Some impressions

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JoonasTo -> Some impressions (3/31/2019 5:26:08 PM)
Just figured I'd leave some things I'd like to see: A basic attack-move command, where my units behave like on a contact order but they don't forget the order upon hostilities completely. Rather they would continue their order to take up position once the hostiles have been eliminated. Currently advance keeps going, regardless of opposition and contact stops at opposition, while deleting the order. This means you have to create new ones if you wish to keep advancing. It's a drag. This shouldn't be too hard to implement(freeze order at contact, unfreeze once hostilities end) and would reduce the amount of needless micro a lot, improving playability. Ability to separate companies into platoons. The full company is often too large of a unit to use for tactical maneuvers and so you are forced to micro the units in smaller groups. You have to suffer the added command delay and micro for individual unit commands. Ability to detach platoons from the company would alleviate this, again, improving playability. Unit AI should be able to take line-of-sight/height into consideration when deciding defensive positions with the defend command at least. Currently you have to individually order a defensible position to each unit, thus suffering hugely from the command delay and the added micro. I'm starting to sound like a broken clock here but this would massively improve playability as well. Oh yeah, also having an option to set default SOP values would be very welcome. Currently units unloading from transports just go to quick movement option with max engagement ranges. This is almost never what you want so you're forced to wait on command delay there again. Again, small thing but a really huge thing when you have infantry unloading all over the place. As a whole, I'd like more autonomous unit decision making. Having a game with command delay but lacking the prerequisite unit AI is not a good match. If wishing to simulate real-life situation here, the unit AI is a must. Universal command delay values are also not quite right. German(both east and west) and Finnish doctrine is very mission driven while US doctrine is very detailed top lead. They are further differentiated with radio discipline differences, where German and American are very proliferate while Finnish is quite strict. Thus command delay should reflect these. So instead of double command delay for all individual orders, the US should have only a small malus(or maybe no malus at all) for giving individual orders while German should have a moderate malus and Finnish would suffer the full malus. Speaking of command delay, what does the CommandDelayMod value do? Like US has 20+20 while USSR has 30+0. What is the effect of the second number? Finnish training value is also unnaturally high, considering it is a peaceful conscript army without recent war experience(since WWII) and a short service time of under one year. Clearly creator bias. [:D] Aside from that, an AI that doesn't suicide it's tanks by deciding they are the best scout element for towns would be nice. [8\|] Ultimately what I need is multiplayer though, not any fancy online matchmaking stuff, just basic IP or LAN capability to duke it over the weekend with a friend.

noooooo -> RE: Some impressions (3/31/2019 6:13:42 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JoonasTo Just figured I'd leave some things I'd like to see: A basic attack-move command, where my units behave like on a contact order but they don't forget the order upon hostilities completely. Rather they would continue their order to take up position once the hostiles have been eliminated. Currently advance keeps going, regardless of opposition and contact stops at opposition, while deleting the order. This means you have to create new ones if you wish to keep advancing. It's a drag. This shouldn't be too hard to implement(freeze order at contact, unfreeze once hostilities end) and would reduce the amount of needless micro a lot, improving playability. You can kind of do this by using disabled waypoints. Put multiple disabled waypoints then enable them when you want them to move again which has no delay. quote: ORIGINAL: JoonasTo Ability to separate companies into platoons. The full company is often too large of a unit to use for tactical maneuvers and so you are forced to micro the units in smaller groups. You have to suffer the added command delay and micro for individual unit commands. Ability to detach platoons from the company would alleviate this, again, improving playability. It kind of defeats the point of having a discount for a company. Why ever buy platoons then? quote: ORIGINAL: JoonasTo Unit AI should be able to take line-of-sight/height into consideration when deciding defensive positions with the defend command at least. Currently you have to individually order a defensible position to each unit, thus suffering hugely from the command delay and the added micro. I'm starting to sound like a broken clock here but this would massively improve playability as well. Oh yeah, also having an option to set default SOP values would be very welcome. Currently units unloading from transports just go to quick movement option with max engagement ranges. This is almost never what you want so you're forced to wait on command delay there again. Again, small thing but a really huge thing when you have infantry unloading all over the place. As a whole, I'd like more autonomous unit decision making. Having a game with command delay but lacking the prerequisite unit AI is not a good match. If wishing to simulate real-life situation here, the unit AI is a must. Agreed. quote: ORIGINAL: JoonasTo Universal command delay values are also not quite right. German(both east and west) and Finnish doctrine is very mission driven while US doctrine is very detailed top lead. They are further differentiated with radio discipline differences, where German and American are very proliferate while Finnish is quite strict. Thus command delay should reflect these. So instead of double command delay for all individual orders, the US should have only a small malus(or maybe no malus at all) for giving individual orders while German should have a moderate malus and Finnish would suffer the full malus. Speaking of command delay, what does the CommandDelayMod value do? Like US has 20+20 while USSR has 30+0. What is the effect of the second number? It's exactly what you mentioned. The US's +20 means that each next order from the first one gets another 20 seconds, but the first order only has a 20 second delay. The USSR's first order has a delay of 30 seconds but all orders after do not incur extra delay.

