Monster Tanks Retreating #2 And Steve's List of Why the Tac AI tells tanks to retreat

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...(N)o gun crew runs away in panic unless it is already being shot at (and almost always has taken a casualty or more). This is a limitation of heavy weapons crew coding held over from the early days of CMBO Alpha. We were trying to avoid the (then) infamous Steel Panthers problem of remanning guns. Unfortunately we went a bit overboard and couldn't change it by the time we figured that out.

Do you have time to explain to a newby what the "Steel Panthers" problem was? I would love to see remanning in CM...

...or would I?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

So you're saying the situation is difficult to reproduce; but happens often enough in-game for it to be an issue. Hmmmm...

Hey, I said difficult to reproduce in an isolated test case

Isolated test cases are of extremly limited value no matter how you put them.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Licensed Fool,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />CMBB isn't bugged regarding the AFV-retreat thing, it's just that Steve and his colleagues gave the crews AI an over-developed sense of self preservation,its as simple as that, just as Steve himself half-admitted!

Nope, that is nothing at all what I said. I said that if anything the TacAI does the right thing too quickly. Meaning it should still pull back, but that perhaps it does it too fast.

</font>

[Redwolf]

[i have it with double posts these days]

[ December 04, 2002, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Tero]

Just did a nice June 1942 QB with PzKw-IIIJ's, a Marder, a 50PAK and a platoon of infantry vs T-26's, a KV-1, a 45mm ATG and some infantry.

I found it a bit odd the KV would not move unless it was threathened by a flank shot from the J's or the Marder. Other than that it just sat there asking for it. It never moved to save the T-26's or the infantry. It just stood in place and took shots from a 20mm FLAK which happened to be positioned in its LOS at the startup. It squeezed off a few rounds now and again and the rest of the time I suspect the FLAK gun pinned it down and kept it suppressed.

[Battlefront.com]

Dorosh,

Do you have time to explain to a newby what the "Steel Panthers" problem was? I would love to see remanning in CM...

You will with the engine rewrite. The problem with SP was that crews could pretty much abandon and reman guns with little difficulty. It's been about 6 years since I played the game, so I forget the details, only that this was a commonly (and correctly) bitched about problem.

For CMBO there were SO many issues we had to deal with that we couldn't address all of them with equal detail. Plus, we weren't sure what we could and could not do, or how well we could do it. I think people forget how totally cutting edge CMBO was at the time we were programming it, not to mention when it was released. So for this issue we decided to err on the side of making things perhaps a tad bit restrictive compared to real life. In exchange we make gun crews very unlikely to abandon their weapons. If they do, it is generally because the weapon was damaged or the crew completely in fear of manning the weapon for the remainder of the battle.

Redwolf

Well, this is the core of it all. If you do the right thing too fast, resulting in worsening the situation...

Sigh... prove it results in a worse situation. I didn't finish doing a full 50 tests, but the 12 I did had the ISU-122 survive 100% of the time. Since this behavior is designed to keep the vehicle safe, I hardly call a 100% success rate a bad result. The funny thing is that the only thing that is likely to happen by making the reaction slower is to make the success rate *lower*. So you are saying the current "perfect" behavior is "worse", but advocating something that will surely create the possibility of lowering the success rate.

And a word about why this "crew screwup" theory has been brought up: it doesn't have to do with anything Steve claimed. I was only replying to people who calim that while the TacAI was executing a bad move this could be a realistic game model of "crew screwup". The game surely doesn't have such a model and if it got one it should be a more general model than this very limited sitation, otherwise it is not realism improvement overall. And it is not what is happening in the game anyway, the game engine doesn't decide "this crew just screwd up" and then computes a bad move afterwards.

Actually, you are wrong again. The only thing that is important is if the TacAI has the ability to "screw up" (i.e. not choose the "best" course of action). The mechanics for how that is determined is not relevant in this case. I don't care to explain this again other than to say that the TacAI is purposefully designed to "screw up", but this is highly situationally dependent.

Tero,

I found it a bit odd the KV would not move unless it was threathened by a flank shot from the J's or the Marder.

You say you find it "odd", but not why. From your vague description I would say it sounds fine.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

The_Capt,

Cute

Tero,

Then the (sad ) truth is in the game the assault gun will never be able to truly take up a hull down position the way it would be able to IRL, compared to a turreted vehicle. Right ?

Er... I don't have a clue what you are talking about How did you conclude that? It certainly is not what I was talking about. I just said that it can't measure hull down centimeter for centemeter specific to each vehicle, but it does do a good job at recreating the differences between the differences between various vehicles hull down. This has absolutely *nothing* to do with turretless vehicles vs. turreted ones. That difference is irrelevant.

Linden,

sounds like "MG Mnschaft" (or something like that). I really enjoyed his rants. Perhaps he'll reappear like GB did, hehe...

