mechanized assault and occupying buildings

[Boche]

hello people

ive been trying to make a mechanized company role up to a small town and occupy certain buldings.

i did some testing on a test map with the assault command to the whole company which led to the BMPs rolling up to the building dismounting the infantry and then occupying the buildings, yet when i tried this on my map they only rolled up to the buildings and stayed there. its my fault obviously i havnt given the right commands and im trying to do it the easy way

what commands would i have to give to a company to move up to a town and occupy 3 or 4 buildings? thanks! and sorry for the bother

[LongLeftFlank]

You are trying to get the AI side to do this, I assume.

I suggest you give the infantry in the vehicles a different A* group number than the vehicles. They'll go wherever their carrying vehicles go as long as you don't order a dismount. Once you do so, you can then issue a separate set of orders to the infantry to occupy the buildings and also let the transporting vehicles go find safe overwatch positions without the infantry following them.

Be careful with the ASSAULT command (vs ADVANCE). One glitch I've noted is that if only one unit is issued the command (or is left alive to do so) it won't obey it. In contrast, units always execute their ADVANCE orders.

[LongLeftFlank]

Upon further reflection, there is an additional problem. If you pull the vehicles up to the target buildings and then dismount the infantry in the next order, they won't necessarily enter the buildings next to them... they seem to randomly select from among the spaces offered. The transports may also shuffle around, assuming the indicated squares are "legal" for them to enter. So you'll get all these strange Chinese fire drills, which will be very lethal if enemy troops are nearby.

A workaround might be to assign the vehicles to both groups A2 and A3 and their infantry to just A2. A2 gets orders to go to "squares" that are partly building, partly open (but not to dismount the infantry yet). The next A2 order requests "dismount" and specifies "upper floors" (or "rooftops" or "mixed") but doesn't paint any squares -- i.e. the infantry will merely exit their vehicles and go to the indicated level of the square they are in.

You can then use the A3 group to issue orders to the carriers to go their way, leaving the infantry in place in the buildings. This might not be the ideal spot in the building but hell, you can't have everything.

Playtest this before you try it. There may be some wrinkles I've missed. Watch the timing of the orders.

The AI editor is a tricky thing....