Adam Rinkleff
Posts: 375
Joined: 7/24/2007 Status: offline
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I agree with squatter. I remember buying the original Close Combat, it was my favourite game, I was completely satisfied with the graphics, I was satisfied with the features... and there was just one glaring problem: the AI was dumb, really really dumb. So dumb that when it was supposed to attack, it would sometimes do nothing, and when it was supposed to defend, it would attack from the very start with direct frontal human-wave assaults. Sadly, the AI has never improved in any significant way. Im sorry, but if you find this game to be even remotely a challenge, then you simply have -no- tactical ability whatsoever. Its annoying that they keep releasing these remakes of the early Close Combats, and they don't really change anything of substance. Oh, wow, we have night mode now where the map is darker? That's cool, but seriously... fix the AI. Make this game a challenge, please. When I'm bored, I sometimes load up the latest Close Combat. I edit the enemy squads so they ALL have 10 men. That puts two machine-guns in a machine-gun team. Two mortars in a mortar team. Two bazookas in every AT squad. A sniper in every HQ squad. Sometimes I make flamethrower teams with 5 flamethrowers. I go through and edit the soldier stats so that every enemy soldier has an armor of 3, like they are running around armor plated. I increase the rate of fire on their mortars, I edit the battlegroup so the AI has all 'plans' available, I double their ammunition, I set their morale and experience so that they are fanatical and elite, I increase the accleration on their AT guns... and then I limit myself to a single platoon so that I am out-numbered 4 or 5 to 1. And what happens? I simply gun down the AI zombies and inflict about 10 casualties for every one that I take. Usually this causes the enemy BG to disband, which means I completely dominate the strategic battle as well. Here is a video of me, out-numbered 5-1 against armor-plated zombie squads: they just keep coming, and they never even try to think about trying to go around my machine-guns, instead of driving straight forward. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZTyjN0OgE (notice how my AT gun is the first casualty, killed by insta-mortar) The only thing the AI seems able to do is blow up AT guns. Every time I pick an AT gun, it will be lucky to get one shot off, and then the enemy mortar hits it with a perfectly aimed shot that causes the thing to explode. It makes me wonder why they ever even made AT guns during WWII? Amazingly, none of these problems represent my pet peeve about this game. What annoys me the most? That idiotic decision to limit each side to 15 squads. Could we get an increase on this to 30 or 45? Or at least 20! In theory, if the AI started on the top right, middle right, and bottom right of a map, with 15 squads on each side, and I was defending in the center... I might actually start to feel like I might get overrun. I might even be able to pretend that the AI was thinking and that it had some kind of a plan with 3 attacks converging all directly upon me! As for multiplayer? Please, its too difficult to find reliable skilled grand campaign opponents. We need a better AI. It doesn't need to be able to play chess, it just needs to be able to occupy a building and not run around in the street. The bottom line: If you aren't going to improve the AI, then you should at least let us give the AI more squads so that it becomes a halfway interesting zombie simulation. -Adam Rinkleff
< Message edited by AdamRinkleff -- 7/20/2010 4:53:40 PM >
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