Yeah, it was something like that. Or was it something like "Fat MG42 Gunner"? We had two guys with MG42 in their titles that were dolts, and one of them had some sort of weight "issue". In any case, the one I am talking about also had his son, supposedly, posting using his account. Not that any of us could tell them apart After he was, rightly, humilated for being a Know It All Who Knows Nothing, he shuffled off never to be seen from again.

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

I liked this post so much I thought I should comment

Steve Says.....

"Mikey,

quote:

In fact, I doubt that there is any code in the Tac-AI that intentionally causes a unit to

perform an action that it knows will result in it's death.

Steve will need to verify this, but I would be shocked if it would be programed to do that.

Correct. The TacAI in theory is always trying to do the correct thing. However, depending on the

situation, unit Experience, and luck... the TacAI might "accidentally" choose the worse course of

action, which then leads to death. To illustrate, the AI might calculate that there are four courses of

action open to it:

1. Stay put.

2. Retreat out of LOS after firing off one shot.

3. Retreat out of LOS and fire a shot on the move, if possible.

4. Retreat out of LOS *NOW*

It will then figure out which of these options is best for the situation. It evaluates the given situation

as best it can and ranks each on a Fuzzy scale of 0-10 (10 being the "best")

1. 2

2. 8

3. 5

4. 10

Now, the unit is a Regular which means it might be coded to have a 20% margin of "error". Toss in

some randomness to some degree, and then the AI picks which is the choice it thinks it should take.

The numbers indicate that the AI would choose #4 most of the time, #2 some of the time, #3 rarely,

and #1 hardly ever.

Basically, my simplified example would introduce a 20% chance of not picking the best pick, which is

#4. If it indeed fails to pick this best choice, then it will try to pick the next best choice, #2. Again, it

has a 20% chance of not picking it. If it fails again, then it tries to pick #3. Failing that, it picks #1,

the absolute worst pick.

A Conscript might have a 50% chance of error, a Vet only 15%, Elite only 3%, etc.

Now, this is an extreme oversimplification of my understanding of how the TacAI works (I didn't code

it, nor would I want to ), but I think you get the idea. The TacAI is built to assess the situation

imperically, then judge the choices with various biases depending on the situation.

Steve"

END QUOTE

Now that implies to me, that sort like a board game, you might be unlucky and get a bad "die roll" out of the TAC AI and the then the tank CREW and TC would screw up if the random chance determiner (they used to be dice) selected the least attractive option for the tank.

e.g." 1. Stay put." in the example above.

So it is my understanding a random chance modifier could model a bad choice by the TC sometimes. I think this is very obvious in the expample that Redwolf started this whole thing with. There were only a few specific options the tac AI might consider, they were something like this:

1. Stay put.

2. Retreat out of LOS after firing off one shot.

3. Retreat out of LOS and fire a shot on the move, if possible.

4. Retreat out of LOS *NOW*

BUT you could never be sure, due to the Heisenberg Uncertianty Principle (Found it here in a Physic Forum like ours if you are interested: http://www.physicsforums.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1357 (I think there are some PhD weilding Hardcore Physics GROGS in that forum BUT only glanced at it ) which behavour the TAC AI would pick.

this Uncertianty Principle (in CMBB) means that a behavour is not predicatable and it might seem like this may be one of the root causes of this issue raised by Redwolf. This Uncertianty Principle (in CMBB) means the game decides what course of action the TAC AI will take and it will not always make the best choice and it will NOT be predictable even under the same circumstances. (Thus causeing some frustration amongst some players it would seem )

BUT this is truly a thing of Beauty!!!

some form of Computer Programing Award should be presented to Charles and Steve for the way the "fuzzy logic" what ever that is, makes the TAC AI so "life like" IMHO

But thats just me being a complete fanboy with regard to the AI coding !!

-tom w

[ December 04, 2002, 08:46 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Terrapin]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

some form of Computer Programing Award should be presented to Charles and Steve for the way the "fuzzy logic" what ever that is, makes the TAC AI so "life like" IMHO

But thats just me being a complete fanboy with regard to the AI coding !!

-tom w

I've been thinking this too. After playing Close Combat for years, and playing the "demo" of GI Combat, as well as other games, the way that the TaAI keeps the mistakes to a minimum -- while usually doing the "believable" thing -- is kind of amazing.

Is there a link to any discussion of how the AI was programmed, or a "developer's journal" of how the game came together? Some developers keep one.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Terrapin:

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

some form of Computer Programing Award should be presented to Charles and Steve for the way the "fuzzy logic" what ever that is, makes the TAC AI so "life like" IMHO

But thats just me being a complete fanboy with regard to the AI coding !!

-tom w

I've been thinking this too. After playing Close Combat for years, and playing the "demo" of GI Combat, as well as other games, the way that the TaAI keeps the mistakes to a minimum -- while usually doing the "believable" thing -- is kind of amazing.

