This is frustrating (Full Version)

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Ed Cogburn -> This is frustrating (7/28/2000 6:55:00 PM)

Ok, what gives? I've got a campaign game of USMC vs Japan. Its an Japan advance scenario. We've both got artillery. Now, I've replayed this 4 times and the results are the same. If I use my artillery first, Japan counter battery fires inflicting "40 points" of damage every time. The result is always the complete loss of the batteries that were firing. They show they are "retreating" and they have *no* ammunition. Every time. If Japan fires its artillery first my artillery doesn't counter battery fire. Every time. Gimme a break will ya? Does the cheating for the AI have to be this atrocious? I'm also confused by the inability of some artillery units to fire in a given turn, they never light up the bombardment icon for themselves. Most of the time, as I remember it, they were shown "out of contact" with their HQ. These are off board artillery units, why is contact with their own HQ so damn important? What matters is their contact with my units giving the artillery request. This is really frustrating. How else can I stop all those elite, 15 man Japanese squads without some artillery support? Even with a bunch of Stuarts, the marines are in trouble. The Stuarts, I've noticed, won't fire their machine guns at the same time they fire their main gun, even though the enemy unit is in range of those machine guns. If I give a fire order, they only fire the main gun, the only time they fire all weapons is in Op Fire when the enemy unit is 4 hexes or less away from them, which doesn't help much because the enemy infantry can engage my infantry at 5-7 hexes meaning the Stuarts end up not helping my infantry at all, unless I put them in front of my infantry which leaves them totally vulnerable to close assault. They also never get much better than a 33% chance to hit anything even against moving infantry in an adjacent hex that they've fired on earlier. Those Stuarts have 3 freakin' machine guns on'em, thats why I bought them, now why don't they use them? This kind of cheating for the AI is just disgusting.



Hans -> (7/28/2000 7:24:00 PM)

Hi Ed. You should be a little more careful accusing the AI of cheating and calling it disgusting. I know you are frustrated, but you should calm down a little before you give flames to the AI. Try this: after being upset by the game first have a smoke and afterwards post your request. Keep in mind that there might be some other explanation than "cheating AI" for the one-way return fire. The offmap-arty gets its orders from their HQ, which in turn gets them from the spotter; so - no HQ-link, no fire. As stated in the manual, tanks mainly use their MGs for close defense; and thats what they do in the game unless you disable the main gun or use the "c"-hotkey. Kind regards, Hans



McGib -> (7/28/2000 8:03:00 PM)

The AI's not cheating Ed. First your arty comm's. Your batteries are not in communication with your A0 unit, thats why they wont fire. This is being addressed I believe with V3 comming out soon. Second your Stuarts. Tank crews have to pass a experience check to fire there machine guns outside a range of 5 or 6 (I think its that far). Since this is your first scenario (I'm guessing) your tank crews are not that experienced thats why they aren't firing. Try turning there 37mm gun off, that small pea shooter wont do much anyways. That way at least some of your machine guns will fire. And lastly try looking through the forum a bit both of your problems have been addressed here in quite some detail. Had you done that you could have tried these ideas out already. McGib Ready Aye Ready



Ed Cogburn -> (7/29/2000 6:18:00 PM)

quote:

You should be a little more careful accusing the AI of cheating and calling it disgusting. I know you are frustrated, but you should calm down a little before you give flames to the AI. Try this: after being upset by the game first have a smoke and afterwards post your request. Keep in mind that there might be some other explanation than "cheating AI" for the one-way return fire.
Hi Hans, The AI always cheats, that never changes. The only question is by how much. I remember the horrendous arty cheating the AI did back in the SP1 v1.0 days. The counter-battery issue is most definitely a cheating issue, as its an AI function to begin with. I don't believe its possible for a Japanese 105 arty battery counter-battery firing against 2 105 US arty batteries and completely destroying them every time, 4 times in a row. I smell a cheat, or a design problem, as someone told me in private email.
quote:

tanks mainly use their MGs for close defense; and thats what they do in the game unless you disable the main gun or use the "c"-hotkey.
A German Tiger, an American Sherman, and a Soviet T34 will fire all their weapons when told to fire, even when its pointless to do so, such as firing machine guns at a Tiger [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]. But I can only fire one weapon at a time from a Stuart. Why? Is the Stuart in some kind of special category like "Light Tanks" which has different behavior from a hypothetical "Medium Tank" category? Did Stuarts act this way in SP1? Alas, I can no longer remember.



