Where is the boundary for occupation?

[GreenAsJade]

I had thought that it was pretty green-and-white. If you have troops inside the green box and the oppo doesn't you occupy.

However, I just finished Chance Encounter with my men in the church green square and his not (they were all cowering on the other side of the walls) and I was not awarded the location.

Why is that?

GaJ

[Erwin]

Being successful is all about who you know...

[Michael Emrys]

I've always proceeded on the assumption that you had to not only (a) have units on the location and ( have cleared it of enemy units, but that you also © had to remove or at least suppress any enemy units that might put effective fire onto to it. © is not an official pronouncement so far as I know, but it seemed reasonable to me, so I have always tried to accomplish it.

Michael

[GreenAsJade]

I dunno where you would have gotten the "remove effective fire" thing from.

The Manual say

"Occupy: player needs to occupy an area, clear it completely of enemy troops,

and keep some forces there (until the end of the battle) to gain points"

How do you measure "effective fire"? My oppo had guys on the opposite side of a huge wall. Could they put effective fire in? What about the mortars on the other side of the map?

GaJ

[Chris Ferrous]

Just a thought, but if true it would be a minor glitch:-

Had the cowering enemy guys (outside the green occupation zone at the end) ever been inside the occupation zone?

If so, had they left any dead or wounded behind?

If so, was the endgame calculation erroneously counting these wounded since otherwise that enemy formation still existed (and could be construed as still being partially inside the zone)?

[RockinHarry]

I've always proceeded on the assumption that you had to not only (a) have units on the location and ( have cleared it of enemy units, but that you also © had to remove or at least suppress any enemy units that might put effective fire onto to it. © is not an official pronouncement so far as I know, but it seemed reasonable to me, so I have always tried to accomplish it.

Michael

If it´s ©, it could be that even the unit behind the wall is counted, as it can put fire into the churches 2nd story and above:

[RockinHarry]

Just a thought, but if true it would be a minor glitch:-

Had the cowering enemy guys (outside the green occupation zone at the end) ever been inside the occupation zone?

If so, had they left any dead or wounded behind?

If so, was the endgame calculation erroneously counting these wounded since otherwise that enemy formation still existed (and could be construed as still being partially inside the zone)?

Good point.

[GreenAsJade]

AFAIK, no enemy had entered the precinct...

I don't buy this "you haven't occupied if it someone can fire into it".

My oppo has tanks on the other side of the map that are shelling the church, and mortars that can no doubt be turned on it. "Remove possibility to fire on the occupy zone" would amount to "kill all the enemy".

Doesn't make sense.

GaJ

[YankeeDog]

One thing to keep in mind is that linear terrain objects like walls and bocage generally run through the middle of an action spot, so it may be that the outside of the tall wall where the enemy unit was, was technically part of the objective zone. Have to check the map to be sure, but look for the green objective zone color on the ground on the outside of of the wall, as a fringe. If there is any green on the outside of the wall, then this is part of the objective zone.

[Erwin]

"I don't buy this "you haven't occupied if it someone can fire into it"."

I agree, that is ridiculous. It's virtually impossible to prevent a unit from firing into a victory location. If this were so, then one could simply get a friendly unit to fire into an enemy's VL to deny them the points.

[GerryCMBB]

Someone explained this to me in terms of the Demo crossroads scenario. I thought I had controlled it but didn't get the points for it. But there were enough Germans with small-arms fire close enough that meant the crossroads wasn't really controlled (wasn't safe for the following units to move through). Maybe the calculation takes in the amount of fire (small-arms?) that the defenders can readily apply to the objective? And if it is at a certain level you still haven't cleared the objective. And maybe artillery and other long-range fire doesn't count here?

Gerry

[Holien]

Would be good for BTS to clear this one up....

[Michael Emrys]

Someone explained this to me in terms of the Demo crossroads scenario. I thought I had controlled it but didn't get the points for it. But there were enough Germans with small-arms fire close enough that meant the crossroads wasn't really controlled (wasn't safe for the following units to move through). Maybe the calculation takes in the amount of fire (small-arms?) that the defenders can readily apply to the objective? And if it is at a certain level you still haven't cleared the objective. And maybe artillery and other long-range fire doesn't count here?

Bingo. Militarily, you haven't really taken an objective if it is unusable due to enemy fire on it. How much enemy fire? Well, a stray bullet from the other side of the hill wouldn't do it, but an MG laying down direct fire from 100 m would. So the answer would be, it depends.

I have no idea if BFC has tried to design this in. Quite possibly it's one of those things so hard to define in terms that the basic game engine can work with that they wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. But to say that the concept is ridiculous is just wrong.

Michael

[Erwin]

"... it's one of those things so hard to define in terms that the basic game engine can work with..."

