How Come No Immediate "Runaway" Command ??

[PiggDogg]

I was playing some CMBO recently and realized that there is no "Runaway" command (RAC). The RAC should allow most any unit or units to just jump up and runaway/withdraw (a) if they were getting hammered too badly, ( if they were badly outnumbered and the enemy was approaching near, © if they were on outpost or observation duty and enemy gets too close, (d) an enemy that is near impervious to the friendly unit's or units' fire and the impervious enemy is pounding the friendlies, or (e) some other such similar circumstance occurs.

Recently in a CMBO game, I had a couple of small infantry units on outpost duty and they took a good 30-45 seconds of close enemy fire before the turn ended. By the time that I could give my guys the 'withdraw' command, they were dead.

Just thinking and suggesting. Any other comments??

Richard, richardcuccia@home.com, ICQ# 116577632. :confused:

[jdmorse]

Well PgDg, there is both. Alot depends on the units morale, experience and damage. There is a direct withdraw command in the command menu. It tells your troops to immed. high tail it out of there. With Veteran troops works wonders, Reg so so, anything less almost always results in a "broken/panic" unit.

As to the AI, troops will get up at their own discrection and hightail it on their own. But usually when they panic or are caught with their pants down (they turn around and head for the nearest cover) The higher the experience the troops, the more likely they stay and fight. After all, it's only a minute and under heavy fire, to run will also get you shot down, so the better place is to stay under cover where they are and hope for the best. Sometimes the Calvary doesn't come.

[Pzman]

There is a withdraw command. But only for infantry.

[lcm1947]

Richard I couldn't agree with you more. Actually I was just about to post about this very thing when I read your post. Last night I was advancing on a town and a squad of my men came under fire from a Panther. Well, the stupid heads just layed there until almost all were killed. Had I been able to tell them advance but if a Panther comes along and shots the crap out of you - beat it. Anyway, sure wish there were a better way to avoid that situation. Maybe the answer is to just pick troops with high morale like jdmorse suggests. Hope CM2 addresses this, what I call major problem.

[Stalin's Organ]

I couldn't disagree more - why should there be a "button" to bail you out because you gave them crap orders??

Those guys are doing their level best to stay where YOU told them to...and you wanna tell them all "Oh, sorry...made a mistake there - I would have withdrwn you from that advancing company of SMG gunners but I forgot about yuo"?!

Sheesh - if they're about to get overwhelmed then get them out (using withdraw) at the turn break!

[KnifeForkSpoon]

1cm1947 wrote:

Last night I was advancing on a town and a squad of my men came under fire from a Panther. Well, the stupid heads just layed there until almost all were killed. Had I been able to tell them advance but if a Panther comes along and shots the crap out of you - beat it. Anyway, sure wish there were a better way to avoid that situation. Maybe the answer is to just pick troops with high morale like jdmorse suggests. Hope CM2 addresses this, what I call major problem.

Hey

I don't agree with you about this being a "major problem." If your lads walked out into an exposed (and unsupported) position and got pounded, them's the breaks. Once they start to panic, they'll seek cover on their own (but the survivors won't be much use for a while). Maybe they could seek cover a little sooner, before they panic. Maybe that's what you're driving at.

Also, I'm sure what you meant was "choosing troops with higher EXPERIENCE." Not "MORALE." As you choose troops with a specific morale. But I'm sure you realize this.

Troops with higher experience do indeed react better to incoming fire.

The withdraw command is very useful in many situations. One application for forward observers is to keep your observers hidden. Don't let your observers engage the enemy. This increases their survivability. Once they've accomplished their job (spotting enemy), THEN you order them to withdraw the next turn. (If you have enough time before enemy contact, you might as well just sneak 'em outta trouble.)

I use withdraw often. Usually to save a squad or plt. that is in a pickle. I always try to have a covered escape route. And usually, if I can save half of my squad or Plt., it will have been worth it.

K.F.S.

[Col Deadmarsh]

I can see their point and I do agree with it somewhat. Let's say you give orders to your men to hide in a building, advance to another building, etc, and an enemy tank approaches and starts pounding the crap outta them. They should in my opinion move to the back of the building they are in to avoid getting hit. At the very least, they should hit the ground and hide for the rest of the turn while the tank pounds the building. But they don't. A lot of the time, they will get back up to fire at nearby infantry just to get pounded again by the tank until the minute runs out. It would be better if the troops were smarter about this.