dox44 -> (7/29/2000 7:04:00 PM)

[ But I can only fire one weapon at a time from a Stuart. i can't help you but... i'm playing a '43 campaign right now (us/japan). all my stuarts (m-5) fire everything, in fact i've been shutting off the main gun...haven't noticed the arty problem your talking about. good luck! casebier



Ed Cogburn -> (7/29/2000 7:34:00 PM)

quote:

The AI's not cheating Ed.
In the case of counter-battery firing, something is *very* wrong. Either its a cheat or a serious bug, or a design flaw as someone told me in a private email.
quote:

First your arty comm's. Your batteries are not in communication with your A0 unit, thats why they wont fire. This is being addressed I believe with V3 comming out soon.
Ok, but are we essentially saying that 25% or so of your arty won't be available on any given turn? Artillery was supposed to be a specialty of the US. The ability to mass arty batteries from a large geographical area was our strong suit, and that implies good communications. Does the USMC get the same advantages as the US Army gets in terms of artillery capability?
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Second your Stuarts. Tank crews have to pass a experience check to fire there machine guns outside a range of 5 or 6 (I think its that far). Since this is your first scenario (I'm guessing) your tank crews are not that experienced thats why they aren't firing.
This is partly it, except I gave some Stuarts maxed exp and morale as a test. They would only fire all their weapons at a range of 4. At a range of 10, the Stuarts would only fire their main gun and their BMG, which makes absolutely no sense when you consider their AAMG and CMG have a range of 20. Something isn't quite right here either.
quote:

Try turning there 37mm gun off, that small pea shooter wont do much anyways. That way at least some of your machine guns will fire.
When I do this for the original Stuarts (no mods to stats), they would only fire 1 machine gun though they have 3. Huh?
quote:

And lastly try looking through the forum a bit both of your problems have been addressed here in quite some detail. Had you done that you could have tried these ideas out already.
The counter battery issue, as related to the AI, was not brought up according to a search, and I couldn't think of a good set of search words to find out about the other things. There's more than 9000 posts in the SPWaW forum, searching with some decent key words is the only way to find anything.



Ed Cogburn -> (7/29/2000 7:43:00 PM)

quote:

i'm playing a '43 campaign right now (us/japan). all my stuarts (m-5) fire everything, in fact i've been shutting off the main gun...haven't noticed the arty problem your talking about. good luck!
Hi, Thanks for the info, the Stuart's behavior so far still has me stumped. The next time you get an opportunity, please try testing your Stuarts at a range of 20 and 10 against soft targets. Do all of your machine guns fire at a range of 10/9/8? Does your AAMG and CMG fire at a range of 20/19/18?



Tomanbeg -> (7/29/2000 7:57:00 PM)

Hi Rooster. The Matrix guys are a pretty good bunch of Joe's. But like any group in a high intensity, close-knit, semi-isolated work environment they develop strange theories. They then go into a looping process that turns the theory into 'Truth'. The fact that this forum is here shows that someone is aware of this and is doing something about it. Do you know of ANY other game company that does this? However, there are still taboo subjects. Think of it this way. Your best friends little sister is knock-kneed, buck-toothed, cross-eyed, and 100 lbs overweight. Pointing this out to him isn't going to make her beautiful, and it won't make him happy. So you shut up and 'sojer on'. Don't play the AI. I haven't been taking new opponents because I'm leaving the country at the end of Aug. but I'm not sure you would last that long anyway. Give me a post, if you want to learn first hand the difference between mobile warfare and Maneuver Warfare. T.