I think it's number 18263/B345-N873...

[Holien]

It would be good if that is the way it worked as clearly you need to secure the area around an objective IRL.

However does tank fire from a great distance away count as nullifying it? Anyway nice to know what has bee done if it can be cleared up...

[Erwin]

In that case we need to know how many meters away from the victory zone does an enemy have to be, and/or how many firepower factors do they need to pour into the area.

Not knowing this doesn't spoil game enjoyment vs the AI. But, how can one have a competitive H2H game without knowing the parameters? Otherwise we're back to CM1 where one is playing the engine/system rather than the oppo, and victory goes to the person who has a better sense of how the system works rather than tactics etc.

[womble]

I'm pretty sure it's just units that are 'near'. I was sure I had control of the VL in a QB vs the AI, but on ceasefire I discovered that I didn't. There were some crews from dead Shermans and a halftrack 'near' (like, within about 50m of) the edge of the VL, but none exactly on it. Some infantry small arms fire made the halftrack (it had no gunner) back off to about 100m from the edge of the VL, and then I had control. The broken crews didn't seem to count.

[Michael Emrys]

I've noticed that the presence or lack of it of AFVs on the objective weighs heavily. In one playing of TF Raff I called for ceasefire and the victory screen didn't show me as controlling the objective. So I went back and drove a Sherman onto it without changing anything else. Then I was awarded the objective.

Michael

[GreenAsJade]

I appreciate that the objective needs to be convincingly controlled.

I'm very surprised to find that we can draw a line on the map and say "this area has to be secured", but the line on the map doesn't represent the exclusion zone for the enemy.

I didn't mean to say that "any idea that the area has to be secured for useful use is ridiculous". I was objecting to the definition that says "you have to prevent any enemy fire into it".

I also think that the manual's description of this is rather inadequate. It says "occupy the area". It sounds like it needs some more description of what other things you have to achieve. I'mm glad to have that clarified here!

GaJ

[womble]

I'm very surprised to find that we can draw a line on the map and say "this area has to be secured", but the line on the map doesn't represent the exclusion zone for the enemy.

100% agree with this. What's the point of a 'fuzzy' VL edge? Why not just make all VLs a bit bigger? Or points, with radii and some mathematical decay of influence over distance?

[GreenAsJade]

There's an interesting consequence of this.

Walls around a VL make it _harder_ for the defender!

This is the case in Chance Encounter: there are high walls around the church precinct which is a VL. The attacker can run inf up to the base of the wall on the _outside_ and they deny the occupier the VL, yet the occupier can't get at them!

That feels really wierd.

GaJ

[Michael Emrys]

The attacker can run inf up to the base of the wall on the _outside_ and they deny the occupier the VL, yet the occupier can't get at them!

Seems like the cure for that is to redraw the VL so that it lies entirely within the walls, assuming that there is enough room within the walls for that.

Michael

[RockinHarry]

I´ve checked CE V2 in the editor and the church occupy zone is 7x5 (56x40m), but not touching the outer walls. I assume the game expects to have a minimum force in the occupy zone in order to count it "effectively" controlled. It could also depend upon overal occupy zone size, so larger occupy zones demand larger forces to occupy. Either there is am invisible point system (tanks count more than infantry), or raw headcount for infantry units is considered. Additionally there is the 3D element, with the large church and 3+ stories, requiring even more troops to occupy. So for the 56x40m occupy zone + church, I´d expect to have a full infantry platoon in there to command the place. No idea. if the game works this way or not.

[Erwin]

"What's the point of a 'fuzzy' VL edge? Why not just make all VLs a bit bigger?"

+1 to that. Otherwise it is virtually impossible for players to know if they have captured something or not.

I thought that the reason that many VL's are already so big was to take that into account. Any bigger and VL's will take up most of a typical CMBN map!

[RockinHarry]

Over at CMSF forum, someone postet that it also makes a difference whether occupying troops are conscripts, green, veteran ect. in order to get the zone counted in end game score. So obviously an internal evaluation system is used, that may also relate to the point value given for the terrain objective by the scenario author. CE V2 church terrain objective is given 300 points. So what occupying unit would equal 300 points? In CMX1 unit values were shown for each formation, but in CMBN do not unless checking the QB force selection screen. A regular german infantry platoon equals ~200 points, relating in point value to a regular Panzer 4H tank at about 220 points. A regular sniper team is at 24 points and oviously that wouldn´t be counted to "control" a 300 point objective. Yet I think a certain ratio is involved that also may take into account size of terrain objective. I´d suspect a terrain objective like the church in CE V2 would require at least 50% of the objectives value (300), which would be at least two regular infantry (edit:) squads or a single tank maybe. Just a guess about the ratio. It could be something completely different or more complicated...:eek: