

Black Sabot, I wasn't speaking against a "close assault" command; I am against a "follow target" command for the reasons I gave.

You can *sorta* do a close assault by telling your troops to move to a place where you anticipate they can intercept the tank, and giving the target command. The infantry will run forward and, if they get close enough, will use whatever anti-tank power they have.

In the case of engineers (or other units) who have non-standard heavy weapons, they should automatically use them against a target like a bunker or tank, as soon as they're close enough. It's how engineers clear wire in VoT; move them up next to the wire and they should blow it up on their own. Against tanks you just need to make sure your infantry will wind up close enough to the tank to engage it.

DjB

[patboivin]

Regarding why would I charge a Panther like that, all the Germans troops were either dead, captured or hiding in the woods and I wanted to mop up.

In ASL, you could do close assault against AFVs with regular infantry. There wasn't much chance of success, but there was a chance.

It was more dangerous for them to just stand there than to do the actual assault.

In my opinion the situation was desperate, I mean Shermans are about as useless as tin cans on wheels against 1944/45 German tanks. It was a total fluke that I caught the Panther in its side, if it had stayed where it was and stayed to face me, both my Shermans would have gone up in smoke.

One good side of rushing the Panther was that the other player decided he didn't want his Panther to hang around, so he moved it...

I can understand that plotting movement against a unit instead of against the map could be hard to code, though, esp. if the game wasn't built to accommodate this.

I am happy with the game, I just thought it was a little silly to see infantry stay in the middle of open ground like that, when there was a Panther just a few meters away.

If they did THINK on their own, as some have suggested, they would either have charged or bolted for the woods nearby.

[L.Tankersley]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Beman:

The only things that will cause units in CM to break your movement orders during a turn are immobilization, intense danger, or loss of morale (to name a few).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The only thing that will cause units in CM to break your movement orders during a turn are immobilization or intense danger. The only TWO things that will cause units in CM to break your movement orders during a turn are immobilization, intense danger or loss of morale. The only THREE things ....

I think the reasoning against a run-up-and-close-assault-the-tank command is that it's probably unrealistic and would be abused. Generally speaking, I think if you ordered a couple of squads to run across several tens of meters of open ground toward a Panther, they'd look at you like you were insane and skulk off into the woods. Right now, if a squad finds itself in "assault range" of a tank, there's a chance it will actually do something productive. A lot of the time, it will do nothing, or run away, or die (or possibly a combination of the three). For run-of-the-mill troops this is likely pretty accurate. Higher-quality troops are more likely to actually accomplish something (or so I imagine, anyway).

If there was an explicit command to close assault a tank, people would use it. Probably a lot. And either they would be unreasonably successful, or else they would bitch and moan about how their units don't obey their orders to assault the tank. Cries of "Why provide the command if they won't obey it?" would resound across the forum.

In CM your men don't always do what you tell them to or react the way you expect. IMO this is a good thing and provides scope for good players to excel. To me, CM is about putting your men in positions where they can win the battle for you, not about telling each solder where to aim his rifle or how low to crouch.

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Leland J. Tankersley

[Screamin Demon]

OIC, nm.

[Neutral Party]

Our main weapon is fear. Fear and surprise ... our two main weapons are fear, surprise and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope. Our three ...

[aka_tom_w]

Tankersley makes a good point here...

In the past I have never had any problem when I target and enemy unit and tell my troops or tanks to advance toward it while targeting it. BUT perhaps there is a need for an additional "move to and Close Assault" command.

I think the game should simulate reality and not try to simulate 2D turn based Board game play. BUT I still like it the way it is. Let me expand.

The decision was made (as I understand it) to make the game turn based with simulanetous execution of the turn, this is like the pinnacle of 2D board game play, it is NOT Real Time Simulation, so every minute you don't know what your opponent has planned for you in the next minute. This is one of the VERY cool features of this game. EVERY turn there is a minutes worth of combat or movement or activity where you have to outwit, out smart and/or out manouvre your opponent, (OK, or just plain GET Lucky!)

I like this feature and the way the game handles this, because this element of play is based on some tactical anticipation and indeed, strategy plays a BIG role here.

To allow your units to MOVE to and attack an enemy unit based on WHERE it is going sounds to me like it is a great deal more realistic than trying to guess where he might be and moving toward that spot (as per the infantry assaulting the AFV example that started this thread), BUT I think it is more fun to attempt to guess the enemy's behaviour and out wit or out manouver his units when plotting my turn to attack or attempt the "close assualt" of an AFV with infantry units.

SO.....