It also seems to me that men who are hiding are still taking a little too many casualties. Of course, this is because the troops are usually at the front of the building when they are amubushed by a tank. In reality, these men would move away from the windows etc so as not to get hit.

This is definetely something that should be implemented in CM2 to make up for the fact that we cannot micro-manage our men. Tanks will retreat and move away when overmatched. So should infantry.

[Banshee]

Just my .02 from my reading, most patrols I read about would run away at first contact. Their mission was to find the enemy, not to engage him. There is no way to do this in CM. The best you can do is be a little gamey and time your movement so that contact will be made towards the end of a turn, And I bet there would be people who call this micromanagement

A movement to contact order I think is being added in cm2, but I doubt there would be multiple parts to it

i.e.:

Movement to Contact (menu item) -> Stop on Contact (subitem 1) Attempt to keep moving (subitem 2) Withdraw (subitem 3)

with the default being Keep Moving (as it is now with the move and fast command) .. And for people who would call the above micromanagement I propose that it would actually involve LESS micromanagement because you aren't constantly trying to do gamey things to get contact to come in the last 10 seconds of a turn OR you have to spend the majority of the turn not moving because the next clump bushes might hold baddies and you can only go in 10 meter jumps to the cover each turn in order to keep your men safe (with the current command set)

[lcm1947]

Well, KnifeForkSpoon I did mean that I would like them to take cover sooner to save lives. I believe men would in real life. As far as meaning morale, yes I did mean that but you corrected me so I will improve their experience, not morale. Thank you for that point. Also, thank you for the advise about the withdraw command. Never tried that but will next game. And thank you Colonel_Deadmarsh and Banshee for doing a better job than I did explaining my point. I love guys like you!

[PiggDogg]

I am quite aware of the "withdraw" command. I use it most frequently. However, my proposed "Runaway" command (RAC) is not to bail one out of "crap commands" as Stalin's Organ suggests. The RAC simply allows outposts, sharpshooters, tripwire teams, AT teams, etc. to have contact and then run or shoot & run. I think that this is a valid possible command for future and present CM. I would think that in real life, a tripwire/etc team would not take unnecessary fire just to await the last 37 seconds of the turn to expire.

This RAC, is a good and valid idea. Cheers.

Richard Cuccia, richardcuccia@home.com, ICQ# 116577632

[Guest PondScum]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Richard Cuccia, the PiggDogg:

I am quite aware of the "withdraw" command. I use it most frequently. However, my proposed "Runaway" command (RAC) is not to bail one out of "crap commands" as Stalin's Organ suggests. The RAC simply allows outposts, sharpshooters, tripwire teams, AT teams, etc. to have contact and then run or shoot & run.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can already partially simulate this in the game. Give your team a targetting order, put in a pause, and then tell them to sneak/crawl out of LOS. Result: they fire one shot, hopefully stay undetected, and get out of the way for the remainder of the turn. Replace the crawl with a run if you've placed them somewhere with no covered escape route (bad placement...). Next turn, either sneak them back and hide them (preparing to do the whole thing over again on the following turn), or run them to a secondary position. I've used this technique several times with sharpshooters and AT teams to good effect.

As for tripwire teams, why are you letting the enemy get close enough to you that they get shredded in 30 seconds? Surely as a tripwire they should observe the approach, stay hidden, and then bug out the turn before contact occurs. If you want them to also get into a little firefight to slow the enemy down for a turn or two, well they did just that - and died. Sort of tells you what to expect as a lone outpost, doesn't it?

[Monty's Double]

While comrade Organ's reply has a certain minimalist charm, I think he's being a little harsh. To me, the problem isn't one about micromanagement, which isn't part of CMBO's scope as far as I'm concerned, even if you can do it at a push. The real problem is with infantry tac AI, which is frankly moronic sometimes. Shell some infantry in a building and watch them run out because the building's damage level has gone up, then watch them run back into THE SAME BUILDING at the first sniff of MG fire. Fun to watch, irritating as hell if they're your guys. In general, infantry should be more cautious unless ordered to be otherwise. IIRC CM2 will include "Assault" and/or "Move to Contact" orders. Maybe this will mean that infantry on other move orders will act a little smarter.

[jshandorf]

What this..."I marched my troops out in the open and they got *shock* killed! WTF?!"

Give me a freakin break...

Jeff

[Banshee]

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

What this..."I marched my troops out in the open and they got *shock* killed! WTF?!"

Give me a freakin break...