Mike Wood -> (7/29/2000 9:13:00 PM)

Hello Ed... I wrote the artificial intelligence routines and have some insight into them. I appreciate your frustration. The game is somewhat complex and has many subtleties. In the case of early war USMC vs. Japan, the main three problems you will face are the very high experience and morale of the Japanese, their ability to shrug off the desire to retreat and the large size of their squads. In the early war, they did win a lot of battles. Let me see if I can explain what is happening in the program, for you. It may not resolve your complaints about the game, but I may at least be able to provide some insights as to what is going on. The counter battery fire routine is called every time an off board battery fires. The routine has no idea who the firing battery belonged to, human or computer opponent. It just makes the range and experience checks. It also uses a couple tables that help it determine the technological state of the country that is attempting counter battery fire. The Japanese have extremely high experience. In the early war, the USMC is not so high. The tables give the Japanese a higher chance in the early war, as well. As the war progresses, the Marine experience levels and technological tables become higher. So, in the early war, the Japanese have a much, much better chance to counter battery than the Marines. Off board artillery are not dedicated batteries, that is to say they may have other commitments. Also, the radio and field phones are not terribly reliable. They will often not be available for a fire mission. When they become out of contact, an experience check determines when contact can be reestablished. This means the Marine batteries will be in contact for longer periods, later in the war. The routine that checks for off board battery contact does not know if the battery is controlled by a human or the computer opponent. In the case of the Stuarts, an experience check is required for the machine guns to fire at ranges greater than 4 hexes. There are, after all, only 4 men in the tank and they have duties other than firing machine guns. And only 3 of them even have access to a machine gun and those three may not all have a line of sight to the target. This rule applies to all tanks for all countries, with human or computer opponent. As the war progresses, you will find they will fire the machine guns more often at longer ranges. The routine that checks for machine gun fire does not know if the firing unit is controlled by a human player or computer player. You may also notice that your Stuarts do not have a good chance to hit, even at close ranges. Once again, experience plays a dominant role here. The highly experienced Japanese troops are just hard to hit, for rookie Marines. The numbers will improve as your core units gain experience. The routines that determine the to hit chance and damage to units does not know if the firing unit and the target are controlled by a human player or the computer opponent. I understand how frustrating it can be. I have played several Marine campaigns. What I find are a lot night battles with a one or two visibility and unstoppable Japanese Banzai charges coming out of the darkness. I have found it useful to place a whole platoon in a single hex, along with a tank or two and hope I can kill all of them on my turn. If not, I fall back and try again. After the first year or so, your troops will be good enough to take them on, man to man. Don't count on artillery too much in this kind of campaign, as the Japanese are very hard to kill with artillery and the terrain, lots of rough jungle hexes, offers too much cover for the artillery to be as useful as in the steppes of Russia. Hope this helps... Michael Wood, Lead Programmer Matrix Games



Paul Vebber -> (7/29/2000 9:38:00 PM)

Excellent note Mike! Thanks. One other thing to note, there is a "bug" that lets you often continue an artillery mission from an out of contact battery by hitting the shift fire button. So while you can't start a new mission, you can often continue an old one in the same general vicinity despite the fact you have lost contact. As to our "strange theories" we have been more open about ours than nearly any other game company. If you have a problem with a design decisin we have made - air it out. I love "secret private email" mysteries but invoking them does little good in improving a product. If you think we have something wrong, just come out and say it as many have done. You don't need to bring Mike Wallace and "unnamed sources close to the top" to get us to talk turkey about the design:-) We have changed many of out "theories" based on things folks have posted here. I'm sure that will continue.



Tomanbeg -> (7/29/2000 10:27:00 PM)

You guys really are a great bunch! I remember trying to get Great Naval Battles I to run. Boy was that enough to turn me off on game companies. So keep up the good work, and thank you for listening to gadflys like myself. 8-) T.



