Why wont my men obey my orders?

[Rudy]

Hello, I just love the CM games, but sometimes it gets frustrating when my men wont follow my orders. Example... I had 5 tanks near a forest, and I ordered button up due to snipers in the area. But after a little while the tankers all popped their heads up, and all 5 tank commanders became casualties. I wanted them to stay in the tanks! Another example... I had a squad using all their ammo on a single enemy soldier hidding in a wood. The enemy was a crew member of a mortar, and was no longer a threat,so each turn I ordered my squad to stop firing at him, but they fire each turn and used up all their bullets. I wish they had a dont fire command.

[Wildass69]

They do. Set their "arc of fire" command not to include the benign enemy unit.

Can't help with the button up problem - I have the same.

[Seanachai]

What sort of tanks, and for which side? Keep in mind that the Russian tanks are all about unable to spot or maintain C&C unless they're unbuttoned (no radios). Thus you get the 'prairie dog' behaviour of them buttoning in order to fire, then popping open to find out what's going on, etc.

Also, despite the horror of kacked TCs, any tank is more capable and more likely to react well to threats if it's unbuttoned. And just because you're aware of that sniper in the woods doesn't mean your little digital men are. They're reacting to the situation to within the limits of the needs of their combat tasks and knowledge.

Combat Mission simulates the Real World. An abstracted game in which the player has total control and units behave exactly the same in every situation regardless of other stimuli might give you the control you seek. Chess is good.

Or wargames by lesser companies.

[Hans]

Those units tend to act (within the limits of the AI) like real NCO's and soldiers, they tend to ignore junior officers! This includes doing stupid things.....repeatedly.

[Ant]

My God Seanachai that was actually a constructive and informative post. How do you expect all the newbies to start hating you if you go around helping them out?

The tank commander thing is a bit of an annoyance on occasion. In CMBO when you ordered a TC to button up, or if he buttoned up automatically, he wouldn't unbutton until you ordered him too as there wasn't an AI routine for unbuttoning. This was fine for the human player who could decide when to button/unbutton, but unfortunately if you were playing against the computer then the computer AI couldn't unbutton once its tanks had buttoned. Which was a great disadvantage for the computer as a tank's spotting ability and situational awareness is greatly reduced when buttoned.

This would be an even bigger problem for CMBB because many of the early war Russian tanks had no radios and were therefore out of command when buttoned, so BFC needed to write in an AI unbuttoning routine for CMBB. So now the AI will automatically unbutton if it thinks that it's relatively safe to do so. This is better for the computer as it's tanks can now unbutton and therefore gain the spotting and (for early Russian tanks) command benefits. Unfortunately, the human player also has to use the same AI routine, which means TCs popping their heads back up after you've ordered them to button up.

They actually improved this with the last patch. If you order a tank to button now it actually stays buttoned for at least 1min regardless. Previously the TC could, and frequently would, unbutton himself almost immediately. As I said it's sometimes an annoyance but is realistic. Casualties among TCs were very high in WW2.

[ October 29, 2003, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Ant ]

[Dave H]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

What sort of tanks, <big>(SNIP)</big>

Chess is good.

Or wargames by lesser companies.

Okay Cabron, what have you done with him? This is obviously not the work of Seanachai. Not a song, not a rhyme, not even a mention of drinking. It even makes sense. Clearly a forgery, and a poor one at that. :mad:

Rudy, one of the true beauties of Combat Mission is the AI's willingness to completely ignore your orders. Anyone who feels frustrated by this has never been in a position where they had to try to get a group of people to work together for a common goal. Your digital soldiers, like real people, are looking out for themselves first. Sometimes this causes them to make fatal mistakes, like your tank commanders. Sometimes they save their necks when you have ordered them into a suicidal predicament. As someone masquerading as Seanachai said above, if you feel that you need total control of your soldiers, there are other places to find it.

[MikeyD]

I think I posted on another topic that someone once said that commanding conscript troops was like trying to herd cats.

Conscript and green troops are more likely to do something stupid on their own than veteran/crack units. Tanks without cupolas or radios are more likely to do the 'groundhog' buttoning and unbuttoning.

As a test try turning off all your play aids during a game, keep your view on level one, and don't roam beyond your own forward troops. All of a sudden the battlefield becomes infinitely more complex and confusing! No wonder your virtual soldiers keep messing up!

[ October 29, 2003, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Rudy]

Thanks guys, I guess your right, a commander cant completely control every single man. Im just so used to playing the war games from the 90s, games like the panzer general series, that I forgot how realistic the new computer games are getting. I have to remember that my men are not robots and may behave unexpectedly.

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Ant:

My God Seanachai that was actually a constructive and informative post. How do you expect all the newbies to start hating you if you go around helping them out?

Sod off, you lot! You too, Dave H, don't think I don't see you buggering about down there.

It was late, I was tired, and the dog ate my notes about just how bloody awful the Goodalers are, so I had to ad-lib something in a regular thread.

Besides, we of the Peng Challenge Thread have a long and honourable history of helping people in threads (other than the Cesspool itself).

I may not be a Grog, but I do play the bloody game, I've been playing it for donkey's years now, and I've been reading this Forum for even longer than that. Say, a parrot's years. Give or take a year or two.

So I'm at least as capable of answering 'basic' questions as you lot of soiled ladies undergarments.

And I'm only 'rude' to those who come in here and start off like God handing out tablets on the mountainside.

Sigh. It's not working, is it? Er...well, let me see...

RUDY, YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE MAN! ARE YOU BLAMING YOUR CREWS FOR YOUR OWN FAILURE TO TAKE ALL CONDITIONS INTO ACCOUNT?! BLOODY WELL RIGHT YOU ARE, LAD!

It was still a good question, though.

[Redwolf]

Be sure you have the 1.03 patch.

In 1.03, if you order a tank to button up it will stay buttoned at least for one full turn.

So just just have to revisit every buttoned tank every turn, open it and close it again.

[MikeyD]

Yeh, I was going to mention the 1.03 patch but I saw Rudy was a 'junior member' which implied a recent up-to-date purchase. One of the advantages of coming to the party late is he's no doubt picked up the game after the bugs were all worked out!