BTS Please...Group Waypoints in CMAK

[Andreas]

Of course I have used group move. It is a useful tool. I can also see the absolute reason behind a 'follow the recon squad in column' or 'follow the leader on the road' command ideas, and I think these would be very interesting additions to the game.

I fail to see any benefit, in the sort of battles I am playing, from a simple extension of the current group move order to allow further waypoints. One waypoint is always enough, and sometimes too much already. I would not use it, because on smaller maps you really have to look for the terrain and match your movement paths to it.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Andreas:

I fail to see any benefit, in the sort of battles I am playing, from a simple extension of the current group move order to allow further waypoints. One waypoint is always enough, and sometimes too much already. I would not use it, because on smaller maps you really have to look for the terrain and match your movement paths to it.

Okay, thanks for bothering to clarify. For myself, I would find removing the limitations for group move useful. I seldom move squads far from the rest of their platoon, because I think it's always a good idea to keep them all within command distance and able to support eachother. As a platoon is the most basic tactical element for me, I also move them that way. And as I often find myself giving them a group move (of whiches waypoints I then usually move around a bit) to begin with and then additional waypoints to units, it would be ideal for me to be able to just use the group move.

As in CMBB there is an increasing command delay for the more waypoints you give, the original reasoning by Martin seems to me to fall a bit short. Maybe it was meant that way for CMBO, but now I fail to understand it as anything else than an annoying limitation.

Not that I wouldn't see a difficulty in implementation. What if you first select group A and give them waypoints, then you select group B which includes some of the units of group A (say, unit A1)? As the game wouldn't keep a record of whether the waypoints of unit A1 have been given as a part of group A or group B (because these groups are not physical like platoons, they are just selections), it would either have to add the group B waypoints to the continuation of group A waypoints, or it would have to erase any earlier waypoints, like it does at the moment. Maybe a solution could be to have groups be able to have multiple waypoints only when given consequently with clicks of the right mouse button, but if you later try to give them new waypoints, you have to start from scratch.

Btw. I usually play battles of around 800-1500 points magnitude.

[ May 27, 2003, 07:56 AM: Message edited by: Sergei ]

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Andreas:

What is the point of having the order then? I genuinely don't understand it. It does not take away any of the requirements for micro-management.

The point is to take away the tedium of having to give basically identical orders to a number of units. Say you want to move up reinforcements along a covered route (no incoming fire). Your approach would be to issue individual group moves over several turns, others want to define the whole path at once. I fail to see how the latter desire is unjustified.

Personally I would like to discuss the implementation of such a successive group move, a discussion I tried to trigger some replies earlier. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have any interest in the actual problems associated with the implementation of the order, but rather fall into flamethrowing mode over their personal preferences.

Take the "Follow Vehicle" order, for example. How are the vehicles supposed to have a concept of the order they are supposed to maintain. Even worse, lets assume that some vehicles are not even on the same road as the lead vehicles when they are issued the order. Who is to be prioritized. What rules are applied to sort out the convoy order. It sounds like a fairly complex (optimization?) problem to even build a working convoy from individual vehicles.

I think that a "Follow Road" command would be very easy to implement in terms of modifying "terrain cost" in favor of road tiles in the pathfinding algorithm. But I guess that the current pathfinder is programmed such as to follow the plotted path as closely as possible, thereby saving computation time by being restricted to obstacle avoidance. In this case, "Follow Road" would be quite difficult to implement since it ran against the basic philosophy of the pathfinder.

Regards,

Thomm

[Lou2000]

Personally I dont much like the group move command as it is (and I dont think that extra waypoints would improve it much) ..... I always end up adjusting the individual squads final waypoint from that given during the group move so it's not much of a time saver for me.....

I'd much prefer to see a 'Find Route' command with additional options like 'Find Quickest' where the units move by the quickest means to the waypoint or 'Find Safest' where they would find their own way using all available cover ... without me having to adjust the individual waypoints by a few meters to 'tell' them to use the trees rather than walking in open ground.

But thats only my opinion.. and I'd really dont want to argue about it

If these are the sort of CMBB 'problems' that are now being hotly discussed, BFC can feel proud of their product ..... I mean, clicking the mouse 3 times instead of one, is hardly a game stopper is it

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

Personally I would like to discuss the implementation of such a successive group move, a discussion I tried to trigger some replies earlier. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have any interest in the actual problems associated with the implementation of the order, but rather fall into flamethrowing mode over their personal preferences.

