Loving the 1.1 Turret/Hull rotation

[Vergeltungswaffe]

I know there have been some posts about people concerned that their tank would pivot to fire on something worthless, like a crew, and expose its flank to the area where the player knows, but the tank only suspects, but I think it works great. You always have to remember that the TC doesn't know everything you know. He can only deal with what he spots, and he won't even spot everything. Even unbuttoned, its damn hard to tell what's going on around you.

Anyway, on to the amusing anecdote. I have seen several instances of this lately, but this really brought it home. I had a Panther that was given a hunt order up to a small ridgeline. He had killed a Firefly from further down the same ridgeline and had spotted a Churchill to the south of the Firefly. I displaced and sent him hunting up the ridge. The Churchill turned up somewhat farther south than he had been before as the Panther hit the crest. Churchill was about 40 degrees to Panther's left. Panther pivoted just a bit while the turret rotated, maybe 5-10 degrees to help the gunner get his line laid on. First shot misses (range about 640m). While reloading, the driver pivots the hull around to face the Churchill. Return shots deflects off glacis (Whew! nice job driver). 2nd shot toasts Churchill. Had to watch the movie about 5 times just for the satisfaction of it.

[Jeff Heidman]

<Copy of message posted in a related thread>

Your anecdote sounds like an example of how this sometimes works properly. Here is another anecdote and comments:

Last night I saw something that I thought was fixed back in the 1.03 patch.

I lost a Panther that, despite my orders to rotate forward, insisted on engaging a infantry target 350m away to its side, ignoring the vast numbers of (momentarily unspotted) enemy tanks to its front. So it swung the entire vehicle 90 degrees to the right. Of course a Sherman parked a round through its side armor.

Sigh. To say this is unrealistic does not even begin to describe what is wrong here. I know BTS does not wish to clutter the interface, but there really needs to be some simple command to tell a unit to orient in a certain direction and stay that way unless some really compelling reason to turn comes up. Compelling reason being something like being fired upon from a credibale AT asset.

If coding this stuff into the TacAI is so damn hard, then let the player make those decisions, as best the 60 second turn will allow. Give them the tools to tell their tanks where to point the pointy end. Then, when people like me whine about their tank turning their weak armor around to a potential threat, it will be their fault.

The current system has an inate problem in that each unit thinks completely individually. There is no way for that Panther to think "Gee, just saw some infantry pop up on my far right flank. No matter, they are way outside man-portable AT range, and I know there is a strong friendly infantry screen on that flank, so I am going to ignore them because I know that enemy armor has been spotted up in front of me." All that Panther thinks is "Well, the only unit *I* can see right now is that infantry off to the side. I have no memory of the armor that dropped that smoke screen a minute ago after I brewed up on of their Shermans, so I guess I will just rotate my entire hull 90 degrees to the right and take a few shots at that infantry!"

This is not a problem that is going to be fixed very easily. The TacAi is just not sophisticated enough. The only solution is to give the player the option to take some of that out of the hands of the TacAI.

*******************************************

Jeff Heidman

[Juardis]

I see both sides of the story but have yet to experience it for myself in a game. However, I think I fall on Jeff's side here. I would much rather the tank rotate it's turret towards infantry than the hull. The reason is that you're more likely to die from a tank than from a "crew?" or "infantry?". Sure, you may die from a flank zook or shreck or rifle grenade or faust, but I gaurantee I'm more worried about what I can't see than what I can see in that situation. Besides, once the infantry fires, you then know that it has some AT capability and THEN it can rotate it's hull.

Here's a familiar situation. You're attacking and killing tanks/vehicles. The knocked out crew scampers into hiding. You don't wish to waste any more assets killing crews, so you continue pushing forward. Now those same crews are on your flanks, but who cares? They're harmless. Yet if your opponent is a gamey bastard, he'll use them to distract your armor. So now your uber tank rotates it's hull towards the useless crew and ... kablooie. Side hull penetration from a Sherman 75 because the whole thing was orchestrated. Now THAT would suck!

