AI's luck with Panzershrecks

[Danny Chung]

Anyone notice this phenomenon?

Whenever I go as Russians against the German AI, the AI always seems to manage to get lucky shots at longer ranges with his panzershrecks.

I was playing one of the Seelow Heights battles when one of his panzershreck men managed to knock out my T34/85 at a range of 188m! I may have read read it wrong but it was way over 150m.

Whenever I play Germans I always instruct my panszershreck men to wait until the target is within about 80-90m, in order to have greater chance of a hit.

Even then they sometimes miss.

Exasperating!

Danny

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Keef:

Anyone notice this phenomenon?

Whenever I go as Russians against the German AI, the AI always seems to manage to get lucky shots at longer ranges with his panzershrecks.

I was playing one of the Seelow Heights battles when one of his panzershreck men managed to knock out my T34/85 at a range of 188m! I may have read read it wrong but it was way over 150m.

Whenever I play Germans I always instruct my panszershreck men to wait until the target is within about 80-90m, in order to have greater chance of a hit.

Even then they sometimes miss.

Exasperating!

Danny

The AI usually does not restrict its range - and it seems to pay.

If the AI has 5 Schrecks it has 25 shots. If each has a only low 4% chance, this will lead to one expected hit. If you don't take these chances, you can't compare it to "human player" data. Try to do the same, add some good combat bonus HQ and see how it works. Maybe Schrecks get the same bonus as guns for consecutive shots at the same target. Try that influence, too. If this has different results on a big enough sample, you can complain about the AIs luck.

Gruß

Joachim

[Ant]

This is what I call the sod's law (Murphy's law) bug. It states that the AI will mostly perform better than the human player with any weapon system you care to mention: schrecks, tanks, AT guns, you name it. It's even spawned a few threads a while back about the AI cheating. Extensive tests have proved that the AI doesn't cheat. BFC have said that it doesn't and there's no reason to disbelieve them. Nevertheless I often notice that the AI seems to consistantly get better luck than I do.

[Sergei]

Actually, what we players don't see, is that when the AI loses, it just quits and re-loads the whole situation. As we are just players, we don't notice that the computer warps the time continuum, and think that it's a first shot hit. It was really the 789th try.

Also, I'm not sure if CM functions the way it should. Maybe real WW2 battles were an exact reversal of what we see in these games. Sure, there's authentic footage, but maybe it's shown the wrong way! Maybe real tanks were just burned up wrecks, which attacked people passing by by shooting a shot at them (these were specially designed so that they had rocket engines that slowed down the shot so that the victim wasn't hurt), then these tanks reversed their ways all the way to a factory where they were taken into pieces, pieces were made into metal bars, those in turn were melted and then pieces of ore were used to absorb all the melt iron into them. The ore was then ditched into mining shafts and the mines buried. It all makes sense when you watch documentaries the way they originally were.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Scarhead:

Maybe Schrecks get the same bonus as guns for consecutive shots at the same target.

No, at least not in CMBO when I last tried it.

Weapons that are taken off target for reloading don't get zeroing in bonus.

[Cabron66]

Fluctuations in the time continuum in CM? Profound, dude. Profound and...deep. Yeah.

[GRUMLIN]

Pah! puny AI. In one game against a nameless oppo I had a shrek boy take TWO t34s down from well over 130M. admittedly, both were rear shots, but even so.....

Grum

[Warmaker]

Use a bit of caution & risk assessment. "Is it worth the risk?", I say.

Don't blame or rely on luck when something happens for bad decisions.

[SgtMuhammed]

I think the AI's seeming luck is kind of like breaking up with a girl. You remember the bad parts a lot longer than the good. If you really look I think you will see that it all balances out.

I have had the computer KO my tanks from nearly 200 meters and I have also had my tank hunter squads throw and RPG from 50 meters while sprinting from building to building and still kill an enemy tank.

Sometimes you are the windshield....

[Danny Chung]

The thing about opening up with the panzershrecks at their extreme range is that usually it identifies itself as a priority target for any accompanying tanks and infantry.

I usually try and fix it so that the panzershreck engages a tank that is alone (or with minimum support), you know funnelling the suckers into defender friendly killing zones and such like.

It gets on my nerves when my panzershreck opens up, misses (at close range) and then gets himself offed for his trouble when the building he's in gets blown up.

I'll try linking them up with battle bonus HQs as suggested earlier by one you fellows, if that's of any help. I also tend to agree about repeated firing at a target improving the accuracy. But when you only got five rounds firing at extreme range...

I guess that's part of the fun for CMBB, the unpredictability. You think it's a sure hit and then he misses (all 5 rounds).

Danny

[xerxes]

Of course the AI has better luck than you. That's a simple extension of the well known "Law of Low Numbers" which states that for every lucky shot you pull off, your opponent (human or ai, no difference) will get at least two lucky shots. Think back about how many times you can remember your opponent getting that 1 in a 1000 lucky result. Think how many times you've gotten that lucky. Not even close

It all makes sense. It's true for all CM players. It's a conundrum.

[Ant]

I think it should be an option for QB setups 'How lucky are you from 1 to 10' You can purchase luck in much the same way as units. Just think of it. You can only afford one Panzer IV but you've made it such a lucky bleeder that it always pulls off those seemingly impossible kills and always manages to avoid getting hit

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Keef:

The thing about opening up with the panzershrecks at their extreme range is that usually it identifies itself as a priority target for any accompanying tanks and infantry.

I usually try and fix it so that the panzershreck engages a tank that is alone (or with minimum support), you know funnelling the suckers into defender friendly killing zones and such like.

It gets on my nerves when my panzershreck opens up, misses (at close range) and then gets himself offed for his trouble when the building he's in gets blown up.

I'll try linking them up with battle bonus HQs as suggested earlier by one you fellows, if that's of any help. I also tend to agree about repeated firing at a target improving the accuracy. But when you only got five rounds firing at extreme range...

I guess that's part of the fun for CMBB, the unpredictability. You think it's a sure hit and then he misses (all 5 rounds).

Danny

Open up from a range where the Schreck can hide again. Give a run/advance command out of LOS. Increase the command delay so the Schreck gets of 1 or 2 shots. Make sure LOS breaks after 1 or 2 m of running. Maybe even issue a "sneak" command for those 1-2 m. If he's in a building, retreat out of it after say 30secs - preferably into other cover or the foxhole the Schreck started in behind the house.

This tactic keeps 2-3 shots for close range fighting - seems you don't gett off more than that before the Schreck gets wasted anyway.

The HQ bonus is effective. Just a few percent for hitting (there was a thread in the forum - try a search for details).

For each bonus level, a squad acts like a squad one experience level higher:

A regular squad with a combat bonus will fight (and hit) like a vet, a double combat bonus increases that to crack. Same goes for hiding - hiding like a crack squad can make the difference in getting spotted.

Gruß

Joachim