please disallow pre-planned arty

[womble]

... I think the main problem with preplanned barrages is in how the AI ALWAYS uses them to target setup areas and painted objective areas on Turn 1

I think you're suffering a little from observer bias here.

Or there is something broken.

Just so you know, MarkEzra was the guy who turned all those maps that came with the game into QB maps. He wrote the AI scripts and the setup zones. So it's worth listening when he says:

... No arty plans are set to strike the Attackers Setup area...

It's going to need some evidence to show that this truly isn't the case, I reckon, since the AI isn't actually "Intelligent" and can't "think outside its [plan] box". You can see from his posts that Mark is entirely willing to admit fallibility, but without some detail he can't help you.

[7thGalaxy]

Isn't intelligence also modelled - hence the ? where there are concentrations of defensive troops - that is surely at least partly an invitation to drop a few rounds on them. Does the AI take these into account?

[Chris Ferrous]

There's a few things to consider here:-

1) If you feel you may be subjected to a first turn or very early barrage attack then your force, whether attacking or defending should be spread out and if possible not be in an 'obvious' place.

2) You should always deploy on the basis that the enemy might use artillery against you before you've moved, or the instant you set off.

3) Map-makers and scenario designers really should provide enough space to deploy both in attack and defence and even if it is a realistic / historical map a degree of artistic licence should be used to create terrain cover shields nearby. This shielding terrain represents the approach to the map or defence in depth or reserve zones for the defender. This 'cover terrain' should not though be the subject of a game objective.

4) Players of QB, and designers, should ensure that a realistic force density happens on the map. It is possible that CMBN is partially culpable on this point because it would seem players can choose to have too many 'points' on too small a map. I say partially, because players should use their own discretion on this point.

5) I believe CMBN is responsible for not limiting artillery as a proportion of the force chosen in a QB. In CM1 there were very good algorithms for limiting unit combinations, but unless I've missed something these limitations are no longer imposed.

6) Scenario designers, as mentioned above and elsewhere, can entirely prevent first turn / pre-planned barrages by bringing on artillery assets as reinforcements even if they're off-map artillery. This can happen as early as the fifth turn / minute.

7) The 'gentlemens' agreement' is an option but it should be entirely unnecessary if 1-4 above are followed.

8) One more possible issue for CMBN to address; in game terms I do believe the default load-outs for artillery ammo are set too high. They may be typical fire plan figures historically, and I've no reason to doubt that, but in game terms I think these quantities should only be achieved when a designer specifically tinkers with it. For QBs especially I think smaller ammo loads with an exponential increase in price for more shells is the way forward.

[womble]

Isn't intelligence also modelled - hence the ? where there are concentrations of defensive troops - that is surely at least partly an invitation to drop a few rounds on them. Does the AI take these into account?

The manual says that in Assault QBs the attacker gets pre-battle intelligence. In scenarios the level of pre-battle intel is set by the designer. I'd expect the AI to use these as a guide if it's got 'em.

[Paper Tiger]

Ha! I'm a bit late to this one. I'd have loved to have the ability to restrict scenario-mission 'pre-planned' artillery barrages to bombarding locations that appropriate spotters can observe. I thought this was all fine in the Modern Era but in WW2, it feels a bit too god-like, especially as there were many instances where the allies, or the Germans, were heading into relatively unknown territory, even not aware that the enemy was present. In WW2, most Infantry companies sport 2-3 on-board mortars in addition to any off-map assets. These on-board mortars also benefit from the god-like pre-plan allowing the attacker to target a particular junction deep within the enemy position with pin-point accuracy.

It's certainly true that you can prevent the attacker from doing this by bringing in the artillery as a reinforcement after 5 minutes. But this means that you will also have to remove each platoon's individual mortar as well (think US Airborne Infantry here). This is a very ugly hack.

BTW, when you are the defender, you should expect AI-controlled artillery to bombard your set-up locations almost every time you play a mission and plan your set up with this in mind. Having it land anywhere else is a criminal waste of the AI's artillery. I'm not such a big fan of having this happen when I'm the attacker but this really did happen quite a lot in Normandy and so, as long as it doesn't happen every time, I'm prepared to go on with the mission and play with the hand I've been dealt.

[Chris Ferrous]

It's certainly true that you can prevent the attacker from doing this by bringing in the artillery as a reinforcement after 5 minutes. But this means that you will also have to remove each platoon's individual mortar as well (think US Airborne Infantry here). This is a very ugly hack.