Scipio Africanus -> (7/29/2000 10:44:00 PM)

You guys are a great bunch and don't forget it. Ed, If I may I should like to make a humble suggestion. The Matrix crew responds very well to a good argument well planned and logically developed over several posts: See some of the lines on artillery effect against infantry for several excellent arguments from both sides of the issue. The result of these arguments being some well thought out adjustments to Ver 3.0 artillery (going by Paul's battle report). As McGib (and also Mike)pointed out, nobody else's low experience tank crews fire their MGs too often either, unless you turn off the main gun- Marines in '42 are not the same thing as Russian tankers in '44 or SS in '43. You're just the Colonel, mate, you can't make your men do what they don't want or what they are incapable of. As far as offboard artillery goes, I prefer attaching onboard artillery to my units- after all, some of these maps are 5 miles across, so the offboard artillery is REALLY far away and definitely not dedicated to you. cheers, ------------------ Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus



Ed Cogburn -> (7/30/2000 5:00:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by Tomanbeg: Don't play the AI. I haven't been taking new opponents because I'm leaving the country at the end of Aug. but I'm not sure you would last that long anyway. Give me a post, if you want to learn first hand the difference between mobile warfare and Maneuver Warfare. T.
What's your point? This conversation *is* about the AI. I'm not attacking the developers over this, I'm just questioning the behavior of the game as I witnessed it. I still find it incrediably hard to believe that one enemy battery can destroy two friendly batteries four consecutive times in a row. And your being better than me at playing this game, although true I'm sure, is irrevelent to this discussion.



Ed Cogburn -> (7/30/2000 6:30:00 PM)

Thanks for the reply, Mike. I agree with what you say, I just find this new behavior by SPWaW as far as counter-battery fire to be incredible. It doesn't seem to fit the paragraph about Japanese artillery in SP1. I've never heard or read about US/USMC artillery being routinely decimated by Japanese artillery, even early in the war.
quote:

I understand how frustrating it can be. I have played several Marine campaigns. What I find are a lot night battles with a one or two visibility and unstoppable Japanese Banzai charges coming out of the darkness. I have found it useful to place a whole platoon in a single hex, along with a tank or two and hope I can kill all of them on my turn. If not, I fall back and try again. After the first year or so, your troops will be good enough to take them on, man to man.
What do you do when the Japanese artillery shells that stack? If I concentrate my forces to deal with enemy infantry, I'm shelled or attacked by air and decimated. If I spread out, I'm overrun by Japanese infantry. Without artillery and only limited help from Stuarts, how do you survive the first 2-3 battles enough to stay in the campaign?



Ed Cogburn -> (7/30/2000 6:42:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Vebber: design decisin we have made - air it out. I love "secret private email" mysteries but invoking them does little good in improving a product. If you think we have something wrong, just come out and say it as many have done. You don't need to bring Mike Wallace and "unnamed sources close to the top" to get us to talk turkey about the design:-)
The guy who emailed me didn't explain what was meant by "design problem", only that it would/should be fixed in 3.0, I'm not sure whether he was talking about off-board artillery problems like communications, or specifically about counter-battery fire. He chose to email me instead of publicly responding in this thread, I don't know why, I just respected his decision and also spoke to him via email. I can't prove he's real to you, even with his email. So I'll just let it go at that. If he wants to talk openly about this, thats up to him.



Ed Cogburn -> (7/30/2000 6:51:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by Scipio Africanus: Ed, If I may I should like to make a humble suggestion. The Matrix crew responds very well to a good argument well planned and logically developed over several posts: See some of the lines on artillery effect against infantry for several excellent arguments from both sides of the issue. The result of these arguments being some well thought out adjustments to Ver 3.0 artillery (going by Paul's battle report).
This didn't start as me making an argument over a design issue, I was just trying to understand how its possible for an enemy force to win a counter-battery engagement against friendly forces that are twice its size, and do it 4 times in a row. My suspicion, now disproven by Mike, was this was an AI thing.
quote:

As far as offboard artillery goes, I prefer attaching onboard artillery to my units- after all, some of these maps are 5 miles
Can you counter-battery fire artillery units that are on the map?



Antonius -> (7/31/2000 4:39:00 AM)

Having played some campaign games with the russians, I've been faced too with the "destruction" of my off-map batteries by Finns and Germans. If you see it as the artillery units disengaging as soon as they get hit by counter-battery fire, then it becomes more understandable (just as squads disperse and are "destroyed" even though all men haven't been killed/wounded). For the russians, I've kind of solved the tactical problem by using mostly rockets as off-map arty, which expend all ammo in the first mission and would be unavailable anyway. For early Marines...it's probably best to spend the points some other way or use off-map arty just for counter-battery. To counter-battery on-maop arty, the only way I know is plot missions against it. The AI doesn't seem to do it often - which makes on-map arty + ammo trucks a good investment.