I'm in a PBEM game right now where that very tactic was used against me, not once, but twice. Both times my Pz IVG was killed when my opponent purposely raced his knocked out crews into the open so that my tanks rotated their turrets to fire only to have a Sherman III take it out with a side turret penetration. And this was with 1.05. I can only imagine what it will be like with 1.1.

Bottom line, do NOT rotate your hull to face ANY infantry unless that same infantry gets off one AT round (be it zook round or rifle-grenade). That is my opinion. Rotating your hull to face ANY armor or vehicle (unless positively ID'd as a vehicle without AT capability, like a jeep) is acceptable.

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Jeff Abbott

[JoePrivate]

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

Last night I saw something that I thought was fixed back in the 1.03 patch. I lost a Panther that, despite my orders to rotate forward, insisted on engaging a infantry target 350m away to its side, ignoring the vast numbers of (momentarily unspotted) enemy tanks to its front. So it swung the entire vehicle 90 degrees to the right. Of course a Sherman parked a round through its side armor.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What your describing has existed throughout the various patches, ie the distraction of an AFV by infantry. A few had posted their concerns and examples. What's new, to me anyway, is how the rotate command is being overridden by the TacAI to engage 'lesser' targets and even area fire targets. The awareness of the limitation of the TacAI has led me to compensate for it in my play by avoiding, where possible, situations exactly as you described. However it isn't predictable, after playing a few games with 1.1, I have seen a few examples where the tank TacAI has ignored lesser targets to it's flanks. That could be attributed to the reduced spotting ability(my perception) of AFVs in 1.1 though.

Jeff Abbott,

In 1.1 I don't think you need to worry about crews distracting yout tanks, they will almost always be ignored unless you attempt to run over them or something.

[Bruno Weiss]

Interesting guys. I'm running up a 1.1 ladder rated game, so I'll be seeing how the theory plays out in application myself. Keep posting those experiences, good or not good. Both can contain good informational details on what cause and effect relationships exist.

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"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)

[Juardis]

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

In 1.1 I don't think you need to worry about crews distracting yout tanks, they will almost always be ignored unless you attempt to run over them or something.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Really? Even if they are noted as "crew?" I mean, a knocked out tank crew doesn't always show up definitely as a crew do they? At all times?

[JoePrivate]

I'm almost 100% positive a KO'd tank crew will be identified as 'crew'. I'll have to double check tonight. In my current games my tanks may fire their hull mg at moving crews but they didn't target them unless I ordered them to or the crews were very close, say 50m or thereabouts. I don't want to speak in absolutes because your mileage may(will) vary.

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>...I'm more worried about what I can't see than what I can see.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think this is the problem. You may be able to see those enemy tanks but your particular tank may not be able to see what you see.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>...ignoring the vast numbers of (momentarily unspotted) enemy tanks to its front. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

"Momentarily unspotted" is the key phrase here. Why should your tank pay attention to something it hasn't seen or can't see yet, as opposed to a spotted target on the battlefield?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>needs to be some simple command to tell a unit to orient in a certain direction and stay that way unless some really compelling reason to turn comes up.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Like the "rotate" command. I do agree that the previous fix of Tanks remembering where enemy armor was (patch 1.05?) may be broken. Either that or perhaps you can not have more than one "TacAi property" for units.....

Tiger

[This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 01-12-2001).]

[Seahawk-vfa201]

I noticed that the hull turn is not systematic. It does not happen 100% of times. I guess it must depends on the TC knowledge of what is around him (SA = Situation Awareness)

The situation described by Jeff is also something that I believe it is not going to be reproducible and I would be surprised if the TacAI reasoning was as in Jeff's post.

