What is the best way to counter AI drifting?

[Paulverisor64]

Yesterday I bought the TOW2 game.

Prior to buying the game I thought that I could be battling the game interface, poor AI for my army and the enemy. After playing the 2 tutorial missions I must say I am very pleasantly pleased with the game interface. Some of the things that I at 1st did not like at all can be changed in the options menu. I do appreciate that you also can hotkey groups within the game which will make things much more manageable.

I did very poor on the tactical tutorial. The 1st time around I just moved my soldiers as one group and ended up being completely wiped out when the enemy tank took my captured tank out.

After that trial I tried the mission again using a lot of caution. Everytime I've tried this I have discovered that my units do whatever they please; which to a certain extent ends up with them getting butchered. I tell my one group to stay down behind a couple trees and they are looking over the buildings. After the movement has been done half of the group decides on it's own to sneak into the closest building.

Meanwhile the other group which I gave a final position on the other side of a stone wall starts drifting to the other side of the wall which puts them in a position to get gunned down.

I am hoping that someone who has been able to manage his units effectively would lend a hand in suggesting how I could keep my units from drifting yet me able to fire from the fireline that I set up for them?

This game could be absolutely awesome if it were easier to keep the troops from taking their own courses of action.

[Paulverisor64]

I really want to give this game a fair try but it does not appear possible to glue the legs of the units that are under your control to the ground.

I thought that the Halt command would surely do the trick but it only pauses the troops for a short while.

I WANT THIS GAME TO BE PLAYABLE! It just has so many other good things going for it. The graphics are good, the interface is good, the attention to realism is great, the entire way the game plays is great, the subject of the game is great. Is the uncontrollable AI the one reason that sales for this game have not taken off? Perhaps this wouldn't be a huge issue if the AI on the opposite side didn't pick off my team with such deadly effect. Am I missing something or is this an unfixable flaw?

[Paulverisor64]

11 pages into this forum I found the answer

button: "manoeuvering modes" then "sneak" or "crouch" (p.22 of the online manual)

never attack in wide open ground specially if enemy use MG 42, or use smoke shells

If the manuevering mode is set to halt instead of free it does appear to lock the soldiers in position (unless of course they break under fire). This is great; now I can remove a huge portion of randomness from the battle.

I might be going out on a limb but I think I might be liking this game a lot!

[Sneaksie]

The Stop or Halt command just cancels the current action of the unit, that's why they did move again and again.

Hold Position: left-click the 'soldier figure' button (down left)

Hold Fire: left-click the 'target dummy' button (near the 'soldier figure' button)

Choose moving mode: right-click the 'soldier figure' button and choose free, kneel or crouch

Choose firing mode: right-click the 'target dummy' button and choose free, aim lower (tracks), aim higher (turret) and barrage (special mode to cover the large area near the target, useful for HMGs and HE shells).

[Paulverisor64]

The Stop or Halt command just cancels the current action of the unit, that's why they did move again and again.

Hold Position: left-click the 'soldier figure' button (down left)

Hold Fire: left-click the 'target dummy' button (near the 'soldier figure' button)

Choose moving mode: right-click the 'soldier figure' button and choose free, kneel or crouch

Choose firing mode: right-click the 'target dummy' button and choose free, aim lower (tracks), aim higher (turret) and barrage (special mode to cover the large area near the target, useful for HMGs and HE shells).

There will be a learning curve to use the correct actions in the correct context.

This evening at last I got through the tactical tutorial. By splitting my group up and being cautious I did much better than before. The only trouble I had was that I couldn't find out how to use smoke. I was looking for this in the area of my grenades but could not find.

I started up a campaign game for the US. I liked the action sequence in defending the pass; I really can't say I've experienced a game anything like this. The only thing that put a wet blanket on the fun was the pause and ensuing change of camera point of view every time an individual died in combat. I don't mind the reminder but having the map reorient with every loss cost me lives not saved them. I read somewhere that you can turn this off; I will do this for my own sanity.

[MG TOW]

The link below takes you to a thread with instructions on how to turn off auto pause.

Its in the options exe file.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=87088&highlight=smart+pause

[Sneaksie]

Only certain units have smoke ammo. There is a smoke button in the middle of the orders panel, if its greyed out unit has no smoke ammo.

[Paulverisor64]

Thanks a lot guys.

Smart Pause is now turned off. Look forward to trying this out.

The next time I get in the game I will take notice of who has the smoke grenade. There was a couple times in the tactics demo that requested a smoke screen set for the captured tank.

[Paulverisor64]

This game appears to be much better than it's sales were. I really like the Faid Pass Mission. The immersion level is very good.

I do have a couple questions I ran into;

1) The game kept playing well beyond wiping out the German troops; how would you conclude the mission?

2) Can you get your fighter reinforcements to take on the Stuka dive bombers? If so how would you do this? I click the fighter plane icon when I hear the rumble of planes in the distance, and right click on the ground because it isn't really clear where else to click.

[Sneaksie]

1) If it seems that nothing is happening for a while and you don't get a 'finish' button at the top of the screen, most likely that some panzer was immobilized far away and the scenario trigger stuck waiting for it. You can take your reinforcement tanks and do a probe counterattack, chances are that you'll spot the panzer and eliminate him. This glitch happened from time to time on this mission, but it's cause wasn't found.

2) You did the right thing. In this mission it's best to call the fighters as soon as possible to a spot near the village. They usually shot down several Stukas.

[Paulverisor64]

1) If it seems that nothing is happening for a while and you don't get a 'finish' button at the top of the screen, most likely that some panzer was immobilized far away and the scenario trigger stuck waiting for it. You can take your reinforcement tanks and do a probe counterattack, chances are that you'll spot the panzer and eliminate him. This glitch happened from time to time on this mission, but it's cause wasn't found.

2) You did the right thing. In this mission it's best to call the fighters as soon as possible to a spot near the village. They usually shot down several Stukas.

Very good, thanks for your help