exploiting relative spotting to simulate AOs

[pamak1970]

I write this post to express my thoughts asking the members (and designers of course) to consider

if the feature i propose is considered important, If the idea, way to simulate it "makes sense"

and if it can be programmed with a reasonable effort.

I have read some threads in the past about various ways to insert the concept of areas of operations in the game (AoO).

Some use the name "command zones".

Although there was not a direct reply by the designers, i feel that they are not so eager to deal with this.

I noticed for example that their philosophy in general is against any artificial"- gamey limitations imposed on players in order to simulate a concept and i understand their point of view.

Using their philosophy as a point of start, i was thinking of ways to introduce this concept in the game.

My personal opinion is that AoOs are important enough to justify a reasonable amount of effort to simulate them, but since i am not a programmer i can not give the definition of " reasonable".

Therefore i will present my intial thoughts and let others decide.

We know that orders by most command levels define a certain area or zone for their subordinates to operate.

Among other advantages the AoO as a method of control of friendly units,helps preventing friendly fire incidents.

At the same time looking this from the opposite side of view, it helps engage enemy targets.

Units inside the same AoO are units of the same parent formation and have a better understanding of their position in relation with the position of other friendly units operating in the same AoO.

They have participated in common briefings before the start of operations when orders were issued, they have a better understanding of the mission of other friendly units in their area, they operate very often in the same command net ( radio frequencies) and get a quicker update of the movements of other friendly units.

All the above help them in identifying more easy the enemy positions and units and therefore engage them more quickly compared to situations when they have to engage "targets" inside AoOs of neighbour units.

The above is the main basis of my idea to simulate AoOs.

Since the new engine can deal with LOS of individual units, i think this can be exploited to simulate some of the benefits of AoOs.

In other words , if a unit spots a target

outside its AoO,it will have a much slower response (AI issue) to engage it.

If this happens then it will be obvious that the proper designation of AoOs (new type of command for the game) will be a crucial decision for the player and although there will be no rule to restrict him from quickly changing orientation , crossing boundaries and start engaging units on the other side of the map, still the disadvantage of slower response times to engage targets will discourage him.

The player could still be able to form new boundaries in order to redirect units during the battles and assign new AoOs but this type of command will neeed a significant time for execution (multiple turns)and therefore it will require anticipation and preparation.

Now this idea certainly needs some type of calibration and adjustments.

For the moment i am thinking of using it only in a battalion level (for multi battalions scenarios) so that things do not become complicated.

There will be some specific conditions that should be treated in a different way.

Two examples come to my mind for right now

First if a unit spots a target that fires on that unit, then there is no reason to suffer the delay penalty to fire back at that target even if it is located outside the AoO.

Second , if the target is deep and relative far away from the "expected" position of all other friendly units , there should not be any delay-hesitation for the friendly firing unit regarding the status of the target and it should engage the target without any delay even if it is outiside the AoO.

Now how can someone define this expression "deep and relative far way" inside the game?

One thought ( most compromises) i guess is to link the area of uncertainty with the time ellapsed.

For example,assuming that the set up zone for the friendly force at the beginning of the battle is south.

Then for the first turns any targets located anywhere in the northern 3/4 of the map is easily identified as hostile and there is no reason for any delay to engage it regardless if it is inside the friendly AoO or not .

After some time the same will apply inside only the northern half of the map.

After some time the same will apply inside only the northern 1/4 of the map and so on up to the time when any target anywhere inside the map will cause a delay to any friendly unit firing outside its AoO.

I can present other thoughts on the above but for the moment it is not nessesary.

First i would like to see reactions to see if people are really interested on what i presented until now.

After that we can talk about details.

[ August 08, 2005, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[Sergei]

Interesting.

I have one question, though:

What are AO's??? :confused:

[pamak1970]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Interesting.

I have one question, though:

What are AO's??? :confused:

Area of operation.

In other posts they call it "command zone".

In real life it is the area, zone defined by the boundaries assigned to subordinate units.

[Sergei]

Oh yeah, now I realized that you explained this in the third paragraph. I was thinking of an explanation like "Artillery Officer" or some such... dumb dumb dumb.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by pamak1970:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sergei:

Interesting.

I have one question, though:

What are AO's??? :confused:

Area of operation.

In other posts they call it "command zone".

In real life it is the area, zone defined by the boundaries assigned to subordinate units. </font>

[pamak1970]

Perhaps you might edit the first post and call it AoO (Area of Operation...)

or not [smile]

Done.

[Michael Dorosh]

Something like this, eh?

But any attempt to impose on the player a need to stay within an operational boundary will be artificial - won't it? And most of the effects would be stuff not portrayed in-game. Tactically, it doesn't matter if a rifle platoon of Number Three Company flanks a Russian MG on the front of the 5th Company (incidentally from another battalion of the regiment), but the supply sergeant and Company Sergeant of the 3rd Company would want to know where they end up in order to send ammunition up; the company commander would want to know their disposition, and the wounded would need to know a safe route back to the wounded nests.

But what kinds of penalties in game terms do you propose to impose on a rifle platoon that sensibly takes advantage of the ground out of tactical necessity and strays from his trace?

[JonS]

Pamak, feel free to change it back. AO is the standard, accepted abbreviation.

Dorosh

any attempt to impose on the player a need to stay within an operational boundary will be artificial

True, but traces are artificial constructs, used solely to 'organise' the battlefield. You can't really poice, enforce, or penalise their use, but you can indicate tham and make them 'house rules'. If players choose to use them, so much the better, if not, ... *shrug* the sun will still rise tomorrow.

In a CMBB scen I created ("Pt 238", once available from the website formerly known as TSD) I marked out the attackers trace with *** lines, and put some 'rules' into the brieifng about what the limits were and what constraints that put on the player. If anyone wants to see it I can email it out to you.

Regards

JonS

[Dave H]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

But what kinds of penalties in game terms do you propose to impose on a rifle platoon that sensibly takes advantage of the ground out of tactical necessity and strays from his trace?

I think the obvious penalty for a rifle platoon drifting outside its AO/AoO would be misidentification as an enemy unit. That's because it would be sighted in an area "known" to be free of friendly units. Friendly fire seems like a pretty stiff - and realistic - penalty for wandering around the battlefield.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Dave H:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

But what kinds of penalties in game terms do you propose to impose on a rifle platoon that sensibly takes advantage of the ground out of tactical necessity and strays from his trace?

I think the obvious penalty for a rifle platoon drifting outside its AO/AoO would be misidentification as an enemy unit. That's because it would be sighted in an area "known" to be free of friendly units. Friendly fire seems like a pretty stiff - and realistic - penalty for wandering around the battlefield. </font>

[JonS]

Other penalties:

* orders delay.

* FO unable to call down fire outside AO

* ...

Thinking about the FO thing got me to thinking aboout AOs in general. They tend to be layered.

- So a pn AO is quite small.

- A coy AO is a bit bigger, and encompasses it's three pn AOs and possibly a bit extra.

- A Bn AO encompasses its 3 or 4 coy AOs, and possibly a bit extra.

- A Bde or Regt AO encompasses it's 3 Bn AOs, and possibly a bit extra.

- A Div AO encompasses its 3 Bde AOs, and possibly a bit extra.

- A Corps AO ...

Anyway, getting back to the FO. A Pn should obviously be 'stuck' within it's own AO, but a FO should be able to move around and shoot in any AO at it's own level or lower.

- So, a basic coy level FO (cheap, plentiful) from div arty would be with the Coy HQ, and useable anywhere in the Coy AO.

- A Bty Commander FO (BC - only 9 in a div) would be at Bn HQ, and useable anywhere in the Bn AO.

- A Regimental Commander (CO - only 3 in a div) would be at Bde HQ, and useable anywhere within the Bde AO,

- and a CRA (one only in a div) would be useable anywhere within the Div AO.

You might also reasonably say that for the US and UK in the last couple of years (say, '43-'45) they can also fire into adjacent AOs, reflecting their superior org and comms.

And the same kind of arrangements would apply for other divisional level assets: engrs, A-Tk, recce, etc.

Higher and lower level assets (e.g., corps arty from an AGRA, or regimental cannon coys in US inf regts, or bn mtr pns) could also be handled in a similar fashion.

It'd give you a way to start reflecting national differences too - the lower a unit is attached, the more restrictions it has in terms of which AOs it can move into or fire into. See also the US/UK example a couple of paras up.

[Michael Dorosh]

Interesting Jon but I wonder if some of that isn't beyond the scope of CM.

Case in point - a FOO going forward with a rifle company sees an enemy company massing in open ground - a Mike Target. He goes to call the fire in, but his battery commander nixes it because the Mike Roger is 100 yards outside the infantry company's boundary.

Well, in real life the battery commander wouldn't care what the infantry company's trace was, or at least insofar as deciding not to shoot on identified enemy targets. But in CM, you would have the inexplicable situation of not being able to call in an observed strike with an in-game FO because the strike point was outside an imaginary boundary. In this particular instance, it doesn't seem like an appropriate restriction.

The smart scenario designer, of course, would make the AO of the FOO conform to the entire map, so perhaps there are ways around that and I am merely dreaming up a worst case scenario.

Unless of course - should have thought of this before I started posting - the FOO has his own "AO" - but I would have thought such things would be more related to ROE (a modern term) rather than geographical boundaries. However, you were the one to suggest not being able to shoot outside the AO.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I wonder if some of that isn't beyond the scope of CM.

Definately - COs and CRAs are probably outside the scope, as are Corps AOs

Case in point - a FOO going forward with a rifle company sees an enemy company massing in open ground - a Mike Target.

Well, that assumes he's an athorised observer, and even allowed to call up a Mike. Which, TBH, he probably would be, but UNCLE, VICTOR, WILLIAM, and YOKE would more than likely be outside his ken.

He goes to call the fire in, but his battery commander nixes it because the Mike Roger is 100 yards outside the infantry company's boundary.

Yeah, I did think of that, which is why I said "US and UK [FOs] ... can also fire into adjacent AOs". In CM terms, that'd probably means the entire map in most circumstances, but you get the idea.

Anyway, even within the constraints of your example it probably isn't that out-there. When calling for a fire mission one needs to receive "air and ground clear" from the appropriate body before proceeding. In your own AO that's easier to get than it is outside of it.

As a specific example, you might want to put a 'no arty fire in here' AO around a village, or sumfink.

Unless of course - should have thought of this before I started posting - the FOO has his own "AO" - but I would have thought such things would be more related to ROE (a modern term) rather than geographical boundaries. However, you were the one to suggest not being able to shoot outside the AO.

Well, FOs do have Fire Support Control Lines which, while not quite the same as an AO, do serve to limit the areas where fire can be applied. Sort of like a Bomb Line.

As you say, a 'smart' designer could design around any such limitations put in place. OTOH, an equally 'smart' designer might deliberately design to them, to restrict the freedoms a player has.

* shrug *

You were the one who asked for 'ferinstances'.

Regards

JonS

[JonS]

... alternately, maybe just add a chunk of orders delay to the time to FFE for firing outside your own AO, with increasing delays the futher outside your own you get.

[pamak1970]

Tactically, it doesn't matter if a rifle platoon of Number Three Company flanks a Russian MG on the front of the 5th Company (incidentally from another battalion of the regiment),

Actually it does.

The problem is that the plattoon is not aware of the fire support plan of the neighbour company.

What if for example the neighbour company calls indirect fire in that position at the time the platoon moves inside the neighbour AO?

Or what would happen if a platoon of the neighbour company spots movement of "some soldiers" in the distance directly in front of them, in a place were they reasonably expect to see only enemy ?

The chances during the confusion of the battle to misidentify these soldiers as enemy (while they are actually friendly troops trying to flank the MG) are high .

Once i was reading one of the many tactical exersizes i have .

I have purchased dozens of them from militaryinfo.com.