The TC has seen tank armors. He knows they are behind a smoke screen. He knows he is not going to get fired at for some (precious) seconds. In the meanwhile he spot nearby infantry that COULD have anti tank weaponry. The best accurate reaction is to engage and rotate hull to face the higher threat.

Now if in the seconds following the hull turn he realizes they are only desperate infantry units firing small caliber at him hoping to scratch his tank insignia to get him confused THEN he should remember the - now - previous highest threat, i.e. the Shermans behind the smoke screen and face again toward that direction, maybe still killing infantry troops in the meanwhile with a rotated turret.

Again what the TC knows and what the player knows have base on different planets.

And it would be totally unrealistic to believe that since some enemy units have been spotted THEN all your units should know about their location. In WWII there were no brain implants yet.

Jeff case though is a bit different. The AI should remember at for one turn the presence of the Sherman threat. Why only a turn? because on the following one the player could screw the situation even more and put him in even a more dangerous spot.

Finally, I have observed - up to now - very reasonable acts for a AI. I hope to see a totally screwed one so that there will be some reason to complain but up to now - more or less - all reports of AI decisions are reasonable if we take into account that my knowledge as a player with respect to the TC situation awareness is in the same ratio & proportion to what most of posters in this forum have about Quantum Mechanics and Paul Dirac.

[Diceman]

There are two complaints to look at before one decides the hull turning tweak is good or bad. Complaint one: My Panther, or whatever got took out by one of those jackrabbit allied fast turreted tanks. The stupid thing just sat their turning its turret when it could have survived if it brought its front armor to bear against the M18, or whatever. Complaint two: My tank took one in the side when it rotated its turret to engage some infantry on my flank.

Having ben playing this game in one for or another for over a year, I'd have to say that version 1.1 is the absolute best Tac A.I. to date. The current turret rotation scheme is fantastic. As long as you don't over commit your tanks, your armor is much better off with the current A.I. setup.

For me it works great, and frankly I can only see it as a real problem if you're in the habit of outrunning your infantry support. That's the only play method I can think of where you'll loose more tanks with the new A.I than with the old one.

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Pair-O-Dice

"Once a Diceman, Always a Diceman."

[Nathman]

Here's something I want to throw into the v1.1 hull rotation "bug" debate to see what everyone thinks.

A fairly large number of german tanks were turretless, and therefore had no choice but to rotate the hull to engage their targets. I guess this could be seen as a real world "bug" and a lack of flexibility for this particular sort of tank. Is anyone aware of the perception these tank crews had with regards to this handicap? Did they hate their tank because they had to turn the hull in order to engage, thereby risking a flank shot by an unseen enemy? What was the offical german view regarding this type of tank? Why did they continue to produce them if it was such a handicap (apart from cost effectiveness issues)?

I really don't have an opinion one way or the other regarding this "bug", as it hasn't caused me any problems, but just want to bring up a real world situation in which turning the hull was necessary and to see if anyone had any anecdotal evidence which may shed more light on this issue.

[Bullethead]

To those who dislike the hull rotation thingy of 1.1....

All I can say is, it's a very poor workman who blames his tools.

In my (admittedly limited) experience with 1.1 so far, it seems very clear to me that the only way hull rotation can kill you is if you are not using proper combined-arms tactics to begin with. OTOH, if you ARE using proper tactics, the hull rotation thing offers a very definite advantage.

It's all a question of geometry. The ONLY way it's AT ALL possible to turn away from something on your front to something on your flank is if you have something on your flank to begin with, or fail to notice it moving to flank you. Being in this position means you have ALREADY been enveloped. If you have allowed this to happen to yourself, you have committed a gross tactical blunder worthy of instant death regardless of whether your tank hull rotates or not. So you should seek to correct your tactics instead of blaming your troops.

If you are on the attack, you should never advance without some form of flank security out a bit ahead of your tanks. The purpose of these forces is to clear out potential flanking ambush positions before your tank moves into their kill zones. In the process, of course, they will also sweep away such flotsam and jettsom as vehicle crews that some gamey SOB might try to distract your tanks with.