Personally, I don't think this is an 'ugly hack' at all. Bringing on artillery and mortars after 5 minutes takes only a few clicks; select the few units as a reinforcement group, maybe 3-4 clicks plus an F key, and then allocate an arrival time. This can be applied to organic artillery just as much as to attached assets.

Couldn't be simpler, mate.

[slysniper]

I am assuming the main issues are with AI QB ME(m o u s e) pre-planned barrages?

If so, then this seems to be a map/design issue, rather than a "it's broke/unfair" issue. If the AI can purchase enough arty to smack the player's setup zones effectively, then the setup zones may be too small for that battle size.

The purchase parameters may also be allowing for an inordinate amount of artillery.

Easy fix time...

If you have found a QB map you really like, except for that issue, then I would suggest you take the map into the editor and expand the setup zones somewhat.

Save it with a new number.

Delete the offending version.

Taa-daa, you're a map maker.

If you are having this issue with a Human player, and it is in violation of a pre-battle agreement, then take your ball and go home.

If you are having this issue with a Human player and there was no agreement, you have just learned a lesson. Man up and soldier soldier.

-

I agree with this in a major way, really it does not take some redesign to solve the problem. the game is fine as is. What is incorrect is the map design. basically the maps need large set up zones to prevent known unit locations that are easy prey for pre-arty attacks. And really, this is only a issue in maps for QB type games. If a scenario is designed with it, then you just have to live with the fact that you might get hit in your set up zone.

In RL it happened more than you think, and it was not by a good guess. what do you think all them night patrols into enemy lines was about. If you had info. that the enemy might be gathering at a location for a assault in the morning, for sure if arty was available, that possible location was hit with arty, normally before dawn.

I think just modifying maps would resolve this problem, that could be done very easily.with just a little effort.

[Michael Emrys]

I would rather increase the size of the setup zone then than disallowing pre-planned artillery.

I am strongly against disabling realistic features in the favor of "play balance". I don't even mind who wins the battle when playing the game, I just want to see a drama unfold.

I agree with all of this.

Just as a personal note, I have yet to see the AI bombard a setup zone on the first turn. Not saying it doesn't happen, and certainly not denying that a sneaky, over-competitive human player wouldn't do it. What I have seen is the AI dropping arty on a likely route coming out of a setup zone, usually in an area which has engine noises emanating from it, which strikes me as totally realistic. Most of these salvos however fall on empty ground. The only time I've suffered from one is when I've walked into it, which also strikes me as totally realistic, if pretty disappointing.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

In RL it happened more than you think, and it was not by a good guess. what do you think all them night patrols into enemy lines was about. If you had info. that the enemy might be gathering at a location for a assault in the morning, for sure if arty was available, that possible location was hit with arty, normally before dawn.

Absolutely. For the defender, it was often though not always the case that there were few reasonable locations that an attack could form up or avenues through which it could advance. And if armor was involved, a lot of noise would usually accompany such a gathering. Naturally, there were tricks that an attacker would try to employ to mask his intentions. Sometimes those worked, sometimes they didn't.

For an attacker, pre-battle intelligence was also in play. Not only could it be derived from patrolling as slysniper says, but don't forget that the Allies also had spotter planes in the air as much of the time as weather allowed. Those also were providing information on the Germans' dispositions.

Rarely was all this information complete or entirely accurate, but usually it was good enough to formulate a successful plan as long as the resources to carry it out were sufficient.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

One side effect of increasing the Setup Zones is potentially causing the AI Player to setup its forces too spread out. It would be highly situational, though, so it might have no practical effect on a single player battle.

As is often the case, there's some stuff that doesn't work as well for either single player or multiplayer (even in CMx1), RealTime or WeGo. It's very difficult to have two significant choices for anything in real life and have there always be a perfect fit all the time. Honestly, we've been pleasantly surprised how few issues have cropped up.

In a perfect world we could code around all the little nuances that work worse for some settings than others. But this distracts us from coding up new stuff that works for all options. Still, when there's something REALLY compelling (something significant without workarounds) that needs changing we will get to it.

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

Just as a personal note, I have yet to see the AI bombard a setup zone on the first turn. Not saying it doesn't happen, and certainly not denying that a sneaky, over-competitive human player wouldn't do it. What I have seen is the AI dropping arty on a likely route coming out of a setup zone, usually in an area which has engine noises emanating from it, which strikes me as totally realistic. Most of these salvos however fall on empty ground. The only time I've suffered from one is when I've walked into it, which also strikes me as totally realistic, if pretty disappointing.