Jeff<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gee someone being an a$$ on a internet newsgroup. You don't see THAT everyday.

[Andrew H.]

Yet another advantage to playing green troops is that they often won't hang around and get killed. If you order your fancy-schmancy vet squad to advance to some woods where a company of enemy infantry is hiding, the squad will advance to the woods and try to stay while 12 other squads try to kill it. Finally, when there are only one or two live men, the vets will bug out.

By contrast, if a green squad advances to woods concealing a bunch of enemies, the greenies will bug out pretty soon after being shot at, and your green squad comes running back with but one or two casualties. In Panic, of course, but at least they're alive.

[Moon]

It's not a "runaway" command that is being asked for, it's a "boy-I-screwed-up-make-yourself-invisible-instantly-and-do-not-get-killed-by-enemy" order. "Withdraw" is the order to instantly (no time delay) get out of a hairy situation that you are looking for. No, it does not work 100% of the time with 0% casualties. In fact, it maybe works 50% of the time with 50% casualties. But that is realistic. Withdrawing under fire is one of the most difficult tasks in a micro-tactical sense, as it takes courage to just get up and run sometimes in the face of enemy fire, even if supposed to run away.

KnifeForkSpoon - (free quote) "this stupid squad just was lying there until almost all of them got killed": you don't believe how much you sound like a real-life 1944 Sergeant counterpart who just lost half of his platoon to light mortar fire in an open Bocage field...

[Pak40]

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

It's not a "runaway" command that is being asked for, it's a "boy-I-screwed-up-make-yourself-invisible-instantly-and-do-not-get-killed-by-enemy" order. "Withdraw" is the order to instantly (no time delay) get out of a hairy situation that you are looking for. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with Moon. There is no need to have a runaway command.

Richard,

If you waited until an ememy squad got that close then it's obvious you kept your squad there a turn too long. You should have used the withdraw command (or pause and run) the turn before. Command in real life takes timing by the leaders and sometimes the leaders have very poor timing, CM models this beautifully.

If your RAC is implemented then all of your commanders will have "perfect timing" which is just plain unrealistic.

Anyway, there are a whole new slew of commands for the CM:BB, they're mentioned in the interview on gamespot.com. All of these new commands pretty much cover anything we could possibly want.

[Col Deadmarsh]

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

It's not a "runaway" command that is being asked for, it's a "boy-I-screwed-up-make-yourself-invisible-instantly-and-do-not-get-killed-by-enemy" order...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What orifice did you pull this crap out of Moon? Nobody's asking for this. I suggest you read the posts again. We are asking for the infantry to seek cover when being overmatched by a tank or other assault vehicle.

Let's say you told one of your infantry squads to move to the front of a building and halfway through the turn your opponent's tank shows up, spots them, and begins firing at them. In reality, the men would move away from the front of the building to the back of the building. You wouldn't stand there by the window admiring the view would you, Moon? Well, maybe you would...

Anybody else with some common sense would move away from the front to seek shelter from the shells coming in. We are not asking that the men run out of the building or be protected by some invisible force shield, but that they move to the back of the building and hide until the end of the turn. It does them no good to be in the front of the building firing at some infantry nearby when they know they have been spotted by a tank that is ready to blow their heads off.

Let's say you had a Stuart and you told it to move to a patch of trees up ahead and when it did so, it found itself in LOS of a Panther. You wouldn't want it to stand there helplessly, would you Moon? Don't you like the fact that the Tac-Ai moves it out of there for you? Well, we want the same thing with the infantry.

I'm not saying this will be easy to code but infantry in a house under heavy fire fromm a gun that is 75mm or over (for example) should move to the back of the building and hide.

As far as other terrain, I'm not sure how easy it is to code a retreat away from the threat. Maybe they should just remain "hidden" for the rest of the turn.

[dalem]

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

I can see their point and I do agree with it somewhat. Let's say you give orders...

-snip-

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This kind of thing kind of makes me laugh. Okay, let's say my Company Commander is peeking over a stone wall doing some sort of Company Commander stuff. Let's say a shell fragment from a nearby explosion enters his skull and jellies his frontal lobe. Now clearly this will bum me right out, and I will want it not to happen. So I say we just have the turns have a magic rewind button so I can rewind and recalc the portions I don't like....

BUt really, I know this is a serious point for you folks but you have to realize that the game isn't intended to allow micromanagement and we have even more control than we should sometimes. If a squad comes under fire sometimes it will do smart things and survive, sometimes it will do dumb things and get whacked. And sometimes Lady Luck will do a touch and go and weird things will happen. I've read that weird things happen in combat - it's not like these guys were advancing down the lingerie aisle of a boutique, after all.

Revel in the odd things that happen in CM or go play checkers.

-dale

[Guy w/gun]

Why are you all saying that this "move, but if you meet a threat, then bug out" idea is such a bad thing? From day one, one of the things I thought that CM had a hard time doing was what I call "before hand orders"

What so micromanaging about a Capt. telling his point platoon "Ok guys. I want you to advance 200 meters SLOWLY! If you get sited, get the hell out of there! I don't want to take any unnessesary casulties just because you made contact!" Would you critisize the Capt. for trying to "save his butt" if he ordered his men to advance but retreat if they started getting cut to pieces?

Unfortunatly, commands like the above aren't possible in CMBO. The AI isn't sophisticated enough (no duh ). So as is, you have to kinda jerry-rig the commands you do have to get the results you want. I'm glad that BTS has decided to beef up the commands in CMBB. I don't think "MOVE", "RUN", "SNEAK", etc. cut it in certain cases because they're way too general.

[dalem]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Guy w/gun:

Why are you all saying that this "move, but if you meet a threat, then bug out" idea is such a bad thing? From day one, one of the things I thought that CM had a hard time doing was what I call "before hand orders"

What so micromanaging about a Capt. telling his point platoon "Ok guys. I want you to advance 200 meters SLOWLY! If you get sited, get the hell out of there! I don't want to take any unnessesary casulties just because you made contact!" Would you critisize the Capt. for trying to "save his butt" if he ordered his men to advance but retreat if they started getting cut to pieces?

Unfortunatly, commands like the above aren't possible in CMBO. The AI isn't sophisticated enough (no duh ). So as is, you have to kinda jerry-rig the commands you do have to get the results you want. I'm glad that BTS has decided to beef up the commands in CMBB. I don't think "MOVE", "RUN", "SNEAK", etc. cut it in certain cases because they're way too general.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fair point about what's not there, but I personally don't miss it and don't think it's necessary. I won't weep if it gets put in, either.

People using examples like "If a squad came under fire from X it would always bug out" get under my skin though, because that's a) not true, and an oversimplification. Case a) is not always true because there's never any telling exactly what a group of men under fire will do, just tendancies. Certain groups will tend to freeze, others will tend to quickly find adequate cover and return fire, still others will tend to break contact (some in good order, others in bad). In no case is a favored (or desired) reaction certain. Case , well, given the level of abstraction inherent in any squad-based game, we must accept that there are 'things going on' that are not graphically represented. Maybe the squad comes under fire/contacts the enemy and tries to halt/retreat/hide, whatever, but it cannot - too much fire, too little cover, or maybe they're in the only good cover for 10 meters in any direction and effectively pinned down. Maybe they're in great cover and a one in a million shot lands in their lap. Etc., etc. So the current broad orders work for me. I give the orders and see the results, then modify my next orders according to those results. Nine times out of ten the detailed fate of a single squad is of little consequence in that series.

And regardless of what I personally think or how I play, I believe the upcoming "move to contact" order is probably close to what some seem to want. I'm sure I'll use it and learn to like it. Doesn't mean I don't like the way I play now.

-dale

[PiggDogg]

The proposed "Runaway Command" (RAC) is not an advance to contact command (by the way, the advance to contact command seems quite useful). It would be a runaway from contact command. If a unit has been given this command, the unit would bug out as soon as the emeny sights them and would take any action against them.

Also, the RAC cuts down on micro management of units which is always a good thing.

Furthermore, the RAC is not a "boy-I-screwed-up-make-yourself-invisible-instantly-and-do-not-get-killed-by-enemy" order as Moon & Pak 40 suggested. Col Deadmarsh pretty well had it correct. It is a "I suspect that you will be overmatched, keep your eyes open, if you are overmatched, you bug out - DO NOT hold your ground !!" command.

Now, will this RAC be implimented in CM2 ?? I doubt it, but I think that it would be a realistic, useful, & valid command.

Cheers, Richard Cuccia, richardcuccia@home.com

[Lutz]

I think the fix for this problem can be found in TacOps. There you can give your units orders for Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). These SOP tell the troops what to do when they get in contact with the enemy. For example you can give orders like "Reverse if fired on xxx m & Pop smoke" or "Stop after firing".

Oh man, there you have me dreaming of a CMBO/TacOps combination again...