OTOH, if the potential flanking positions are too far to the side to actually walk grunts through without unduly diluting your schwerepunkt, you should use a smokescreen to block all distant LOS to your exposed flank. Guess what? Not only will this smokescreen block the LOS of any ATGs on yonder ridge, it will also block your tanks' LOS to any gamey crew sorties from that same area.

If you are on the defense, you should certainly know that the main tactic of the attacker is the envelopment. That means he is going to try to move stuff up onto your flank, as surely as the sun rises. You have 2 main options to defeat this tactic: smash the flanking force BEFORE it reaches your flank, or fall back to your alternate position BEFORE you are enveloped. If you simply sit in place and allow yourself to be enveloped, you are playing directly into the enemy's hands. And if you have chosen your defensive positions so poorly that they are not only amenable to envelopment but also do not allow you to fall back if needed, you should feel fortunate that you survived the battle to be cashiered in disgrace. Using either of these countermeasures will naturally preclude the use of a gamey flanking force of crews.

So by using proper combined-arms tactics, you eliminate the possibility of the type of gamesmanship you fear in this case. You should be using proper tactics anyway because they are what you need vs. non-gamey players. Don't let your knowledge of unit prices in QBs entice you to let your guard down after counting X kills. You never really know what the enemy has until it's over.

Now put your rifle over your head and doubletime around this bloody assembly area until you drop bloody dead

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[Monte99]

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

It's all a question of geometry. The ONLY way it's AT ALL possible to turn away from something on your front to something on your flank is if you have something on your flank to begin with, or fail to notice it moving to flank you. Being in this position means you have ALREADY been enveloped.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bravo! That's about as lucid an argument as we're likely to see on this issue. I agree completely. I've never been undone by 1.1's hull rotation -- only by my own impatient maneuvers.

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"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."

-Bertrand Russell

[This message has been edited by Monte99 (edited 01-12-2001).]

[Tiger]

I think the main thing being asked about here is whether or not the previous fix for tanks to have them "remember" recent armor threats nearby, is broken or not. This was added in patch 1.04 or 1.05 IIRC. Targeting infantry units 400-500 meters away when there's a nearby tank threat that your unit knows about (i.e. engaged for a second or two, etc.), is a good indicator it may be broken.

Tiger

[Bullethead]

Tiger said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think the main thing being asked about here is whether or not the previous fix for tanks to have them "remember" recent armor threats nearby, is broken or not. This was added in patch 1.04 or 1.05 IIRC. Targeting infantry units 400-500 meters away when there's a nearby tank threat that your unit knows about (i.e. engaged for a second or two, etc.), is a good indicator it may be broken.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I do not believe this is broken at all, based on my experience. I set up a test scenario for this very purpose. I had some Panthers in front of a hill. I sent some grunts out into the open on one end of the hill to get the Panthers pointed that way. Then I had Shermans come around the other end of the hill to try to get the Panthers in the side.

The 1st time I popped a Sherman up, the Panthers had rotated about 30-45^ away from the Sherman. The Sherman thought this was still too close to being aimed at him, though, so did the smoke-popping retrograde thing. But he was in sight long enough for the Panthers to spot him and instantly turn to face him, hulls and turrets both. They had guns on him way faster than they would have without the hull turning

Because I was deliberately playing stupid with the Panthers to see how easy it was to kill rotated tanks, I didn't give them any orders. The Sherman had disappeared about 3/4 through the turn and all 3 Panthers were still pointed at his last known position at the start of the next turn. As the next turn progressed, however, 2 of the Panthers eventually turned back to blasting grunts, 1 at at time.

But the 3rd Panther, which had had the best line on the Sherman, stayed pointing there for this whole turn and partway into the next. It looked just like the Panthers were working together in a coordinated way, with 1 guarding the others as they slaughtered the only available targets. I was quite impressed with this AI behavior because I'm so used to seeing AI units in other games act like they are the only thing on the map.