I think this hurts the AI more than it helps it. It only works once or twice before the player learns to never leave the setup zone on turn 1. The frequency needs to be toned down so that the AI isn't blowing it's artillery budget on empty fields most of the time.

[Michael Emrys]

I think this hurts the AI more than it helps it. It only works once or twice before the player learns to never leave the setup zone on turn 1. The frequency needs to be toned down so that the AI isn't blowing it's artillery budget on empty fields most of the time.

Agreed. The present behavior is actually rather stupid, since it may blow most of the defender's artillery ammo for an unlikely gain.

Michael

[slysniper]

Agreed. The present behavior is actually rather stupid, since it may blow most of the defender's artillery ammo for an unlikely gain.

Michael

I think the game has the features in it to prevent that if the player who programs the AI knows how to set it up. Now for AI qb's . no help is there - so the AI could use some programmng. BUt a person can design the game so only so much arty is available on the first turns and then bring additional arty availability to the AI for future use once the pre-bombing is past..

[Childress]

One gathers that those most discomfited by the first turn barrages are those who participate in H-to-H Meeting Engagement QBs. Maybe Battlefront can, in some future update, add a check box that prohibits 1st turn bombardments. As a matter of fact, it's not clear why pre-registered artillery should even appear in a battle that aspires to simulate a 'hasty deployment' situation.

[Michael Emrys]

BUt a person can design the game so only so much arty is available on the first turns and then bring additional arty availability to the AI for future use once the pre-bombing is past..

Perhaps another solution would be to allow AI first turn unspotted artillery to only fire at the harassing rate.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

As a matter of fact, it's not clear why pre-registered artillery should even appear in a battle that aspires to simulate a 'hasty deployment' situation.

You mean MEs? Yes, that is a good question to ponder. I think I would still allow first turn attacks by aircraft though, as those could be considered independent of an on the ground spotter.

Michael

[LJFHutch]

Yes but even in a ME pre-planned can make sense, what if you were moving to intercept the enemy? What if you were moving to take a location and knew that the enemy were going to make a play for it as well? You can't just assume that every ME were two forces bumping into each other.

[LemuelG]

I can see it being an issue on smaller maps, with smaller forces, otherwise there is more room to deploy and more troops on-hand so an unfortunately well-placed barrage doesn't spell the end.

Since what you're effectively purchasing is priority, maybe heavy assets of battalion-level and above should become prohibitively expensive for smaller formations to purchase. The logic being, the larger the formation with the larger area-of-operation finds it has greater priority over smaller units in localized skirmishes and can access artillery with more ease. So you wont end up fighting someone on a small map who has only an FO and the rest of his points spent on rockets.

But then, people want to have their cake, and eat it too. So that wont work. I predict an evolution in map design, larger with more extensive deployment areas - arena-style maps dont really give you much chance against heavy support. The player should have an option: do I deploy all my troops in the obvious positions on the objective? Or do I set up outposts and 'duck' the preliminary barrage, moving the main force in after the enemy's firepower is spent? Do I run my guys down the obviously well-defended approach, or do I try to hit it from another direction?

As a hard and fast rule, I'd say don't allow off-map support at all on any map under one, maybe two square kilometers in size, unless you want a blood-bath. From some historical scenarios I expect this. Not much fun in a duel.

[John Malcolm]

Just a wee bit of historical perspective:

"In the early morning hours of 4 July, enemy radio traffic increased. The content of the messages indicated an impending attack. Based on previous experienced, the Division calculated the start of the attack for 06.00 hours. The wooded areas east and southwest of Marcelet were considered to be the assembly areas. In order to smash the assembly, or at least to inflict painful losses on the enemy, squeezed into a narrow space, two fire attacks by artillery and mortars carpeted these areas at approximately 05.00 hours. The III (Heavy) Abteilung SS-Panzerartillerieregiment 12 fired some ten salvos (approximately 220 shells) and the mortars fired two half-salvos. Ground observation of the target areas was not possible but the enemy radio traffic indicated that the fire had been effective. A repetition of the fire attacks was not possible because of the lack of ammunition." Hubert Meyer, The 12th SS: The History of the Hitler Youth Panzer Division: Volume One.

Just food for thought. He could be describing exactly the situation described in this thread. This was a situation where the Canadian attack went ahead complete with their own rolling barrage (and the Germans firing their own artillery just behind that to catch advancing troops). The defender pulling back their forces to avoid the full force of a softening up barrage and then rushing into position as soon as the barrage begins to lift seems to have been very common also.