Ed Cogburn -> (7/31/2000 5:02:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by Antonius: anyway. For early Marines...it's probably best to spend the points some other way or use off-map arty just for counter-battery.
Does it make a difference what caliber I buy for reserved counter-battery fire? Will 155s do better than 75s? I'm not sure 155s or 105s would be worth it. Spending those points on on-board arty may be a better idea. I'm going to try on-board arty to see if it makes a difference.



Antonius -> (7/31/2000 5:37:00 PM)

I've always taken for granted that caliber influenced counter-battery fire. RANGE is a sure factor: arty must a max range >= the max range of the targeted battery for counter-battery fire to be possible.



renwor -> (7/31/2000 8:16:00 PM)

Hi all, Ed, maybe it will please you, but I am experiencing some very usefull counterbattery fire to my benefit right now. I am playing the W.B. scenario ...damn, forgot the name, but it's basicaly Prochorovka 43'. "The day of truth" ? So far my german 105mm batteries I leave unassigned, just in case [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/tongue.gif[/img], decimated two batteries of soviet 122mm how. I didn't try marines yet, but as US army in philipines I stopped several japanese advances ... by Stuarts, M-8 and MINEFIELDS. Infantry wasn't of much use, really, only guarding the mines ( so that nobody stole them) . Dun'no about artilery, I have only few on board mortars, it's hard to spot for arty with 2 hex visibility. As for minefields, they did't make that much harm themselves, japs seem to be magic about detecting them, but are carefull not to step on them, so it helps to flock them together, spray them from 3-4 distance behind the minefields from Stuarts, which are practicaly invulnerable at this distance and deploy a morar or two, when there are 60 japs in one hex [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] But japs are tough !!! Renwor



Ed Cogburn -> (8/1/2000 4:08:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by renwor: Hi all, I didn't try marines yet, but as US army in philipines I stopped several japanese advances ... by Stuarts, M-8 and MINEFIELDS. Infantry wasn't of much use, really, only guarding the mines ( so that nobody stole them).
Yes, mines, if they were available I would use them. Good idea. They haven't been offered yet, they still only show up for defence against assaults right? Infantry is what the USMC is all about, there just isn't much else to choose from early on. Haven't seen an M8 offered yet.
quote:

the minefields from Stuarts, which are practicaly invulnerable at this distance and deploy a morar or two, when there are 60 japs in one hex [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
I still wonder about the Stuarts, somebody mentioned the Mae West light tank. It has no main gun, just three MGs. Except it *does* fire all its MGs, not just one which was all I could get from a Stuart, even when I disabled the main gun. Go figure. Bad karma I guess.



Scipio Africanus -> (8/2/2000 12:44:00 PM)

Hi Ed, Yes, on board artillery units may receive counter battery fire, even from human opponents without a line of sight. In order to do this, you must mimic "flash and sound" counter battery techniques: If you're getting fired upon, watch the direction from which the shells are landing, then make a note of the range call (like 4.2 inch mortar at 33 hexes), You may then begin to estimate the location of your opponent's artillery park and shoot at it if it is onboard. I don't know if the computer is any better at this than I am- When I've played the AI I don't recall having my big guns shot at too much. Among the advantages of onboard units is that you can place your A0 unit right in amongst your guns, thus keeping them in constant contact. You can also put some ammo carriers or an ammo dump nearby to keep the guns loaded. Finally, in one of my current games in which I have a dozen 105mm howitzers on board, I've noticed that I get Time on Target estimates of 0.1-0.4. This is a good advantage over offboard artillery- it lands where my enemy is, not where he was. Cheers, ------------------ Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus



O de B -> (8/2/2000 10:14:00 PM)

An old technique for on map counter battery fire is to spot the smoke plummets that appear when a lot of HE is fired from an hex. You can reasonably stress that if smoke appeared far away just after the arty bombing, it's where are the on map batteries. Mike said that the AI couldn't do this, so he added a routine that occiasonally will enable an on map ary unit to be spotted and thus targetted far beyond the los of any unit. The spotting can also reveal units from the AI to the human.



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