Anyway, I think this "remember where the tank was thing" is working just fine.

Now as to your specific situation of targeting grunts 400m away on a flank is a problem.... I have to ask, WHY is there 400m worth of unsafe LOS on your exposed flank? That's just asking for trouble. How do you know there's not an ATG over there, too? Sounds to me like you have maneuvered yourself into an overly-exposed position that you need to get out of ASAP. Drop some smoke on your exposed flank, pull back, and seek another route to the objective.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 01-13-2001).]

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Now as to your specific situation of targeting grunts 400m away on a flank is a problem.... I have to ask, WHY is there 400m worth of unsafe LOS on your exposed flank? That's just asking for trouble. How do you know there's not an ATG over there, too? Sounds to me like you have maneuvered yourself into an overly-exposed position that you need to get out of ASAP. Drop some smoke on your exposed flank, pull back, and seek another route to the objective.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Because **** happens? Seriously you can not sit there and just say "well you shouldn't have let that enemy infantry advance there in the first place". That's very patronizing, pretentious, and as far as the game goes this is something fairly common, esp with the map sizes in CMBO. You might as well say "well you shouldn't have let the enemy even get to the field of battle". My position was not overly exposed and there were no AT assets over there, as I have some infantry covering that area. Where the hell is someone supposed to back up to when these situations develop Bullethead? Off the map? Sorry, don't have that luxury. Tartgeting infantry 498m away on an unexposed flank is something that needs to be looked at, esp when given move orders in the opposite direction.

regards,

Tiger

[Jeff Heidman]

From Tiger:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"Momentarily unspotted" is the key phrase here. Why should your tank pay attention to something it hasn't seen or can't see yet, as opposed to a spotted target on the battlefield?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Because fighting a war is a team sport.

Because they were ordered to ignore non-threatening infantry targets.

Because it had seen them (the enemy armor)before, they just popped smoke. Great tactic currently under the broken TacAI: pop smoke, distract with a infantry squad 600m away, kill when the smoke disperses because the bad guys are too stupid to figure out that the smoke wasn't a magic transportation device.

Because it is not exactly insane to think that people are given orders to cover certain areas instead of others.

In summary, because people are not nearly as stupid as the TacAI makes them out to be.

I realize the difficulty in making the TacAI deal with this properly. The problem (and this will not be solved in Cm2 or CMII) is that it is not possible to program the TacAI to react in a reasonable way every time, simply because there are way too many variables, not the least of which is the wishes of the player.

Which is why their should be a way to take some of this out of the hands of the blindingly stupid computer. This is basic stuff. We are not talking about micro-management, we are talking about fundamentals of small unit command. Go read a field manual and see how much energy they devote to defining proper overmatch sectors and target selection.

Jeff Heidman

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Seahawk-vfa201:

I noticed that the hull turn is not systematic. It does not happen 100% of times. I guess it must depends on the TC knowledge of what is around him (SA = Situation Awareness)

The situation described by Jeff is also something that I believe it is not going to be reproducible and I would be surprised if the TacAI reasoning was as in Jeff's post.

The TC has seen tank armors. He knows they are behind a smoke screen. He knows he is not going to get fired at for some (precious) seconds. In the meanwhile he spot nearby infantry that COULD have anti tank weaponry. The best accurate reaction is to engage and rotate hull to face the higher threat.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Apparently you did not actually read my post. The infantry he turned to engage were over 350m away. Further, they was my own infantry very well positioned to defend that flank. Almost a textbook example actually.

So, the best reaction is not to "forget" that there is enemy armor in front of you and turn to engage the infantry units that are not possibly a threat.

The funny thing about all this is that the proposal to just not have armor turn to engage non-threatening targets doesn't mean that you can no longer do so, it just means it won't happen within the 60 second turn that the AI controls. If you really want that tank to turn and engage the infantry, you can certainly order it to do so.

