If you like the game, do you avoid MOUT?

[Guest]

In the "where is the patch thread":

Originally posted by Paper Tiger:

Are you playing mainly MOUT situations? I rarely play them and I rarely see any problems with pathfinding. When I do play MOUT, I do see problems though. Fortunately for me, I don't like MOUT, didn't like it in WW2 either.

Ali Baba followed up and agreed that MOUT was where the system fell apart, essentially.

Is this the nail on the head? The difference between those who are fine with this game and those who are still complaining? I know that some people avoid dismount use altogether, but do the people that use dismounts and enjoy the game without issues just avoid MOUT?

That said, how do you avoid MOUT in CM:SF? Many of the scenarios in the game involve some form of building-to-building fighting.

Any enlightenment would be much appreciated. Cheers.

[thewood]

If you go back and look at my posts from when 1.04 came out, that is exactly what I have been saying.

Stay away from built up areas, and you do get some of that CM mojo going. I build my own scenarios and use anything but conjested villages, urban areas, or areas that are near mountainous.

Hilly rural terrain seems to be the sweet spot. I tend to also play light on infantry and Strykers because of some of the egress issues seem to be more pronounced in Strykers.

I also play hotseat against myself. This alleviates the AI planning steps that are, to me, somewhat cumbersome.

Call it a stripped down CMSF. What I am seeing is that each patch opens up more parts of the game. I am hoping 1.05 finally allows me to start regularly using urban terrain again without gritting my teeth.

[Fizou]

I for one dont avoid MOUT, I love MOUT.

I really enjoy CM:SF and I know it will only get better with time.

[Cpl Steiner]

The only trouble with this is that OPFOR, in the real world, prefers MOUT. This is because it is the great equalizer when you are facing a technologically superior enemy, as the Russians found to their advantage in Stalingrad for example and their disadvantage in Grozny. Disparity in weapons systems kind of fade into insignificance when a typical firefight is at a range of only a few metres. In addition, the world is becoming increasingly urban, so the trend is towards more MOUT than less. This is why the US now does so much MOUT training and preparation when only 10 years ago soldiers had very little MOUT training and were essentially told that big towns would be bypassed in any future war.

I accept that some sort of rural fighting might be better for the game engine though. I'm beginning to wonder that Blue on Blue Rural might be the true sweet spot. You could do a scenario like that and call it a military exercise.

[thewood]

Originally posted by thewood:

If you go back and look at my posts from when 1.04 came out, that is exactly what I have been saying.

Stay away from built up areas, and you do get some of that CM mojo going. I build my own scenarios and use anything but conjested villages, urban areas, or areas that are near mountainous.

Hilly rural terrain seems to be the sweet spot. I tend to also play light on infantry and Strykers because of some of the egress issues seem to be more pronounced in Strykers.

I also play hotseat against myself. This alleviates the AI planning steps that are, to me, somewhat cumbersome.

Call it a stripped down CMSF. What I am seeing is that each patch opens up more parts of the game. I am hoping 1.05 finally allows me to start regularly using urban terrain again without gritting my teeth.

edit: I don't want anyone to think I am playing hours at a time. I still just dabble in it til 1.05 comes out. Then I'll immerse myself again to see what changes.

Sorry meant to edit and quoted instead.

[DaveDash]

I don't mind MOUT. I just reload if my squads do something stupid that gets them killed. If they run around the front of a house because the back door doesn't work, then I just use a little imagination and pretend the back is boobytrapped, baricaded/etc. I then just reload, and give them slightly more survivable orders since I play WEGO (and save every turn).

I have rarely seen in MOUT situations some problems that people describe with vehicles spinning, etc. My BIGGEST issue is the LOS/LOF issue when guys are shooting down at you and your vhicles just sit around doing nothing.

Moving vehicles around isnt a big deal if you use pause commands, then they don't drive all over the place and stay on the road.

