The vehicles don't attack, but the men do

[moeburn]

For some reason, I can't create a scenario where the AI attacks with vehicles and infantry. The vehicles just sit where they started. The best I've gotten was a T-72 tank that moved a couple metres, fired a couple shots, then just sat there.

The AI can attack with infantry just fine, they go exactly where I told them to go in the AI plan section of the scenario editor, as well as the terrain objective. But for some reason, even if there are 15 technicals, not a single one of them will move from their starting position. This might make sense if they were providing supporting fire or they had a target in sight, but they dont.

Im pretty new to the CMSF scenario editor, most of my experience is from CMBB, so its probably something simple that I'm doing wrong. Any ideas?

Thanks,

-moeburn

[Alex]

AI have different movement order types, if you use "maximum assault" for mixed armor-infantry group, than infantry go first, armor at back. If you use 'assault' order than they move more quickly, other order types move vehicle at first.

P.S. I have russian game version and maybe orders calls not like I sad.

[moeburn]

AI have different movement order types, if you use "maximum assault" for mixed armor-infantry group, than infantry go first, armor at back. If you use 'assault' order than they move more quickly, other order types move vehicle at first.

P.S. I have russian game version and maybe orders calls not like I sad.

Thankyou for your reply. You got it right, the orders are called "maximum assault" and "assault", but I tried both, and both resulted in the vehicles not even moving. Which order type should I use to have the vehicles assist and support the infantry?

[Alex]

orders also have an intensive movement type: "active", 'careful', 'fast', 'max fast' (something like it) it also influences for the movement.

and buy the way be attentive this AI groups.

[George MC]

Check you have assigned an AI group to the units.

Then check in the AI Editor that you are a/ setting times for movement b/ paiting areas for the AI Group to occupy. You might find it worth while cracking open a scenario to see what someone else has done.

[moeburn]

Check you have assigned an AI group to the units.

Then check in the AI Editor that you are a/ setting times for movement b/ paiting areas for the AI Group to occupy. You might find it worth while cracking open a scenario to see what someone else has done.

I started with one of the included quick battle maps, which seem to have some orders for the AI included, so I thought I was doing everything right. Only, according to the manual, if no AI group is assigned, the default group is 1. So I didn't assign the units any groups, and just made orders to group 1. I know it worked, because the infantry followed it perfectly. Its just the vehicles that sit there sucking their thumbs.

I painted the area for the AI to occupy, and i set the "exit before" time to 10 minutes, but after 10 minutes, the vehicles still hadn't arrived.

[birdstrike]

I've recently noticed a couple of changes in AI behavior since the last patch (been away for a while).

In a somewhat similar situation to your observation, I had a rather large group of vehicles on a sizeable map, though in different AI groups. As in your case, only a fraction of those vehicles followed their AI plans. I reckoned it was because my system just couldn't cope with the number of orders given and plot their moves all at the same time. I reduced the number of units and now it works. BTW the same number of units, but on a smaller map also didn't cause any problems.

The second thing I noticed, infantry units issued the max assault command crawl to their destination - never had this before.

And finally, issuing the advance command to groups of units will cause them to move only some units at a time in a sort of 'platoon-leap-frogging', for example in a group of 4 tanks, only 2 would move a certain distance, while the others would wait until they had finished their movement, then the waiting tanks would start moving while the first two tanks would wait, and so on - way cool, I must say.

[Paper Tiger]

Which order type should I use to have the vehicles assist and support the infantry?

If you give an AI group that consists of vehicles and infantry and give them an Assault or Max Assault command, you'll find that the vehicles move rarely or not at all respectively. It's better to give such groups ADVANCE orders.

The Assault command works well with Infantry-only groups. As for Max Assault, I never use this one.

[moeburn]

Which order type should I use to have the vehicles assist and support the infantry?

If you give an AI group that consists of vehicles and infantry and give them an Assault or Max Assault command, you'll find that the vehicles move rarely or not at all respectively. It's better to give such groups ADVANCE orders.

The Assault command works well with Infantry-only groups. As for Max Assault, I never use this one.

I made 3 changes, including changing the order type from 'max assault' to 'advance', like you suggested. I'm not sure which one fixed it, but it half-works now. I also switched the units from uncon. combatant to uncon. fighter. Finally, I made the orders more complex, by adding orders in-between. For example, in my old method, I would tell the units to go from point A to point C, now I tell them to go to A, then B, then C, which seems to have helped.

I say it 'half worked' because at the end of the game, when I was allowed to see all the units left on the battlefield, I noticed that while most of the vehicles had moved up, about 25% of them were still remaining in the back, and ONLY the vehicles. All the infantry had moved up, as ordered. This might have been because the AI thought it was using them as supporting fire or backup units, I'm not sure.

Thanks for all your help everyone, I appreciate it.

[Paper Tiger]

One last word of advice. You should definitely, definitely test your AI plans using Scenario Author Test Mode as this will allow you to watch everythning that the AI side does.

[Sheppy]

what are all the ai commands and what do they each do?

[Paper Tiger]

what are all the ai commands and what do they each do?

Ouch! That's a very BIG question and would require a substantial post to answer. Fortunately almost all the answers can be found by reading the manual. Have a wee read through the relevant sections first and then ask something more specific.

[Sheppy]

alrighty then

[costard]

Perhaps a little OT - does the level of command present affect the carrying out of AI plans?

So if there was a red colonel turned up, suddenly your junior red officers are doing things, like attacking.

[Paper Tiger]

does the level of command present affect the carrying out of AI plans?

Not that I'm aware of. Higher level officers will affect C2 though so uniits might start spreading the word about discovered enemy dispositions a bit faster. I believe this helps units spot the '?' units a bit faster but it won't affect AI planning in any way. Since RED's a bit crap at 'spreading the word' I doubt your Red colonel will make much difference. But if the AI controlled side is BLUE, it should help a lot.

[Marwek77 aka Red Reporter]

Please check the are where you would like to send your troops with the AI plan. If you mark with yellow collor only buildings the vehicles will not move. You need to give them also some place to move. So mark also the street between the 2 buildings and the tank will move exactly there and the troops will move inside the building.

What we need is to give more complex order to the AI where to position troops and vehicles, because i dont like when there is tank and some squad in the same hex. In case of explosion the casualties are high.

Hopefully somewhere in the future

[Eagle2]

When i served in Slovak Army during 09/11/2001 our first reaction was to patrol around base without ammunition. Probably not to kill each other or some civilians...

Is that a true story? I didn't know Slovaks were that affected by it. Sorry if I sound a bit ignorant, but I'm merely curious.

[Marwek77 aka Red Reporter]

You mean this?

When i served in Slovak Army during 09/11/2001 our first reaction was to patrol around base without ammunition. Probably not to kill each other or some civilians...

It's true. My father called me to watch some news in TV immediately. Together with others we have seen in TV what happened in NY. After some time alarm started, all free activities have been canceled, later all comming holidays for some soldiers have been stopped too. I have seen running quards around (but without ammo as i realized later) and we got rifles too. Few commanders were maybe too active, because we were ready to march somewhere to the forest... But during the night hot heads cooled down and aproximately a week we continued our training with more training alarms like usual. The quards commander missused this situation maybe more and these boys were walking around base almost non stop You have to understand also that we all were conscripts that time in quite well organized and prepared training base so maybe others have different experiencies. But at the beggining it looks not so funny at all. Later when it was more or less clear that it will be one side direct US ride to Afghanistan situation cool down very quickly and we immediately started to compare who will be there longer Russians or Americans. Looks like Russians will loose