Jeff Heidman

[Jeff Heidman]

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

To those who dislike the hull rotation thingy of 1.1....

All I can say is, it's a very poor workman who blames his tools.

In my (admittedly limited) experience with 1.1 so far, it seems very clear to me that the only way hull rotation can kill you is if you are not using proper combined-arms tactics to begin with. OTOH, if you ARE using proper tactics, the hull rotation thing offers a very definite advantage.

It's all a question of geometry. The ONLY way it's AT ALL possible to turn away from something on your front to something on your flank is if you have something on your flank to begin with, or fail to notice it moving to flank you. Being in this position means you have ALREADY been enveloped. If you have allowed this to happen to yourself, you have committed a gross tactical blunder worthy of instant death regardless of whether your tank hull rotates or not. So you should seek to correct your tactics instead of blaming your troops.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is utter BS. You clearly no nothing about real world tactics.

The idea that all battlefields are so neat and pat that anytime you get flanked its your fault, and then we can excuse terrible decisions making on the part of the TacAI is total crap.

The battlefield is not a perfect place. There are no absolutes, and it is very common to do exactly the right thing and still have bad things happen.

I cannot say it any more clearly. In the example I cited I did *precisely the correct thing*. The bad guy moved an infantry force up on my far right flank. I had an excellent infantry screen of my own, supported by SP guns, which immediately began to demolish that flanking maneuver.

The tank that turned and got itself killed was in the van of my attack. His job was to drive ahead and engage targets in front of him. This was *classic* combined arms tactics. His flanks were extremely secure. Secure enough that I could guarantee that the bad guys did not have infantry half a click away? No. But secure enough that I could guarantee him that any bad guys trying to flank would never get close enough to engage him.

I hate it when people try to blame the craftsmen because his tools are broken. At least *think* for a moment about what is being discussed, and do not just assume that the game is perfect, and any problem MUST be with the player.

My tactics (in that case) were exactly right. I lost a vehicle for no reason other than a stupid TacAI, and the limitation of the game system that keeps me from giving reasonable orders to my troops.

Had that tank not gotten itself killed, this would have been a textbook case of how to properly screen an advancing force.

Jeff Heidman

[Jeff Heidman]

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

If you are on the attack, you should never advance without some form of flank security out a bit ahead of your tanks. The purpose of these forces is to clear out potential flanking ambush positions before your tank moves into their kill zones. In the process, of course, they will also sweep away such flotsam and jettsom as vehicle crews that some gamey SOB might try to distract your tanks with.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is all nice in theory, but the interesting thing about combat is that a lot of times you have to do what you can with what you have. Sometimes you do not have the luxury of string flanking forces. In this case, I did, and they did EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO DO!! They flushed out the bad guys, and demolished them.

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

OTOH, if the potential flanking positions are too far to the side to actually walk grunts through without unduly diluting your schwerepunkt, you should use a smokescreen to block all distant LOS to your exposed flank. Guess what? Not only will this smokescreen block the LOS of any ATGs on yonder ridge, it will also block your tanks' LOS to any gamey crew sorties from that same area.

Oh, so now we should drop kilometer long smokescreens to screen off all potential enemy forces ffrom our own stupid troops who are too dumb to let the flank security deal with the flanks?

Why don't we just call in a Tactical nuke strike while we are at it? I guess anyone who doesn;t have a few thousand smoke shells to screen both sides of their force completely off should not be allowed to attack.

This is ridiculous. You do not just randomly start dropping smoke liek that because you are concnerned that if you do not your vanguard might decide to turn his hull perpendicular to the spot where he knows there are enenmy AT assets.

You are contriving some fantasy-land field manual situation and then demanding that anyone who cannot fulfill those criteria is a poor tactician and deserves whatever ridiculous result the TacAI hands him.