Take the "Follow Vehicle" order, for example. How are the vehicles supposed to have a concept of the order they are supposed to maintain.

That's rather easy:

1st vehicle gets command.

2nd vehicle gets command to follow 1st vehicle (on its footsteps, not always driving the direct way towards that vehicle, esp. on road bends)

3rd vehicle gets command to follow 2nd vehicle.

etc.

It is important that the AI sets the waypoints so the following vehicle gets the same waypoints than the leader. Modification of waypoints during action phase (ie during computation phase) for the leader means modifcation for the follower.

The problem of getting to the start point of the leader would be to give waypoints for the follower to the leaders position - either as "follow road till there" or as individual waypoints.

To get rid of potential problems with "A follows B follows C follows A", you could not set a follow command to a vehicle that does lead already, meaning you have to start with one leader and give successive orders - or the AI has to check if there are cross-references and refuse orders then during order phase.

The "follow road command" would have to find a road, plot the way with a "keep left" for the Brits and a "keep right" for the rest uf us, resulting in total confusion once Brits and Amis move towards each other.

For any scenarios titled Villers-Bocage, the Germans are allowed to mess up their SOP and drive on the left side, or the Brits are polite enough to give way to Wittmann's Tiger.

Even worse, lets assume that some vehicles are not even on the same road as the lead vehicles when they are issued the order. Who is to be prioritized. What rules are applied to sort out the convoy order. It sounds like a fairly complex (optimization?) problem to even build a working convoy from individual vehicles.

IMHO, the above solves this problem.

I think that a "Follow Road" command would be very easy to implement in terms of modifying "terrain cost" in favor of road tiles in the pathfinding algorithm. But I guess that the current pathfinder is programmed such as to follow the plotted path as closely as possible, thereby saving computation time by being restricted to obstacle avoidance. In this case, "Follow Road" would be quite difficult to implement since it ran against the basic philosophy of the pathfinder.

Regards,

Thomm

Pathfinder already modifies path by quite a lot. If the path is rather long or one waypoint is on an obstacle or an obstacle moves the path to far from the user set path, the AI does a remarkable job of finding a path along good cover.

Gruß

Joachim

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Scarhead:

That's rather easy:

1st vehicle gets command.

2nd vehicle gets command to follow 1st vehicle (on its footsteps, not always driving the direct way towards that vehicle, esp. on road bends)

3rd vehicle gets command to follow 2nd vehicle.

etc.

It is important that the AI sets the waypoints so the following vehicle gets the same waypoints than the leader. Modification of waypoints during action phase (ie during computation phase) for the leader means modifcation for the follower.

The problem of getting to the start point of the leader would be to give waypoints for the follower to the leaders position - either as "follow road till there" or as individual waypoints.

To get rid of potential problems with "A follows B follows C follows A", you could not set a follow command to a vehicle that does lead already, meaning you have to start with one leader and give successive orders - or the AI has to check if there are cross-references and refuse orders then during order phase.

The "follow road command" would have to find a road, plot the way with a "keep left" for the Brits and a "keep right" for the rest uf us, resulting in total confusion once Brits and Amis move towards each other.

For any scenarios titled Villers-Bocage, the Germans are allowed to mess up their SOP and drive on the left side, or the Brits are polite enough to give way to Wittmann's Tiger.

IMHO, the above solves this problem.

Pathfinder already modifies path by quite a lot. If the path is rather long or one waypoint is on an obstacle or an obstacle moves the path to far from the user set path, the AI does a remarkable job of finding a path along good cover.

I don't know what actually triggers the AI to override my command - but I want to trigger that manually by a move in cover command. And such a command would end most problems I have with group move - isuue it to a group and forget. If the AI scatters your units - curse and think that that's pretty authentic.

Gruß

Joachim

[Hat Trick]

Snipped:

Originally posted by Sergei:

As in CMBB there is an increasing command delay for the more waypoints you give, the original reasoning by Martin seems to me to fall a bit short. Maybe it was meant that way for CMBO, but now I fail to understand it as anything else than an annoying limitation.

Exactly.

[Redwolf]

I don't like Martin's explanation at all.

The supposedly realistic delay that the lack of this feature is causing is at plot time, not at turn excution time.

There is no realism improvement fro the lack of this feature because the player can give all these waypoints for all these units unit-by-unit anyway. Same waypoints, more plot time. The result at turn execution time is exactly the same same as if we had a group command feature.