I currently enjoy MOUT, but I will love it when the issues are cleared up because it will allow more freedom. Right now however I just smoke the hell out of anything before moving infantry around and blow up everything else. Not the most heroic way to get things done, but it works.

[Guest]

thewood -- I'll go back to the 1.04 threads and check your posts. Honestly, since we tend to agree on most things I may miss the finer points of what you're saying for the hurrahs of seeing my opinions shared.

Fizou, sweet, thanks. Is it infantry-heavy MOUT? Who are you playing against? Could you describe how you play and with what?

Steiner, yep, you're right. MOUT is key now, especially given that our primary "foes" world-round are gonna have to fight asymmetrically to have any chance of staying alive. I agree that the engine does have a non-urban "sweet spot", too, but I just can't seem to get into it. I just can't fire up a modern game and NOT play MOUT scenarios.

Edit: DaveDash, thanks. I admit that I *can* enjoy MOUT, I just find the contrivances of how I need to play to win less than enjoyable.

I don't feel right reloading every time my infantry screw up (which, frankly, would be ALL the time at this point, every few minutes) or blowing hell out of a poor innocent village filled with people to kill the enemy. But that's my hangup, and maybe you have found a very valid way to play.

[ December 13, 2007, 08:45 AM: Message edited by: Phillip Culliton ]

[thewood]

I have no finer points.

[Guest]

Oh, right, I forgot.

[DaveDash]

blowing hell out of a poor innocent village filled with people to kill the enemy. But that's my hangup, and maybe you have found a very valid way to play.

Hehe well you're going to have some badly cut up Stryker Rifle Platoons then.

Unless the commanders intent is to keep civilian infrastructure safe, anything that so much looks as if it may have OPFOR in it gets blown to smitherines.

I learnt that the hard way after getting half my soldiers decimated in the 2nd campaign mission, and I absolutely hate seeing those little U.S. soldiers getting mowed down by some farmer with an AK that I missed.

War is hell, mate.

[Guest]

I agree. I don't have a problem with covering suspected enemy locations, or suppressing known positions. I have a problem with needing to area fire every building I see or Javelinize a whole village to nail the three insurgent groups that WILL destroy my carefully bounding teams if they get into their sights from two blocks away.

Still, though, is that it? Are the people having a bad time just not playing hard enough? I doubt it, but that may be because playing hard still wouldn't help with the LOS/LOF issues you mention.

[dynaman200]

I gave up on 1.4 after telling a squad to move down a ditch, and two guys from the squad decided to not follow the ditch and got shot.

[Omenowl]

I don't avoid MOUT anymore than any other modern day commander. I do find that I need to have smaller squads split in half. Move them slowly to support and that I have to understand I can't manually target due to LOF issues. So I usually use a firing arc and hope they do the spotting for me.

I tend to drop off my troops with the cover of smoke. I drive to a location, drop smoke and then dismount so they can arrive in one piece. The squads are split into javelin carriers and the rest.

As for the problem with mission 2 in the campaign is the time limitation. It causes me to move abnormally fast rather than concentrate fire and move forward. Some of the other missions are much better.

[DaveDash]

If I cant blow things up in MOUT, and have to advance across enemy fields of fire, this is what I do:

1) Dismount infantry ASAP under the cover of smoke, and take up overwatch positions on the rooftops of buildings. Wait a while so they scan for RPGers. There is -nothing- worse than losing an entire squad to an RPG, so get your guys out of those tin cans of death asap.

2) Move three Strykers to overwatch positions over my axis of attack, give them target arcs over suspected enemy positions, or, if known enemy positions, start surpressing with MG or 40mm grenade fires. I usually hide them behind buildings and such too so RPGs have a greater chance of missing.

3) The fourth Stryker is the guy with the most balls. He is to go as fast as he can down the axis of attack for about 200m or whatever distance required, pop smoke, then reverse back up it. WHen you FAST, RPGS on a laterial trajectory miss a lot if fired by anything but the most elite units. This Stryker tends to draw out most hidden RPG enemies. If it gets hit, I've only lost one Stryker and not half my platoon. If the crew is stranded I surpress all enemy positions and send their wingman Stryker to pick them up.

4) Destroy revealed infantry with friendly forces in overwatch positions. Usually they'll open up themselves once spotting and CoC information has been passed around.

5) Pick up infantry, re-arm, and take up new overwatch positions using bounding overwatch technique.

I usually pick the tallest buildings to use as overwatch, and if they're going to be a foodhold/strongpoint, I use smoke to get to the roof so the attacking squad doesnt get decimated bit by bit. I also give move waypoints to each floor, so my infantry pauses a bit and regroups at each floor. If possible I use the hunt command.

Using these tactics, I took very little casualties on GeorgeMC's 'Rescue' scenario, and lost no vehicles. I also only lost I think 2 or 3 vehicles in his Hammertime scenario.

They're a little bit gamey but until infantry behaves as it's meant to one needs to adapt. In company sized scenarios you usually end up with way more Strykers than targets to shoot at, I find it easier losing a Styker than an entire squad.

[ December 13, 2007, 11:29 AM: Message edited by: DaveDash ]

[cool breeze]

Yeah! I do like that and LOVE MOUT and non mout. ive been averageing like 2 KIA per mission as US against AI via restarting when I do something against commmon sense considering WYSIWYG. Lots of smoke and short movement orders and lots of assault orders and moving strykers ahead of infantry and its all about the infantry over watch. vehicles dont see things without really small cover arcs. When I finally started taking the WYSIWYG idea seriously is when things started acting like I expect. I have only been playing prepacked senerios and been playing them in... expected ways, so I think the routs I try have been debugged or something. I hardly notice bugs except occasionaly running around the long way or getting stuck. LOS/LOF problems in MOUT are much less when you dont try using target orders. if on ly one man is in lof n the squad, you cant order the squad to fire, but he will fire on his own. I order vehicles to are fire regularly because they hardly shoot otherwise. I play RT so it is all pretty straightforward. OH!! and hull down helps hugely!!!hulldown made me a big fan of the stryker vehicle, unmanned turret= great idea!.

[cool breeze]

RPGs used to almost always hit me and blow me up. Now I started trying to stay hull down they almost alway miss and dud most the time they hit a stryker. los/lof issues havent affected me hardly at all with vehicles and hull down. inf hull down not relyable, but play it safe and it works alright often. I love CMSF. Long live CMx2 MODERN!!! can hardly wait to start the real challenge, battling people in 1.05.

[Guest]

I'm not sure if it's the tactics, your obvious enthusiasm, or the fact that your paragraphs remind me of James Joyce and make me want to hurt people, but I'm actually pretty excited about going home and banging on 1.04 tonight. Neat.

Thanks cool breeze.

Keep it coming guys, this is great.

BTW, cool breeze -- my infantry don't seem to "overwatch" so much as "kinda shoot at whatever they feel like whether it's a threat or not" so... how are you making that work? Cover arcs?

[panzermartin]

Hopefully the 1.05 will make MOUT much more fun to play. Now, honestly it is a kind of masochistic torture. I dont blame BFC. 1:1 was a right choice but is simply impossible to program individual soldiers to respond intelligently to high tech

modern weaponry in such a complex environment. Auto-formation doesnt really work but unfortunately there is no possible user input here to counter this.

I really really really wish we could be able to specifically pack a squad behind a vehicle, set line formation along a wall, the way Company of Heroes does. Things would be so much easier for us. When you are in a building things are more or less easy but once you get out of the door..brrrr.

Its like letting a bunch of blind people walk across interstate 88 or something.

On rural setting there are problems too, mainly that Los/Lof through crest lines etc but the game is less of a headache. This is one of the reasons (plus all the up to that date improvements) that I think the WW2 game will be far superior in gameplay. Less Mout, less lethal weapons, more interesting rural setting = vastly more enjoyable game.

[DaveDash]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

I'm not sure if it's the tactics, your obvious enthusiasm, or the fact that your paragraphs remind me of James Joyce and make me want to hurt people, but I'm actually pretty excited about going home and banging on 1.04 tonight. Neat.

Thanks cool breeze.

Keep it coming guys, this is great.

BTW, cool breeze -- my infantry don't seem to "overwatch" so much as "kinda shoot at whatever they feel like whether it's a threat or not" so... how are you making that work? Cover arcs?

Have a read of my splitting squad threads in the tactics forum. Cover arcs greater increase units spotting abilities - and splitting squads greatly reduces it!

[cool breeze]

I usually only use cover arcs for vehicles or short range MOUT overwatch or special cases. I use face very regularly. I like to give inf an extra 500 rounds right away especially cause I dont make em move much. I want them to fire at almost every opportunity they take, since they usually only fire on there own when they will kill. I really like how they blaze away at targets hard yet are still at full ammo cause of the extra. I may start giving em extra all the time, 500 round is only 2 extra clips per soldier, shouldn't make em much more tired. I dont feel I am good at this game, I just try and play it safe. I try to keep moving my stuff forward safely and blow up bad guys I find. If my inf keep shooting at stuff they feel like I try and kill those guys by moving forward safely or blowing them up from where i am. an I try not to have one squad both blast the distance and be my close overwatch. Ill prolly just move another squad close to the first one so it shoots **** too. by just shooting stuff and moving forward safely I usally end battles early because they keep showing themselves and I shoot them and break them and that keeps happening till they surrender. Im expectng to get my but hande dto me against really people cause I play really predicatably now.

[Guest]

Reeeally. I'll take a look. I almost always split teams.

I always thought it was odd that my overwatching HQ was banging away while my split teams were only occasionally spotting the enemy right under their noses.

Hmmm.

[DaveDash]

I always give my machine gunner sections the full 7.62mm 2700 ammo or whatever and usually all the ammo and javelins to each squad apart from the 7.62mm. When you can just sit there and area surpress everything in your path, it makes a HUGE difference. It depends of course, if theres lots distance the infantry has to cross then I'll give them less, but generally you use Strykers to move them around anyway. There's nothing worse than running out of ammo and all those RPG guys suddenly pop up and start blowing up your men.

[cool breeze]

I stopped splitting my squads almost entirely cause they kept getting cut up. syrian squads are less than 9 men so we hella waste em on squad on one. lots of syrian squads are more than 5 strong so half squads get beat often. assault orders works like splitting squads for short range MOUT overwatch but they kick more ass once reformed and its way easier to input. overwatch is best at granade range in MOUT but you still get killed assaulting an unsuppressed squad so shoot across the street first if suspicious

[DaveDash]

In MOUT spotting and killing the enemy is paramout, so I don't tend to split squads in MOUT either. But I do in other situations where manouver is important and the enemy is already known. It always pays to keep your lead squad together though, for better spotting ability.

[Lethaface]

I do enjoy MOUT in SF. Must admit I play RT and... you just know those times when you have to save a game

I just re-load at those times when the smoke makes my grunts go trippin. They actually seem to behave better when they know they'll have to go again and again

Originally posted by DaveDash:

If I cant blow things up in MOUT, and have to advance across enemy fields of fire, this is what I do:

1) [...] 5)

They're a little bit gamey but until infantry behaves as it's meant to one needs to adapt. In company sized scenarios you usually end up with way more Strykers than targets to shoot at, I find it easier losing a Styker than an entire squad.

Funny, I would do exactly the same except for the advance with the "brave" stryker. I use infantry advances instead. Using one squad at a time on assault to adjacent buildings, has proven best for me. With MG's on the roofs and inf in most adjacent buildings + AFV's around, MOUT can be really rewarding (Mind the few blood bath's due to beforementioned tripping)

Can't stand to pound those poor (civilian) buildings with sustained Paladin barrages though... Seems to do the trick much quicker... And isn't that how any war was really won?...

Gamey?? Perhaps... well, its a game after all, isn't it?