CM tank tacAI

[Tiger]

If enemy squad with 2 or less men is equal to or greater than 100 meters away in woods and enemy tank is 100 meters or less in front and sighted = yes, then turn turret to face weak enemy squad.

Repeat until no tank units left.

REM: if user cancels last turns target of this small distant infantry squad then reaquire same squad this turn while continuing to hunt forward in direction of enemy tanks.

If user mood = pissed off then display tacAI happy face with raspberry sound.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

-johnski

[109 Gustav]

Well, S### happens. The tank commander must have decided the inf was enough of a threat to rotate the turret. I offer my condolances to the dead members of the crew.

I agree, CM does need to tone down tank's tendancy to go for inf without orders. Perhaps 50m would be a better distance?

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No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. -Ender's Game

[Sgt. Steiner]

I have noticed the same thing. In a recent game, I had ordered a KT to hunt towards a sound contact indicating an enemy tank. While moving towards the contact, my KT spotted a bailed enemy vehicle crew, and promptly rotated it's turret to fire at the crew. The "sound contact" of course then materialized into a TD which then proceeded to pump shells into the rear turret area of my KT as it rolled towards the TD, STILL firing at the cowering crew in the woods. Unbelievable! A patch should be released which allows tanks to ignore inf/crews, except at short ranges, or if specifically targeted. Anyone agree with me on this?

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"Follow me, and I'll show you where the iron crosses grow"

[Peterk]

> A patch should be released which allows

> tanks to ignore inf/crews, except at short > ranges, or if specifically targeted.

> Anyone agree with me on this?

This is an ancient issue, but yes it would probably be nice to have a switch. At the beginning of a scenario in which you know the other guy has AFV's lurking around it would be nice to be able to set the priority until you know enemy tanks are no longer an issue.

[Guest KwazyDog]

Unfortunately, its not as easy a problem as you guys might think if you look at it a bit deeper. For instance, 9 times out of 10 an enemy infantry unit that is further away than 100m is unidentified. Should these unidentified units be engaged? They could be an AT team so really they should.

Another option is to make tanks ignore infantry at greater ranges as Sgt Steiner suggested. Problem is, what happens though if say a large infantry only force is advancing on your position. This would mean that your tanks would only engage 1 infantry unit per turn, not a hell of a lot of use unfortunately.

One thing that may help is to make sure when moving in suspect territory that you use the HUNT command, as you tanks will be much more likely to ignore any enemy infantry that isnt an AT gun or unit.

Im not saying that there isnt more tweaks that would help guys, Im just pointing out that the problem is deeper than it may first seem To be honest I must use my tanks differently from some because I cant recall a problem using them since Charles made some tweaks to tanks behaviour in the last patch. Oh, make sure you are using 1.05 guys, that will of course make a big difference.

[This message has been edited by KwazyDog (edited 11-06-2000).]

[Guest Madmatt]

Just to add to what Kwazy said before be careful what you ask for. During the testing for beta 1.05 (maybe it was 1.03?) Charles DID make the tanks less likely to attack infantry over and beyond what it is now. The problem I noticed was that tanks were getting popped quite frequently by infantry that was running up and close assaulting the tanks from the sides and rear. Since the tanks were pretty much ignoring the infantry at first, they were able to run up and toss a few grenades in the time it took the turret and hull to traverse to engage. After much gnashing of teeth it was eventually tweaked down to what we have now. I think that all along Charles knew this would happen but grudgingly gave the Beta Testers what they had been asking for just to prove the point.

Is it realistic for tanks to be so inclined to just leave enemy infantry be? Probably not. You have to keep one thing in mind. It's a battlefield and then as now, pretty much ANYTHING on it can kill you. Infantry IS a threat to armor, a very real and documented threat and tankers know it. They knew it then and they know it now.

Put yourself in the roll of say a Sherman TC. You spot a squad a 200 meters away running for cover. You don't know if they may have a Panzerschreck or Faust. Your best buddy was burned alive just last week when a German popped up from behind a hedge and cooked off a Faust into his tank. So chances are you aren't going to hesitate to engage.

It's very easy for us as players and our omniscient view of the battle to critize behavior that we see from the TacAi. It is a game after all but indecisiveness and hesitancy is modeled to some degree, if even at the purely abstract level, and once you take that into consideration it much easier to more *get into the mind* of the units under your control.

Now, even with all that I would agree that tweaks to the Ai should still occur and they will. But you will never get units to always 100% of the time behave EXACTLY as you wish, that WOULD be a bug.