I think the the game is MORE fun the way it is but I would suggest it would be more realistic if units could be ordered to Move to where this or that specific enemy unit is going, while targeting that unit to shoot at it, yes this means that this new feature could be used for drawing other units into an ambush BUT whats wrong with that?? That tactic ALSO sounds very realistic to me, and I think that the "draw them into and ambush them" tactic could and should be used QUITE effectively if your units where allowed to be ordered to where other enemy units (that they have a clear LOS to, of course) are going (ie. follow them).

BUT I'll bet that the game was never coded with the intention of allowing attacking units to base their movement path and final destination on the movement path or desintation of an enemy unit and I would suggest this might be near impossible to change now as the game (IMHO) was designed from the ground up as a turn based, simutaneous execution, 3D highly historically accurate computerized version of a 2D WW II tactical board game, which is why I would suggest that units cannot "track" or follow other units because in each minute we have to order them to a location on the map without any knowledge of where your opponent is sending his units, and I would say that is what I think is SO much FUN about this game.

But I'm not sure that this model is strictly realistic, I would say if the game was RTS and could crunch, all those algorythyms (calcualting the results as it does now, of EVERY round fired) on the FLY (which our consumer level computers, even the fastest can't do), that would be SO realistic any one player would not be able to command and control all those units in real time without overlooking something and then others here would say it would just become one big silly RTS "clickfest". With the winner being decided possibly by youth and mouse clicking skill and dexterity instead of sound tactical and military planning and execution.

I think this game and this "can't follow enemy units" issue is a VERY happy compromise, just the way it is.

Now.... what does BTS say about this issue??

-tom w

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by L.Tankersley:

In CM your men don't always do what you tell them to or react the way you expect. IMO this is a good thing and provides scope for good players to excel. To me, CM is about putting your men in positions where they can win the battle for you, not about telling each solder where to aim his rifle or how low to crouch.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 06-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 06-07-2000).]

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 06-07-2000).]

[patboivin]

When moving in the bush, I bet sometimes you head for a landmark, but sometimes you head in a particular direction because you hear a sound or because you saw some movement (or thought you saw from the corner of your eye).

If the noise moves, or if you detect that the movement is shifting position, then you can keep low and follow the noise / movement. It doesn't necessarily depend on terrain features.

I like the game the way it is, though. Please leave it as is, don't worry about this, and build us CM 2.0 and up. I don't have 1.0 yet and already I want version 2!

We don't want to end up with a game that would need a Cray computer / mainframe / server cluster to run...

Given that the turns are 1 minute each, maybe troops just wouldn't have the time to adjust their destination.

Right now I am much more interested in seeing the Russian tanks and 1942 -> 1944, the other nations and the Pacific theater than worrying too much about the game mechanics.

CM is way ahead of any other computer wargame I have seen so far.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Ladies and Gentlemen...

First off, while Charles was looking into making a change to address this problem (see further down!) he found a number of small bugs with close assaulting vehicles. They were the types of bugs that would only come up every so often and produce no HARD evidence that something went contrary to the way the game was designed. Now that these things are fixed *some* of the problems you noted above have been rectified. Everybody say "cool"

Second, this has been one of those little nagging issues that we just never got around to addressing. We just figured out a solution that is easy on the UI and works to a large degree. Units that are ordered to attack a vehicle will toss grenades (or other explosives) at it as soon as they get within range. Right now there is a delay which is appropreate for an unintentional attack on a vehicle, but is an unfair penalty for charging out and taking on a vehicle.

The above fixes should address about 90% of the problems noted.

A unit will not go and follow another unit. As good as that sounds in theory to some of you, it is a really bad idea on the whole. Sucking the unit into a really bad spot, totally unrealistically, would cause far more damage on a regular basis than the one in ten close assaults it might help. It is also not technically practical to code it so soldiers would alter their path, on the fly, to go after a moving vehicle. So for both game and technical reasons this is out.

In conlcusion, bug fixes and some new behavior will address the basic problem without creating a host of undesirable consequences. The bug fixes will be in the 1.01 patch for sure, but I am not sure if the behavior changes will be or not. I suspect they will.

Thanks!

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

Hi

Thanks again

Thanks Steve for the prompt and informative reply and Thanks Charles for getting right on top of that bug. I'm sure we all can't wait to see that patch posted.

Hopefully sooner rather than later so we can all start playing the FULL Gold version.

Thanks

AND yes that's COOL!

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 06-07-2000).]

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Screamin Demon:

OIC, nm.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You what?

Steve & Charles - cool.

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Andreas

The powers of accurate perception are often called cynicism by those who do not possess them. (forgot who said it)

[chaos]

Ladies and Gentlemen!!

May I present to you the hardest working men in Game business: Steve & Charles!!

chaos

[This message has been edited by chaos (edited 06-07-2000).]

[L.Tankersley]

Cool.

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Leland J. Tankersley