Is there a link to any discussion of how the AI was programmed, or a "developer's journal" of how the game came together? Some developers keep one.</font>

[-Havermeyer-]

Originally posted by Licensed Fool:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Gentlemen...

(snip) The manual is purposefully designed to not get into such details. For better or worse, we want the players to learn for themselves what works and what doesn't.

Steve

AHA ALL IS REVEALED! CMBB is one of those puzzle games! Never was much good at them myself,I've been stuck in The Hobbit on the Spectrum for the past 20 years!Hope I can figger out CMBB a lot quicker than that!</font>

[Battlefront.com]

FYI... I just posted this in the General Forum:

Just thought you would like to know...

Today I confirmed that these three sad cases are in fact the same disturbed individual:

Veteran gamer (banned in Nov)

Scatterbrain Kid (banned today)

Licensed Fool (banned today)

The funny thing is that as Licensed Fool he actually made an attempt to mimic civilized, productive behavior. It didn't work, but it was at least a halfassed attempt. Unfortunately, he was already banned and therefore even that lame attempt was not permissable.

One tip off (besides the obvious style) was him saying "I'm outa here!" and refferencing his other two alter egos as cases in point for the wave of people leaving this Forum. He neglected to mention that one was banned and both were in fact him. How odd

Anyhoo, they shall not be missed. There is plenty enough to laugh at on this Forum without England's answer to Cybil

Steve

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

FYI... I just posted this in the General Forum:

Just thought you would like to know...

Today I confirmed that these three sad cases are in fact the same disturbed individual:

Veteran gamer (banned in Nov)

Scatterbrain Kid (banned today)

Licensed Fool (banned today)

I guess he was, after all, an unlicensed fool?

[Battlefront.com]

Tom,

Thanks for the award nomination

You can find out a lot about Fuzzy Logic on the Internet. Pretty much the entire structure is based on it. Not just the AI. It is also used a ton when making evaluations.

As for Redwolf's observations... I answered that in my previous post. The TacAI is rountinely doing the optimal behavior most of the time. And that is to withdraw without firing. Redwolf appears to think this is not the optimal action, but has yet to demonstrate it. And in any case, it would appear that in this case the TacAI is seeking an option that gets it out of harm's way ASAP, not an option to get out harm's way after it takes a pot shot at the PzIV.

Tarrapin,

I've been thinking this too. After playing Close Combat for years, and playing the "demo" of GI Combat, as well as other games, the way that the TaAI keeps the mistakes to a minimum -- while usually doing the "believable" thing -- is kind of amazing.

That is the beauty of Fuzzy Logic. A system built around it isn't necessarily good, but it is at least far more robust in dynamic settings (like a wargame).

Is there a link to any discussion of how the AI was programmed, or a "developer's journal" of how the game came together? Some developers keep one.

We do not keep dev journals. You can do a Search on this Forum for "TacAI" and "StratAI". That ought to pull up a few tidbits.

Steve

[Redwolf]

Hey Tom,

I absolutely love the Heisenberg connection to explain varying software behaviour (nothing to do with CMBB and not ironic).

[tabpub]

I had a situation that called for a "Redwolf" and didn't happen.

T34 sitting on a ridge, engaged a MkIII. During the movie, the MkIII id resolved into a MkIIIL.

During the plotting phase, I determined a)the chances of damaging the L were very slim to none; b)3 Tigers were climbing up that ridge that the L was on and would reach there soon(due to other info from the Borg. Based on this, I ordered a reverse, but being regular and out of C&C was gonna take about 30 secs.

Well, the Tigers crested, the mkIIIL got a turret pene w/cas, shocked the crew and the tigers KO'd it 3 times before the last survivor was blown out of the hatch.

Now, where the hell was this "retreating" behavior at there? I am shocked and appalled that the AI wouldn't run for the reverse slope in this situation...

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

This thread (well two actually) have been the most fun I have seen on the forum in a long while.

This is better than a soap...

You know, Capt, I think that redwolf's threads are more like Reverse Kafka, with redwolf as Joseph K, but subjecting Society to persecution, alienation, and confusion.

Rather as though The Trial were re-written in order to put the victim in the role of oppressor...

redwolf, I demand that you tell me something you've done lately that you found to be fun.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

this Uncertianty Principle (in CMBB) means that a behavour is not predicatable...

I don't think so. Not the one named after Heisenberg, anyway.

Let me make it clear that I am not a physicist, but the subject is something that I have had a layman's interest in and have tried to grasp. And to my humble understanding, what Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states in a nutshell is events on the atomic scale can not be observed without fundamentally altering them. Or to put it more colloquially, you can't know what the universe is like when you aren't in it.

What any of this has to do with CM and the way it processes is not immediately clear to me. As I understand it, the uncertainty in CM derives from plain old everyday randomness, as you correctly likened it to a roll of the dice.

HTH

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

redwolf, I demand that you tell me something you've done lately that you found to be fun.

In defense of Redwolf, I would like to testify that he is in most cases a fairly reasonable, more or less sane intelligent person actually possessed of a sense of humor. He is only occasionally emotionally unstable. What has got him going the last couple of weeks, I would not dare to speculate. We all have our off times...

Michael

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

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

this Uncertianty Principle (in CMBB) means that a behavour is not predicatable...

I don't think so. Not the one named after Heisenberg, anyway.

Let me make it clear that I am not a physicist, but the subject is something that I have had a layman's interest in and have tried to grasp. And to my humble understanding, what Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states in a nutshell is events on the atomic scale can not be observed without fundamentally altering them. Or to put it more colloquially, you can't know what the universe is like when you aren't in it.

What any of this has to do with CM and the way it processes is not immediately clear to me. As I understand it, the uncertainty in CM derives from plain old everyday randomness, as you correctly likened it to a roll of the dice.

HTH

Michael</font>

[Michael Emrys]

Close enough! And what the guy you quoted had to say (minus the math, which I admit I was unfamiliar with ) is exactly the way I've heard it before.

Carry on.

Michael

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Close enough! And what the guy you quoted had to say (minus the math, which I admit I was unfamiliar with ) is exactly the way I've heard it before.

Carry on.

Michael

Sometimes playing on this forum is actually more fun than playing the game it is there to support/discuss

Very entertaining Michael.

I Sure Hope Redwolf is laughing now.

I think he needs a good laugh!

-tom w

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

In defense of Redwolf, I would like to testify that he is in most cases a fairly reasonable, more or less sane intelligent person actually possessed of a sense of humor. He is only occasionally emotionally unstable. What has got him going the last couple of weeks, I would not dare to speculate. We all have our off times...

Michael

Michael, you do not need to defend redwolf to me! I am, in fact, deeply concerned about whether he is having fun.

I have noted his sense of humour before, which he has, for the most part, retained here, as well!

Why, I remember that thread long ago when idjit came in and was storming around and told everyone that there is no such animal as a 'red wolf', and I quite thoroughly refuted him! This was all done in defense of redwolf.

And, despite his almost magical fixation on this issue, he has, as I've been reminded, as well as noting for myself, always maintained a courteous, considered, and dignified demeanour.

Actually, I think that's partly what makes these threads so disturbing. I mean, if the lad would go berserk and rave a bit, and shout a few courteous bits of abuse at everyone, I think it would put everyone more at ease.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

Michael, you do not need to defend redwolf to me! I am, in fact, deeply concerned about whether he is having fun.

Oh. Beg pardon then. Have a a pint?

...his almost magical fixation on this issue...

Yessss, interesting way to put it. And very apt. Suppose someone cast a spell on him? Jealous lover, something like that?

he has, as I've been reminded, as well as noting for myself, always maintained a courteous, considered, and dignified demeanour.

All the more remarkable as he has been clearly under a great deal of stress. I noted several occasions when people weren't getting what he was saying. That must have been frustrating. Of course, the blind obstinacy on his part didn't help either...

Actually, I think that's partly what makes these threads so disturbing. I mean, if the lad would go berserk and rave a bit, and shout a few courteous bits of abuse at everyone, I think it would put everyone more at ease.

Exactly. It's these cold, Nordic types that really blow it when they finally do, you know. Turns out that while they've been smiling through the church social, they've been quietly brewing up a Doomsday Weapon in their basement and now they want our daughters or else.

Yes, I think you are quite right to be concerned. Chap needs to get out and get some fresh air. Go skiing. Find a friendly lass and get some...ahem...exercise. Work off that surplus energy that all those young fellows always seem to have plenty of. *sigh*

Michael

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Exactly. It's these cold, Nordic types that really blow it when they finally do, you know. Turns out that while they've been smiling through the church social, they've been quietly brewing up a Doomsday Weapon in their basement and now they want our daughters or else.

Yes, I think you are quite right to be concerned. Chap needs to get out and get some fresh air. Go skiing. Find a friendly lass and get some...ahem...exercise. Work off that surplus energy that all those young fellows always seem to have plenty of. *sigh*

Michael

Good observation. As I've told friends: there's this to be said for the large 'Irish' side of my family: when there's disagreement or problems, people yell, sometimes knock each other down, even, but apologize just as quickly , and will have a pint and hug a short time later.

But the Germans and the Scandos...they put you in mind of the Icelandic Sagas. Some minor point, or some small slight or imagined slight will pass all but unremarked, but they go home and brood on it for 10 years. Then one day they gather up all their kinsmen and friends, show up at your house at midnight, and set it afire, killing everyone fleeing the flames with swords.