These are exersizes together with their solutions from the US army infantry school (1940's)

Lot of details of how to make a decision and produce a real order counting all things and small details that are nessesary in real life up to the arrangement of radio frequencies and sign calls

I clearly recall a tactical case when during a battallion level battle , the situation demanded a reorientation of the axis of attack.

In that case, the best way to do that, was to have some subunits cross boundaries , move inside the AoO of the neighbour battallion and then enter again their original AoO to occupy their new assault positions.

The battallion commander gave orders to his stuff to contact the neighbour command and inform them about their plan asking for authorization.

He did not just sent his units over there without any type of authorizarion or approval by the neighbour commander.

In this case the regimental commander did not have any influence in this "authorization".

The issue was resolved between commanders of the battallions.

I guess the regimental commander would interfiere only if the battalion commanders could not resolve this issue between themselves.

In any case , the whole procedure of moving subunits inside the AoO of the neighbour unit was more time consuming since it required "coordination".

If the same subunits had to switch direction of movement inside the AoO of the battallion, the execution would be faster.

As long as the battallion commander had decided about the proper way to continue his attack, he did not need of course to get any type of approval from his subordinate company commaders.

He just had to inform them about the reposition of the units.

In other words he actually had to pass this information down to one level of command and give them a short time to take care of the rest ,inform their plattons and so on.

In the case of coordination with the neighbour battallion, the information had to pass first to the neighbour battallion commander.

Then the latter would require some feedback to see if such an action would impose any problems or limitations to his battleplan or the battleplan of his subordinates.

There is no "god view" here and many details are unknown since company commanders are more focused on leading their troops during the battle ,than chating in radio command nets and give detailed reports of what they are doing and how they rearrange their fires and positions.

Among others he would certainly have to contact the commander in charge of the company which was going to be "invaded" by the friendly forces) and after all these communicate with the other battalion commander who requests a passage at a certain time and informs him about his decision.

Another issue relative with the crossing on AoO is the following.

In another exersize i read about a certain tactical situation when the advance of one company was countered by fire from MGs from a neighbour AoO.

Two thing here i would like to point.

First a company commander will not decide to destroy a MG in a neighbour section if the latter is not a threat for his mission.

If his reasoning is to deviade his effort and resourses from his original course in order to help the neighbour company, he is going to be in trouble.

This a battalion level decisison.

Supposely the battallion commander has already decided that the neighbour company has sufficient assets to advance in its own territory.

The company commander lacks the information to decide about the need to help the neighbour company.

On the other hand , if a MG threatens his mission firing towards his sector, then he should reply .

Still this reply does not involve a deviation from his original movement.

In the example i read about, there was a logical sequence of events.

For example, first the commander tried to keep moving his company towards his main objective by attacking by fire the hostile MG in the neighbour AoO.

In that example , this effort failed.

So, then he contacts the neighbour company and requests a neutralization of that particular target.(both companies belonged to the same battallion )

This failed also (actually there was a group of targets).

After that, he contacted battallion and asked indirect fire towards that certain area of the neighbour company.

So we see for example that units from neighbour sectors do not affect easily the orientation of the movement.

Things are more flexible during the exploitation face but even then some type of coordination exists.

For example in the case of the company , its commander is not really aware of the overall situation of the battallion he belongs to.

His attack might develop very well,but this does not mean that the battallion is in "exploitation" mode.

It is the battallion commander who will signal this "exploitation mode" and give freedom of maneuver .

This would happen when he will commit his reserve.

A company does not have the power to both participate in an attack and continue to exploitation.

So the freedom of maneuver might eventually come and the local commander might not have to follow predetermined and rigid AoO.

It is possible that the whole area of the battallion AoO extended behind enemy lines will be his new AoO for the exploitation.

This "provilenge" will come from the battallion commander and this "freedom of movement" would be known in advance to all members of the battallion which is important for minimizing risks for friendly fire incidents.

[ August 09, 2005, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[pamak1970]

But what kinds of penalties in game terms do you propose to impose on a rifle platoon that sensibly takes advantage of the ground out of tactical necessity and strays from his trace?

First i would not expand this level to platoon level.

From what i know platoons are not assigned AoO.

The concept we already have of assigning routes using waypoints and arcs for engagements is sufficient for simulating platoon and squad responsibilites.

The lower echelon using boundaries that define a certain AoO is company.

Still i try to propose things that will not require a massive effort for designers to program them.

I would be happy if the concept is restricted only to battallion level.

I have the same attitude regarding the possible "penalties".

I guess the best would be the most simple one which in addition requires the least amount of computer power to calculate.

Many propositions i read here are really nice.

On the other hand i guess that simulating friendly fire possibilities and casualties would be more complicated.

So i guess it is more simple to go for slower responses in executing certain orders,like firing on targets outside AoO.

Still i do not know how difficult it is to program this feature.

The issue is that the game engine must understand the concept of AoO .

So the player must have the ability to draw lines that define this AoO .

This is a new type of order and might require heavy coding.

Plus there is the issue of making the nessesary adjastments.

For example AoO can not overlap ,otherwise the players can define the whole map as AoO for every battallion.

This brings the issue of having a mechanism of how to pass through reserves from behind to the front.

How to link the AoO of the reserve which will be committed to the front and the AoO of the unit which already occuppies the sector where the pass-through operation will happen.

We have similar issues with retiring through friendly formations , attachments, replacements and so on.

I beleive these issues can be solved.

The main issue i guess is if people are interested in spending effort to simulate this aspect and i again i guess that the most challenging issue techinically is to make the engine understand that a player assigns a certain area of the map to a certain battallion.

[pamak1970]

The other issue which i pointed from the beginning is that the amount of restrictions must be carefully examined.

It does not mean that whenever a unit fires outside the battallion's AoO should suffer a delay.

One example i gave is when it receives fire from an enemy located outside the battallion AoO.

Another case is when certain units i defence for example have a sector of fire which expands outside the boundaries of the AoO of the parent unit.

It is common in real life as long as there is sufficient time to coordinate the defence to see MGs from one company sector, covering by fire the front of the neighbour company.

(of course in return a MG of the neighbour company will do the same).

We might have similar cases during an attack also.

(Attack by fire to support an assault of the neighbour unit)

There should not be any penalty in this case to engage targets inside an already established arc.

There might be a penalty if you want to rearrange an arc that extends beyond the AoO of the parent formation or establish a new one.

But this now brings another possible loophole.

Imagine for example a player setting the maximum arc he can get in order to gain freedom of fire against any enemy anywhere outside the battallion's AoO.

There are solutions i can propose for the above issue but again we see that complexity is getting bigger and bigger.

[hoolaman]

I was promoting a similar "command-zone" idea last year in the "pre-bone" cmx2 era.

I think a unit should never be restricted from spotting or firing upon a unit that they should realistically be able to spot and fire upon. The extent of such restrictions based on an AO concept should be to make misidentification of friendly/hostile units more frequent.

The command-zone concept could be more realistically applied to restricting movement orders as I once was advocating. Unfortunately, to do this realistically, there would be a mess of variables such as: where an order comes from (company, batallion, NCO initiative etc.), realistic communications including radio nets and sound/hand signals (shouts, whistles, frantically waving arms)

I expect BFC will make extensive use of SOPs to take such intimate control away from the player, but still have units react in realistic ways with a "fun" level of player interaction.

[hoolaman]

To give realistic C&C, as I stated above, it is neccesary to determine which level of command, and which actual HQ unit gives a particular order. Of course playing one side of a CM battle, every single order comes from us sitting on our comfy chairs in front of the PC. The challenge is restricting what we can make our pixel men do but not restricting (too much)what we can see on our screens.

Doing this properly would result in command delay for some types of orders if they come from Major Bloggs, and little or no command delay on orders from Sgt. Smith.

Changing certain types of SOPs would certainly have to be passed along from higher levels of command, as would making significant changes to some sort of AO/phase line/command-zone.

So cancelling a "avoid engagement with the enemy" SOP might have a 70 sec command delay, as would an order to move across/change a phase line. These orders would probably come from a higher officer.

But a short dash into a better position, or a change of formation might have only a 3 second command delay as this would be an order from an NCO or platoon CO.

This goes some way to fixing "borg" issues. Borg spotting in the sense of one unit spots and all units can instantly engage a given unit is fairly easy to fix via relative spotting. What is more difficult to fix is the God-like omniscience of us watching our computer screens which allows units to react tactically to a threat they should not know about (borg like swarm). Tracking which level of command gives which order would force us to work through our pixel soldiers instead of moving them like chess pieces.

Obviously there would be a long list of problems actually getting this to work in a realistic manner, but I still think it has some potential.

[Peter Cairns]

I agre with most of whats said but i think a better way to proceed is to focus on abstract zones of control.

If you go back to old hex based games the further you went from your HQ the less effective you became.

By reinforcing this in CM we don't deliniate AO's but rather people become less effective as they wander away from their CO, and you simulate AO's by where you put your HQ's.

Units "out of command" would sight worse, be more likely to target friendlies, be more likely to be mis identified and ingeneral all units should have difficulty targeting in relation to there position relative to their HQ.

I've often played games where I don't (or try not to) issue fire orders at all. I direct units and choose how they will move, but by amd large let them target for themselves.

When you do this you find that by and large the AI, chooses close targets even if a juicy one pops up half way across the battlefield.

I'd prefer sometime inate and built in than designating zones or AO's.

[aka_tom_w]

"By reinforcing this in CM we don't deliniate AO's but rather people become less effective as they wander away from their CO, and you simulate AO's by where you put your HQ's."

In the old CMxx game the line of out of C&C was either Black or Red

Maybe (this might not really be realistic but I will suggest it anyway) .....

Maybe the line could be black or white with various shades of grey in between such as.....

"but rather people become less effective as they wander away from their CO"

I still favour the command line mechanism as the solution to this issue. Maybe these line of C&C could be more "elastic" or more flexible than just ON or OFF? With degrading performance and delay the farther the units are away from the commander?

I would like to think Steve et. al. have considered or are considering this problem:

"What is more difficult to fix is the God-like omniscience of us watching our computer screens which allows units to react tactically to a threat they should not know about (borg like swarm). Tracking which level of command gives which order would force us to work through our pixel soldiers instead of moving them like chess pieces."

The borg like swarm (response) is one of the REAL challenges to deal with IMO.

-tom w

[pamak1970]

By reinforcing this in CM we don't deliniate AO's but rather people become less effective as they wander away from their CO, and you simulate AO's by where you put your HQ's.

I think this is somewhat different from what we are discussing here .

Command lines and range as it is now is definetely useful to force players keep sub-units in the same area under the influence of the parent HQ and maintain cohesion of the formation .

On the other hand as long as units are inside the comand radious of their parent HQ, the player can move whole formations free and operate inside areas of other friendly formations without any penalty.

You can move for example two different formations, and have them "one above the other" in the same area.

All sub units will still be inside the command radious of their parent HQ so the player will not expererience any type of difficulty (penalty) during a situation like that.

Maybe a partial solution to deal with AoOs using command ranges ,is to build a code which will forbid crossing of one's formation command lines over command lines of a different formations (or impose some types of penalties if something like that happen.

Imagine for example that two companies (platoons together with their parent company hq) operate in the same area.

Now try to imagine the command lines from each parent company hq towards each platton of the company.

In a situation like this ,we will most probably see the command lines of one company crossing over command lines of the other company.

Maybe if the engine can detect this event, it can impose some penalties.

[ August 10, 2005, 10:59 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[Michael Dorosh]

I kind of think that the influence of other HQs on mortars - as described in the post above - may be a useful feature rather than a bug if changed a bit in CMX2; definitely having two headquarters in the same general vicinity could/would be confusing. If one could change the overpowering of leader units spotting for mortars (an annoying bug), but otherwise simulate some of the confusion - especially among squads that find themselves without a headquarters, or support units coming into the leadership "range" of both, say, their platoon HQ and the company HQ - I think that could be beneficial.