[Chris Ferrous]

War is hell: case proved.

Oh, and it's not fair!

[undead reindeer cavalry]

i don't think fires targetting assembly areas fit CMBN scale too well. the scale of CMBN battles is so small that the fires against assembly areas would have already taken place before the CMBN battle. if fires against assembly areas were to be simulated, it would be better to have them in as pre-battle casualties.

i am speaking theoretically. i am not suggesting development time should be invested in this.

[Nidan1]

i don't think fires targetting assembly areas fit CMBN scale too well. the scale of CMBN battles is so small that the fires against assembly areas would have already taken place before the CMBN battle. if fires against assembly areas were to be simulated, it would be better to have them in as pre-battle casualties.

i am speaking theoretically. i am not suggesting development time should be invested in this.

It would be an excellent idea in practice if scenario designers could create just such a situation by having units in the assembly areas at the start of the game be in various stages of distress. It was done in the scenarios of CMx1.

Of course this would not work in QBs, but other work arounds have already been discussed here and could be agreed uppon by the players before starting a game.

[John Malcolm]

i don't think fires targetting assembly areas fit CMBN scale too well. the scale of CMBN battles is so small that the fires against assembly areas would have already taken place before the CMBN battle. if fires against assembly areas were to be simulated, it would be better to have them in as pre-battle casualties.

i am speaking theoretically. i am not suggesting development time should be invested in this.

I'm not so sure. The quote was dealing with a Canadian attack on Carpiquet airfield east of Caen. Looking at Google Earth or Maps doesn't tell us whether the modern wooded areas near Marcelet are the some ones that were there in 1944, but any wooded area east of of Marcelet yet west of the airfield area is going to be pretty close.

The fire against the assembly areas was conducted at Division level by the Germans in this instance - way outside the scope of the game - but the same arguement could be made about US forces calling in Naval gun bombardments. No matter what scale these types of fires were conducted at, we would still expect to see their effects in our smaller scale slice of the big picture.

Going back to the orignal arguement - I'm not in favour of removing the ability to call in bombardments during the setup phase. This happened all the time at all levels. I am in favour of map designers setting up much more generous and larger deployment areas for both sides - making the employment of this tactic more risky.

I think another problem, which has been discussed elsewhere, is the cheapness of the American 114mm rockets. Even in a Small Probe, the US player can afford to buy a battery of these for 69 points or so. They have a large rarity number, but even when rarity is set to strict they would still have 732 rarity points to play with as they spent the remainder of their points (1767).

[JasonC]

Scenario designers should get in the habit of not putting the full attacking forces on the field at the start of the game.

Instead, have the lead element present (that means roughly a third of the force, typically). Let the others enter in stages over the first 10 minutes. Tell the side player in the briefing what he can expect and when, so he can still plan.

This also reduces fiddly set up time, and the tedious business of giving absolutely everyone orders at game start. Players deploy the men by giving them orders when they enter, a few at a time.

For defenders, since they have much more of the map to set up on, this isn't really an issue. But again, let a quarter to a third of the defending forces arrive some time after the attack starts, to act as a local reserve.

I did this routinely in my CMx1 scenarios and it worked for me. YMMV.

[YankeeDog]

The problem is not only the size of attacker's assembly areas, it's also the fact that in CMBN the defender knows the attack jump-off time, down to the minute.

As previously described, there are certainly ways a defender can make a pretty good guess as to approximately when an attack is going to jump off, but not generally with the specificity you see in CMBN.

This said, I do think that a blanket "no turn one pre-planned barrage" setting in the game code is unnecessary, and probably causes more problems than it solves. I really think this is a better thing handled by players on a case-by-case basis, depending on their own playstyle preferences, the type of QB they are playing, the size of the map, etc.

Personally, I would find playing a game that hinged largely on whether the defender guessed right with an opening barrage rather unappealing, and I probably would prefer to play with some sort of one barrage prohibition (note that I'm framing this as a gameplay preference, not a realism preference). But I have no problem negotiating something like this with my opponent.

EDIT TO ADD: +1 to JasonC's suggestions regarding the incremental addition of forces over time. This makes management of larger forces significantly easier, and also nicely limits the effectiveness of opening barrages, without unrealistically nerfing them. Obviously, this only applies to scenarios and not QBs, though.

Just a thought: For QBs, it would be interesting to allow players to delay the arrival of part of their force by 5 or 10 minutes, as a tactical choice...