CMplayer Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 I still have some games going in version 1.1, but I saw in the readme for the latest patch that certain issues regarding targetting in multitarget environments had been tweaked. What I'm wondering is whether the following extremely silly/buggy/codelimitation/ ahistorical behaviour has been fixed: The 'vet' crew of a 75mm infantry gun is ordered to target an enemy squad in a stone building. They fire one shot, causing a casualty. Then they get distracted by infantry running, at about 220 meters distance, _laterally_ to the gun position. They take time to swing the gun around, try to target the infantry, fire and miss, of course, because they don't seem to lead a moving target, then see another squad doing the same thing, start swinging the gun around etc. Such guns are short lived items on the battlefield, and the crew was directly ordered to pump everything they had into the squad in that stone building, in order to try to have some effect before the mortar shells start raining down. Instead they wasted a lot of time rotating the gun, to try to shoot at things they couldn't hit anyway, and which were in the process of moving out of LOS of the gun anyway. Seeing these sorts of behaviors makes me start to think that CM is mostly flash and veneer, but very little real content. This is natural for a pioneering work, which I consider the game to be. Certainly the tac AI appears as very slipshod affair. Of course you could say I should have put the gun in a keyholed position so that it wouldn't get 'confused' by so many targets. But a good game should allow its units to function well even if they end up in a pressed situation. In particular, the armor rules in CM have a huge contradiction in them, which I have mentioned before, between: 1) the player having to micromanage armor's movement to the point of having to try to guess how far up the slope to drive to get hull down, and 2) the tac AI controlling targetting, without having any sense of where moving targets are going, and how long it will take to swing the turret around. The result of handing detailed responsiblity for movement to the player, and not allowing corresponding targetting control is tanks working at crosspurposes to themselves, such as advancing through smoke towards enemy armor with their turret facing backwards to engage some infantry target. Basically, I have two opponents: the other guy and the tac AI, which infiltrates my units and makes them schizophrenic. Something similar also seems to have happened to my 75mm cannon. They don't have the big picture, but I do. They missapraise threats, and don't grasp the importance of shooting off as much ammo as possible at _any_ decent target, as fast as possible, rather than wasting time rotating to engage something that they a)can't hit, and will be out of line of sight a few seconds after the target is acquired anyway and c) will be taken care of by my MG's and infantry. So in this situation as well, the poor targetting AI ought to be overridable with the following SIMPLE AND ELEGANT command. -- When you target, it should be possible to choose _level of urgency_. Even just two levels: normal, which you use most of the time, and urgent, which makes it much less likely that the unit will shift targets. Urgent should definitely be used sparingly. It corresponds to the officer giving the order shouting at the crew that they will bring that building down come hell or high water, with some Patton style cussing etc. Allowing certain orders to be modulable between normal, and urgent would be both realistic, and introduce a bit of extra control at times when you might need it. Of course, if all this has been fixed in the latest patch, nevermind. Actually I hope these issues are in for serious rethinking for CM2, and that we aren't going to just get the same engine with a new paint job. regards, --Rett [This message has been edited by CMplayer (edited 02-28-2001).] [This message has been edited by CMplayer (edited 02-28-2001).] [This message has been edited by CMplayer (edited 02-28-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiwiJoe Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 Yeah I would luv a command to allow your unit to "fix" on 1 particular enemy unit and not get distracted by any others unless fired upon. Similar to how the area target command works now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ari Maenpaa Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 I agree. Even though I regard CM as the best wargame ever made, it has it's weaknesses. Targeting is one of the baddest of those. Sometimes it gets awfully frustrating with the most slowly rotating guns like 150mm ig or 88mm AT-gun when they spend whole TURNS by chasing "impossible" targets. Also this "unintelligent" behaviour reward fast turreted tanks very much, even though the new hull rotation fix helped a little. I really hope this will get fixed in CM2. Ari Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted February 28, 2001 Share Posted February 28, 2001 I think the other way to state it is that it isn't perfect. It could be ofcourse, if you had a mainframe to run it on. Now, that doesn't mean some ideas about how to improve it aren't without merit. I believe, that the suggestion above might work to improve it, also the opposite problem of the need for a cease targeting command, to allow for the micromanagement of a unit which just won't stop firing on something, or at all, when you want it to, might also be beneficial. But all things being considered, CM is hands down the best AI I've ever seen and is operating a 3D environment that has taken the previous 2D board type representations and brought real life parameters into that environment. Quite an extrodinary thing for this AI to handle really. But I would say it is anything but flash and glitz as portrayed above. One might portray PC's in general in the same fashion. Early pioneers of what will follow. I suppose suspended animation could avoid it all if someone sets the wakeup mechanism to bring us back when PC's are woppers compared to what they are now, and CM200043 is out. ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts