The AI as Urban Attacker

[SgtMuhammed]

Has anyone been able to design an at least competent AI urban attack. I can get them to move up to the town in force but then they either dismount and get mowed down or pull up to the buildings mounted and again get mowed down. I have tried to ensure that the assaulting platoon always has overwatch but without fine placement it is almost impossible to get them to behave well.

Any tips?

[Webwing]

I think it all depends on the map and the effect you are looking for.

It also depends on what you call "fine placement".

You can define the placement to one square (8mX8m).

If you want to ensure that the troops will move inside the buildings make them(the buildings) match the squares and not half a square on the map. Then when you paint them in the AI section it will fit the entire building which will force them to get in.

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[SgtMuhammed]

I was just thinking that about the buildings. I'm still playing around with it. Just wanted to see if anyone else had some whiz-bang technique.

[Paper Tiger]

Good question mate. Yes, it's doable as long as you keep it small, no more than a company. (My project was with two US Styker platoons attacking a small village.) This allows you to create more AI groups, split the infantry from the vehicles and use ALL of the available orders. Then you have to playtest your creation quite carefully to watch the results.

The major obstacle to Urban Ops with the AI as the US player is that they can't use area fire. This means that it is quite easy to ambush them when they are approaching your buildings. Once you open fire, the units in the building will get hit and killed pretty quickly but there's usually one dead US squad in the open so it's not particularly good at attacking while keeping casualties low. If you can accept that then it's playable. Just don't handicap the AI further with an unrealistic low casualty VP condition. Up it to 25% - 30% and it works.

The scenario I was designing was pre 1.03 as an exp[eriment to see how IEDs work and I haven't touched it since. Once the low wall bug gets fixed I might return to it.

[the Fighting Seabee]

In my mission "the curve", I made the red ai plan so that the red force would move into areas with buildings. Maybe I didn't do it perfectly, but it seemed to work. I just put the zones over all the buildings. It looks very spotty, but the red forces seemed to use it as planned.

So my suggestion would be, to assign a new zone for each waypoint that you need the ai to take. Once they get there and touch the zone, they will try to move to the next one. It may be pretty complex but keep working with it. I had quite a bit of difficulty but finally was able to work it out with a little help.

[SgtMuhammed]

I tinkered around with the AI plan to where I thought it would work but on my run through I got a bit carried away and crushed the American force as the Syrians. I meant to just sit and watch them but I got a little carried away.

I think I have a handle on it though.

[Cpl Steiner]

I have found that it's hard to get the AI to move units into buildings unless you paint an AI objective area entirely within a building. Any overlap with the outside and the AI will put the units outside instead.

8 groups seems like a lot but it soon runs out when you are forced to assign buildings to individual squads to get them inside.

[Webwing]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

I have found that it's hard to get the AI to move units into buildings unless you paint an AI objective area entirely within a building. Any overlap with the outside and the AI will put the units outside instead.

8 groups seems like a lot but it soon runs out when you are forced to assign buildings to individual squads to get them inside.

I totally agree!!!!

Also the roof command does not work.

If you order a team into a building you might want to have them going to the roof to have better LOS/LOF. There is a command for that in the editor but the only thing that it does is that the team goes for a fraction of a second to the roof an then down again. :mad:

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[SgtMuhammed]

Ok, so I messed around with the waypoints and had some interesting results. Here are some of the things I noticed:

1. Once the infantry dismounts the Bradleys quit moving.

I placed a waypoint on the covered side of a large building and told the infantry to dismount. So far so good. The next waypoint directs the platoon to take the building. The dismounts move out and the Bradleys stay put and give covering fire. Wonderful. The next order is to take the building on the opposite side of the building from the Bradleys. The infantry move out but the Brads remain in place. Luckily there were other Bradleys to provide fire but I was upset that the platoon did not move together. In an earlier run I had the unit quality set to green, low motivation, and the infantry must have panicked and dismounted early. Whatever the reason, the move to the next unit consisted of all the dismounted infantry and the crews of a couple dead Bradleys. Meanwhile the remaining Brads remained stationary in the woods and took no further part in the battle.

Another platoon was given a waypoint within a building and all the Brads proceeded to mass around two sides of the building and then dismount their infantry. The infantry then attacked a different building, in accordance with another order, while the Brads remained stationary at the first building.

2. Even though the vehicles seem not to want to move once their troops are dismounted the crews from destroyed vehicles seem determined to fulfill their orders.

I have seen several vehicle crews as part of the assault. Good motivation but strange.

3. The AI always seems to move its infantry with either “Fast” or “Quick.”

AI infantry always seems to be running. I have yet to see them hunt. Maybe they do so when I can’t see them but too often they seem to just run into my guns.

4. Syrian Republican Guards infantry are blind in the dark.

The scenario I am working on has about the last 30 minutes in the dark. Once the sun sets the Syrians go blind. The only units able to see were units with GPS icons, mainly SF, and the T72 TURMS. One SF squad had taken a couple casualties and I guess had lost their GPS and were unable to see. Their sister squad was at full strength and could see just fine. I found that a bit strange.

Anyway I’m still messing around with it.

I definitely agree that we need more groups.

[Paper Tiger]

SgtMuhammed:

Point 1

I'm assuming that the squads and the Bradleys were part of the same group, right? Did you give that group an Assault order? I've noticed that vehicles in combined groups that are given an assault order tend to stay in place.

Point 2

Yes. that happens a lot. However, I once lost a mission to a vehicle crew that 'touched' a VP location after their vehicle was destroyed. There were other vehicles coming in and I forgot about the crew. :mad:

Point 4

Yes, this is a big problem. All Syrian infantry (not sure about Special Forces though) are completely blind at night. Visibility is down to a few metres and they get slaughtered. We need flares to help them out. I'm sure they'd have a few flares to use during a conflict.

[SgtMuhammed]

1. Yes everyone in the same group. I was thinking that maybe it was the assault order thing but the troops in the first example I listed were moving under an advance order.

2. Kind of reminds me of the charge of the mortar troops in CMx1.

4. This has been noted and is being addressed by BFC. Has anyone noticed whether or not the new dynamic lighting affects night vision?