Madmatt

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 11-06-2000).]

[Vanir]

There are 2 things about the tank tac AI that bug me seperate from what Tiger was talking about.

1. Deliberately positioning your tank at an oblique angle to a target with AT capability (like an enemy tank) is a waste of time sinse the Tac AI will "square up" the tank to the enemy automaticly before opening fire.

2. Tanks will not fire while squaring up, even if the turret is pointing right at the target. In fact, a tank will not fire ever if the hull is rotating. I have no idea if this is historicly accurate, but it is all very annoying when the tank would be better off with its hull at the oblique angle you set it at, but the Tac AI seems to not understand oblique angles.

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Most people assume that the M in US vehicle designations means "Model". Thus, the Medium Tank M4 Sherman would be the "Model #4" Medium tank. This is incorrect. The M actually stands for "Mortality" and the number represents the life expectancy of the vehicle in minutes. - Bullethead

[Sgt. Steiner]

Thanks for the info Kwazydog and Madmatt. I understand that infantry are not to be underestimated, but in my particular example, I had a Tiger II in hunt mode heading towards a tank sound contact, but with its turret facing to the rear, shooting at a bailed-out vehicle crew, even after the sound contact turned into a tank destroyer. It just seems to me that a TD should be a higher priority target than a crew?

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"Follow me, and I'll show you where the iron crosses grow"

[Guest Madmatt]

Another issue at play is that in all likelihood there is no chance in hell that the crew of that Tiger II would have HEARD that contact. Remember, while you may see everything, your units do not.

All sighting contacts are an amalgamation of what EVERYONE can see/hear. Some day we wish to incorporate relational independent sighting (when you click a unit you ONLY see what he can see), but for now you need to apply a little logic to what you see since there is no way during a movie playback to truly know where and what your units are looking at until they fire.

Madmatt

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 11-06-2000).]

[Sgt. Steiner]

Okay Matt, I see what you mean about confusing what I can see with what the tank can see. It is still annoying though, that your tanks will continue to shoot at targets that cannot harm them (like vehicle crews), even though you've ordered them not to.

I guess the moral of this story is that you have to wipe out even the insignificant targets as quickly as possible, in order to deal with real threats. It's still a great game though, and I look forward to the undoubtedly even better CM2, 3, etc.

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"Follow me, and I'll show you where the iron crosses grow"

[Ari Maenpaa]

Madmatt,

some comments (even if I mostly agree with what you said).

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

Put yourself in the roll of say a Sherman TC. You spot a squad a 200 meters away running for cover. You don't know if they may have a Panzerschreck or Faust. Your best buddy was burned alive just last week when a German popped up from behind a hedge and cooked off a Faust into his tank. So chances are you aren't going to hesitate to engage.

It's very easy for us as players and our omniscient view of the battle to critize behavior that we see from the TacAi. It is a game after all but indecisiveness and hesitancy is modeled to some degree, if even at the purely abstract level, and once you take that into consideration it much easier to more *get into the mind* of the units under your control.

Now, even with all that I would agree that tweaks to the Ai should still occur and they will. But you will never get units to always 100% of the time behave EXACTLY as you wish, that WOULD be a bug.

Madmatt

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that the Sherman is not the best example here. That's because it has fast turret and Axis infantry tends to be more lethal against tanks than Allied infantry.

This issue usually comes up with Axis tanks because most of them have slow turrets.

TacAI has (understandable) limitations but fast turret speed greatly helps to compensate for them. Unfortunately none of the German tanks has fast turret so the Axis side gets mostly punished for TacAI's shortcomings in this region.

I believe that this has been taken in account in the unit point costs, but it still has consequences. Worst thing I see is that it can virtually take away the ability to rapidly advance with the Axis armor.

For example: Who would want to risk his Panther by using it in a lightning attack strike because during the movement it will most likely rotate it's turret to completely unsuitable direction thus giving away the extremely crucial frontal armor advantage? It takes a looong time from the Panther's SLOW turret to face the new targets which are becoming visible on it's front if it has already set the turret at completely inappropriate bearing.

Additional command(s) to control turret facing would mostly help the slow turreted tanks/TDs to compensate for tacAI's limitations.

Unfortunately BTS hasn't promised to add any commands to supervise turret facings but at least they thankfully promised to readjust the turret speeds for Panther and Tiger II

(even though the reason for that has nothing directly to do with this issue).

Ari

[Guest Madmatt]

Oh I agree 100% Ari. When a Tank does something like that it IS frustrating. Very much so, but a long time ago with the beta demo I learned to change my way of thinking while playing the game. I really tried to put myself in the various situations I saw and pull from my own personal experiences in conflict environments and try to understand what might have been happening. In other wargames that is hard to do, a 4-4-3 stack of counters is just a stack of counters, but in CM I was able to immerse myself to such a greater degree that it became almost second nature.

But, as I have said, Targeting preferences and TacAi behavior are constantly under the microscope with the Beta Team and will continue to be so for the foreseeable and distant futures. We know it is not perfect and that situations like the above happen. What we are committed to doing is making sure that they still happen, just less frequently.

This is a very hard issue to tweak just right, as soon as a change is made to account for one situation a gaping hole is exposed that allows for an even larger ahistorical situation. All I can say is that we continue to work on it.

Madmatt

[Sgt. Steiner]

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

But, as I have said, Targeting preferences and TacAi behavior are constantly under the microscope with the Beta Team and will continue to be so for the foreseeable and distant futures. We know it is not perfect and that situations like the above happen. What we are committed to doing is making sure that they still happen, just less frequently.

This is a very hard issue to tweak just right, as soon as a change is made to account for one situation a gaping hole is exposed that allows for an even larger ahistorical situation. All I can say is that we continue to work on it.

Madmatt<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Matt, we can't ask for much more than that..

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"Natural body oils, combined with dirt, can keep you waterproof" -Krüger

[Ari Maenpaa]

Madmatt,

I don't envy your and the whole Beta team's tweaking job at this issue. It's difficult no doubt. Still very captivating I believe

Just want to point out this ahistorical(?) weakness the Axis side is suffering in CM because it's my understanding that it might get transferred to CM2.

I feel that for the future's sake it's more productive to criticize the problems in CM concerning the Axis side than Allies.

Btw. thanks for the excellent CM-HQ. Keep up the first class work.

Ari

[Ron]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>KwazyDog wrote:

One thing that may help is to make sure when moving in suspect territory that you use the HUNT command, as you tanks will be much more likely to ignore any enemy infantry that isnt an AT gun or unit.

Im not saying that there isnt more tweaks that would help guys, Im just pointing out that the problem is deeper than it may first seem To be honest I must use my tanks differently from some because I cant recall a problem using them since Charles made some tweaks to tanks behaviour in the last patch. Oh, make sure you are using 1.05 guys, that will of course make a big difference.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh I agree to a certain point, I never really had any problem with the tank AI at all and wondered what some people were complaining about. However just watching a movie from a QB has got me shaking my head.

Situation: I was breaking thru the US line with a platoon of Pzgs/HTs and a Panther. There was a US half squad remaining to the left and one man from a US CoHQ to the right. These were being engaged by my troops and HTs, good, that's their job. The Panther's job was to deal with the bypassed Churchill lurking behind some woods. For my orders, I extend the Panther's waypoints to swing around and get the Churchill on the flank.

I get the movie and am anticipating a decisive move by my Panther. Against all odds the one man US CoHQ survives the fire from the Pzg squad(10m), fires on the Panther and buttons it up. The Panther's turret, semi-directed at the Churchill, starts swinging around right to engage the lone man HQ. Now the Panther is well into it's move and the Churchill spots it first and fires a hit to the lower hull, internal flaking but no damage. The Panther moves some more but finally spots the Churchill itself at less than 100m and stops to engage, only it's turret is about as far away as it can get. The Churchill scores another hit, a ricochet to the upper hull. The turret still swings. Another hit, another ricochet, this is agonizing. The turret is almost there as the Churchill's final shot bounces off of the Panther's front turret. The Panther fires one shot, a brew up.

I sweated, I know I was lucky but the 'problem' really shouldn't be there in this situation. It isn't whether to engage infantry or not at certain ranges but more like having an attention span longer than a millisecond. Oh yeah, at the end of the movie the one man US CoHQ still survived, don't ask me how.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Madmatt wrote:

But, as I have said, Targeting preferences and TacAi behavior are constantly under the microscope with the Beta Team and will continue to be so for the foreseeable and distant futures. We know it is not perfect and that situations like the above happen. What we are committed to doing is making sure that they still happen, just less frequently.

This is a very hard issue to tweak just right, as soon as a change is made to account for one situation a gaping hole is exposed that allows for an even larger ahistorical situation. All I can say is that we continue to work on it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I understand and am glad to hear it. I just felt compelled to relate this incident.

Ron