Can you say apologetics?

quote]

If you are on the defense, you should certainly know that the main tactic of the attacker is the envelopment. That means he is going to try to move stuff up onto your flank, as surely as the sun rises. You have 2 main options to defeat this tactic: smash the flanking force BEFORE it reaches your flank, or fall back to your alternate position BEFORE you are enveloped. If you simply sit in place and allow yourself to be enveloped, you are playing directly into the enemy's hands.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not even REMOTELY!!!!

The very best tactic is to set an ambush, let the flamking force close in, and wipe it out.

You see, there is not some pat answer for these situations. They depend on too many variables for you to just categorically claim that these are the proper tactics all the time.

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

So by using proper combined-arms tactics, you eliminate the possibility of the type of gamesmanship you fear in this case. You should be using proper tactics anyway because they are what you need vs. non-gamey players. Don't let your knowledge of unit prices in QBs entice you to let your guard down after counting X kills. You never really know what the enemy has until it's over.

Now put your rifle over your head and doubletime around this bloody assembly area until you drop bloody dead

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I suggest you go spend some more time playing and less time reading the Idiots Guide to Small Unit Tactics.

You cannot possible determine that tactically validity of any action based on some pat little forumla.

Jeff Heidman

[JoePrivate]

A couple points here as I think this discussion is broadening into something other than simply hull rotation.

It is good tactics to engage an enemy from multiple angles. It is good tactics to *avoid* being engaged from multiple angles. I don't think that's in question or needs going into.

CM is a game, a great one, but still a game. The TacAI, IMO, has been programmed to act reasonably well for all units in most situations, for which it does a commendable job of. The TacAI doesn't act intelligently in specific circumstances, it has limitations. It is not aware of the battlefield as a whole, units act idependently of each other, not as part of a force with specific roles.

I sympathize with Jeff's example, I have seen it myself. It can't be written off as bad tactics, it *is* a limitation of the TacAI. His solution of putting certain decisions into the player's hands sounds reasonable and simple, yet we aren't the programmer or designer. Only BTS is familiar with the code as a whole and what net effects a change will have on the game, or even what is possible. Is CM 'broken' as is? Hell no, it works very well overall, the best I have seen. We as the players can work with the current limitations, suffering no loss of enjoyment, and still advocate for further improvements. Hopefully BTS is listening and sees it as a concern also.

[Bruno Weiss]

Well, I surely didn't start this one. But to me it is all something of an issue of who's on first? The AI, or the player? More specifically, the question in need of an answer is; where does the AI leave off, and the player come in? I'm not offering an answer, just the question I believe needed an answer prior to 1.1.

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"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)

[This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 01-13-2001).]

[Maximus]

Fellas,

I still don't see a major problem with this situation.

I see some of you talking about using the ROTATE command to "Micro-manage" the AFVs hull movement. I, in fact, have not used ROTATE in this manner hardly ever. I use it on AT-guns and infantry to rotate a certain way after moving to a new location.

I thought the whole idea of CM's Tac-AI was to do whatever it took to keep our little men alive during the movie phase, unlike the other RTS's where you had to do it yourself in real-time. IMO, this "fixed" feature just has added something else that we don't have to *worry* about. Hey the Tac-AI does it for us now, cool!

But just one question though. Have you guys played enough games with this feature in? It sounds like you haven't.

And Jeff H., in your example, your Panther engaged what *it* could see--not what *you* could see. Big difference. Also, all these examples such as these, seem to be coming from German tanks with slow turrets. Try a few games with fast turreted vehicles and you'll see that they do not rotate their hulls. So in this case, the AI works as it should, to bring slow turrets' guns to bear more quickly onto whatever target they wish to fire at.

Another thing is that everyone seems to be worried about it turning to engage crews (I assume you're talking about bailed out crews). In all the games that I have played, since b22(3) and v1.1, the tanks have *never* rotated their hulls do MG down crews. I'm sure the TC can tell if he sees a few men running like scared hampsters screaming, "Let's get the hell outta here!" they aren't gonna perceive that as a threat.

