Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: exsonic01

AB infantry mechanics are somewhat simplified, as single squad is visualized as a single unit in this game, and single squad is the minimum unit for infantry. This game does not depicts individual soldiers like CC or CM does. And like CCIP mentioned, squads are not separable.

But you still can make infantry-only combat in this game. From my experience of my games with basic database and Chechen mod games, infantry combat of AB is not that bad. But if you design the battle in wrong way, infantry combat would become very very boring. But if it is well designed, infantry combat can be an enjoyable one.

Here are several things I recommend:

1) Choose small map.
In this game, pure infantry tab bois (without taxi) are slow. Unlike Eugen's games, infantry in this game has realistic speed of human beings. You will get really bored if map is too big as all of movement actions will consume the most of the time. So please enjoy pure infantry only game in smaller map, less than 3km x 3km. You could try up to 5km x 5km, but this will make game really long.

2) Set fewer VPs, yet place it in balanced position.
I'm not sure about infantry AI of these days, because I'm not "moving" infantry that much these days. (which means, I only sue infantry in defense scenario, and I place them in ambush position or dug-in position and never moves them)
But in the past, I felt like infantry AI might be a bit more defensive (this was personal feeling, not sure if it was real). This makes AI relatively bit less reactive or bit less aggressive. But maybe this is just because infantry is slow, not because infantry AI's issue...
So, anyway, place VP in a location where AI will get more advantage or AI will feel 'easy' to proceed. This will make your game more challenging, and prevent piecemeal attack of AI. Using small number of VP makes sense with #1, because map is small anyway.

3) Infantry is hard to find. Use a lot of fire power (=artillery) and recon.
In the past, infantry combat in this game was like hide-and-seek or fighting against ghosts. AI unit in 'hide' will never found unless your unit moves to that particular tile. And previously, muzzle flash / gun sound signatures are too small, that it was really hard to detect and recognize enemy unit even they were firing. This was one of the main reason of too slow game. Plus, in this game you cannot use area fire. This makes the game too hard and boring to enjoy infantry game.
In current version, muzzle flash / gunsound signatures are increased for all infantry units. But still, it is still not easy to find and detect enemy units, even with thermal sights. So, use a lot of fire power and mortar, use good amount of smoke cover, and use good amount of recon to reveal enemy MG or GL or RR position.

As a result, keep in mind about those issues and design game nicely for infantry battle in balanced way. Then you would enjoy infantry battle in this game.

I really wish thermobaric rockets like TOS-1 & RPO-A (RPO is modeled in CCIP's Chechen mod, which I think is nicely modeled), and chemical artillery munitions + tactical nukes should be introduced.

quote:

ORIGINAL: RedBunny

CCIP-subsim and exsonic01, thank you both for your thoughtful answers.

Good tips on an infantry game exsonic01, I'll keep those handy. Sounds like you speak from experience and I appreciate you sharing that experience.

And CCIP-subsim - you, the game's developers and Matrix should know that I plan on getting AB and the only reason is your Chechnya mod. I have very little interest in the cold war gone hot setting of the base game but a great deal of interest in the AB system in more historical settings like your mod. I hope and expect to see more mods like yours in the future.

Now we'll see which game I'm worse at, AB or CMANO.