Moving and Targeting

[POL]

I am new to CM and have to say I love it.

I have a question about moving and targeting.

If I want a unit to crawl to location A and then target another unit when in reaches location A (not as it travels to location A), how do I go about placing the order.

Is it possible?

When I try this, it seems that the unit will simultaneously target the unit in question and crawl to location A.

I would greatly appreciate any help.

Pol.

[PvK]

You can't do this per se, but if you want it to wait to target until finished moving, you can order the unit to move (F)ast and target the unit. Depending on the unit, it may still fire a little on the move, but at least will keep moving at full speed until it gets to the destination. Depending on the circumstances, sneaking or moving fast combined with an order to face the target may be more what you have in mind - if it's a good target, the unit will fire on its own, although you won't be able to choose yourself between multiple good targets.

PvK

[deanco]

Hmmm...when you do it like you said, the unit will start shooting as soon as it sees the target, yer right. I would say, tell him to go to location A and order him to Hide when he gets there. I would combine that with a Crawl or Sneak order to make sure he gets into position without being seen. If he's seen, he's liable to return fire. On the next turn, UnHide him and target the enemy unit. He will start shooting at your target next turn (normally, unless a much greater threat comes into view).

To ambush, manually target the enemy unit, then give him a hide order. This assumes that he is already in the ambush spot. He will wait until the enemy is close before opening fire (usually). Hope this helps.

DeanCo--

[This message has been edited by deanco (edited 09-24-2000).]

[Pham911]

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

I am new to CM and have to say I love it.

I have a question about moving and targeting.

If I want a unit to crawl to location A and then target another unit when in reaches location A (not as it travels to location A), how do I go about placing the order.

Is it possible?

When I try this, it seems that the unit will simultaneously target the unit in question and crawl to location A.

I would greatly appreciate any help.

Pol.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I tested this, and here's how the move orders work. Run and move orders to units that have targeted the enemy will move and run while firing. Crawl will override the fire order, and they just crawl and don't stop to fire or anything.

However, they tend to shoot first, which is no good if you're repositioning them to surprise the enemy.

You can't really do anything about this that I can see. Even issuing the hide order after the target and crawl orders won't work, as targeting overrides hide.

Best suggestion, which does work but isn't perfect, issue just the crawl order but make the destination far enough so that the unit can't get there in one turn. On the next orders phase target the enemy, and the troops will keep crawling, without firing but while still keeping a lock on the target. Once they stop crawling they'll spring up and fire.

Won't work for very short crawling distances, or on units that don't have or lose LOS while crawling, though. But, it will work the same as if they had crawled to a position without targeting anything, then targeted the unit you wanted them to.

Hope this helps.