I really think that everybody "against" this new fix is really reading to much into it and also putting their units into predicaments that even the best AI would have a problem with. Basically, you all are accusing the AI for mistakes on your behalf. Keep your vehicles out of these situations and then you won't have a problem with it. In fact, I think you'll like it, once you get used to it.

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"Live by the sword, live a good LOOONG life!"-Minsc, BGII

"Boo points, I punch."--Minsc, BGII

[Bullethead]

Tiger said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Seriously you can not sit there and just say "well you shouldn't have let that enemy infantry advance there in the first place". That's very patronizing, pretentious, and as far as the game goes this is something fairly common, esp with the map sizes in CMBO<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, we obviously think about battles in different ways. Over the years, the USMC has brainwashed me into thinking as follows: the enemy is no better than I am and operates under the same set of physical laws as I do, and that there is always a solution to every problem. Therefore, all battles are an even match and the winner is the guy who best employs his units. And because I'm supposed to know the best way to employ my units because that's my job and what've I've been trained for, the only way I can lose is if I screw up.

Because I lose some battles, I must accept the fact that I screwed them up. This enables me more easily to do better next time by finding and correcting my errors, which I believe are the main cause of my defeats, because I KNOW such errors exist if I lose (and even if I win, for that matter).

Does this philosophy always correspond to reality? No. Naturally, sometimes it's just your turn in the barrel, even if you choose to believe otherwise. However, this philosophy is a lot better in terms of long-term tactical improvement, and a lot closer to the truth IMHO, than starting from the position that you did everything right so the problem must lie with the game system.

Anyway, from that POV, what's pretentious and patronizing about pointing out a simple fact? If the enemy is advancing to flank you, he is going to keep on until he achieves his purpose unless you stop him. So if you don't want him flanking you, you have to do something about it. If you don't, then you shouldn't complain about him being there, because you shouldn't have let him do it. Simple as that.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Where the hell is someone supposed to back up to when these situations develop Bullethead? Off the map? Sorry, don't have that luxury.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Being able to maneuver is usually more important than being able to shoot. So if your units don't have sufficient elbow room to maneuver in all directions if needed, then you either put them in the wrong place to start with (or are using gamey map edge hugging) or were driven into a corner a result of your errors earlier in the game.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Tartgeting infantry 498m away on an unexposed flank is something that needs to be looked at, esp when given move orders in the opposite direction.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now with this I tend to agree. Not just for tanks, but for all units. It REALLY pisses me off when grunts, for example, open up on something halfway across the map which they have no hope of hurting. It's just a waste of ammo and it gives away their position. I would like to see units think more in terms of their sectors of fire in relation to your whole force.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[chrisl]

I'm another one who likes the hull rotation (though I haven't played with 1.1 yet). There were actually some semi-bugs with older versions that are corrected now by the hull rotation (And I've done a few tests to verify).

One is that the non-turreted PSW234/3 used to get its gun on target faster than the PSW234/2 (Puma), which is turreted with a slow turret, and mounted on the same chassis. This made the turretless 234/3 much more effective than the turreted Puma. In a contrived example, requiring a full 180 rotation, the /3 was about to get off its second shot when the Puma finally got on target. In 1.1 the Puma has smoked the target before the /3 can get targeted.

I did similar tests with a Panther in 1.05, and already in that version the Panther would rotate its hull (I'd seen that in earlier versions as well). There was a problem with panthers in 1.05 in that they would rotate the turret and then the hull rotation would take the turret a little past the target, requiring a slight turret rotation back (and increasing the time to first shot). This is also corrected: when the hull and turret rotate together, the turret stops rotating when the gun is on target and stays there (at least in the same test I did before). This means you get shots on the target a lot (a few seconds) faster than before.

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Slayer of the Original Cesspool Thread.