JoonasTo -> RE: Some impressions (3/31/2019 7:28:40 PM)
And like mentioned in another thread already, the rocket artillery is a mess. It seems like there's no way to know what you are going to get when buying arty and no idea what is going to come when you order a fire mission. Why is 5 rounds with 10 guns rocket arty while 50 rounds with one gun is regular? It's just not consistent. quote: You can kind of do this by using disabled waypoints. Put multiple disabled waypoints then enable them when you want them to move again which has no delay. No it doesn't work like that. Once the unit encounters an enemy on the first contact order, all the of the successive orderds disappear, disabled or not. quote: It kind of defeats the point of having a discount for a company. Why ever buy platoons then? Because you don't have to pay for a full company? You can only afford a platoon of tanks, or perhaps you only need a platoon or two of infantry for holding the woods, etc. quote: It's exactly what you mentioned. The US's +20 means that each next order from the first one gets another 20 seconds, but the first order only has a 20 second delay. The USSR's first order has a delay of 30 seconds but all orders after do not incur extra delay. Aaaah, so successive orders, if you give more than one at a time? Okay, so that's what it's for. The time is so short that even without HQ and with enemy contact it's still only a minute. So it basically never comes into play. That's why I must not have noticed that. That is not what I meant though, I meant giving individual orders to units instead of formations to reflect how commands usually pass down the CoC. Like US commander might give an order to a individual team to hold a certain position directly while a German commander would be more likely to tell a platoon to hold an area and the platoon commander would then assign positions to teams. Currently all individual unit orders take double the time of the formation order.

ViktorSolokine -> RE: Some impressions (4/1/2019 8:35:43 PM)
good Morning armored brigade a very good game i like very the cold war time with soviets and americans fighting in central europe game easy to play and fresh from other game like that i think it is difficult to see height on map in maximum zoom a good increase would be the available to see better heights when playing close to terrain

Veitikka -> RE: Some impressions (4/4/2019 8:21:58 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JoonasTo A basic attack-move command, where my units behave like on a contact order but they don't forget the order upon hostilities completely. Rather they would continue their order to take up position once the hostiles have been eliminated. Currently advance keeps going, regardless of opposition and contact stops at opposition, while deleting the order. This means you have to create new ones if you wish to keep advancing. It's a drag. This shouldn't be too hard to implement(freeze order at contact, unfreeze once hostilities end) and would reduce the amount of needless micro a lot, improving playability. This is not simple to implement in the current system. Technically, when moving, the first 'waypoint' is not actually a waypoint set by the player. It's just a destination where the unit/formation is traveling to, even if it looks similar to the other waypoints. The point here is that it cannot be disabled/activated. To disable it, the whole remaining path should be reconstructed after stopping the formation, and this is tricky. A long time ago a design decision was made that the current way is how it should work, and the whole system has been built on top it. It's not easy to change now. Perhaps in the future, but there are many other things on the list, and formation movement and waypoints can be very complex issues. quote: Ability to separate companies into platoons. The full company is often too large of a unit to use for tactical maneuvers and so you are forced to micro the units in smaller groups. You have to suffer the added command delay and micro for individual unit commands. Ability to detach platoons from the company would alleviate this, again, improving playability. The data structure we have doesn't know how many 'platoons' there are in a 'company'. Companies are just big formations. Again, this is another design decision that everyone was happy with a long time ago. A lot of work is required to change it (the database included). Perhaps one day in the future... quote: Unit AI should be able to take line-of-sight/height into consideration when deciding defensive positions with the defend command at least. Currently you have to individually order a defensible position to each unit, thus suffering hugely from the command delay and the added micro. I'm starting to sound like a broken clock here but this would massively improve playability as well. If I recall correctly, the defend order does take the LOS into consideration. It's not always possible to see the target location without moving far from the unit's position in the formation, and in such cases the LOS is ignored. quote: Oh yeah, also having an option to set default SOP values would be very welcome. Currently units unloading from transports just go to quick movement option with max engagement ranges. This is almost never what you want so you're forced to wait on command delay there again. Again, small thing but a really huge thing when you have infantry unloading all over the place. In the upcoming campaign system some of the SOP settings from the previous setup phase are remembered. Other than that, how should the default SOP values be set in the UI? quote: As a whole, I'd like more autonomous unit decision making. Having a game with command delay but lacking the prerequisite unit AI is not a good match. If wishing to simulate real-life situation here, the unit AI is a must. This has been discussed here earlier, of course. The 'seek cover' SOP option was implemented to help the issue. The main problem is that we have the huge formations, and if the individual units start improvising on their own it will hinder formation movement, that can already be slow. quote: Universal command delay values are also not quite right. German(both east and west) and Finnish doctrine is very mission driven while US doctrine is very detailed top lead. They are further differentiated with radio discipline differences, where German and American are very proliferate while Finnish is quite strict. Thus command delay should reflect these. So instead of double command delay for all individual orders, the US should have only a small malus(or maybe no malus at all) for giving individual orders while German should have a moderate malus and Finnish would suffer the full malus. The main purpose of command delays is to discourage micromanagement. The player will benefit from micromanagement options, whereas the AI opponent will suffer. Ideally the game should be played by issuing orders to formations only. quote: Speaking of command delay, what does the CommandDelayMod value do? Like US has 20+20 while USSR has 30+0. What is the effect of the second number? The latter value is added to subsequent waypoints. quote: Finnish training value is also unnaturally high, considering it is a peaceful conscript army without recent war experience(since WWII) and a short service time of under one year. Clearly creator bias. [:D] The training and morale values can be debated of course, but 75 is what the engine sees as an 'average' value. Doesn't the West German army have the same traits you listed? quote: Aside from that, an AI that doesn't suicide it's tanks by deciding they are the best scout element for towns would be nice. [8\|] Are you talking about the recon tanks that some factions have?

JoonasTo -> RE: Some impressions (4/4/2019 1:46:40 PM)
That�s a shame regarding formations/waypoints, I�ll just have to make sure to never put companies in aside from some very special situations then. How does the defend command work if there is no line of sight to the target then? Because I have had units go behind a hill when issuing a defend command to a certain direction. Could they perhaps see no line of sight to target and then not care at all? Like it is a binary switch of see or not. So if they do not see target then disregard line of sight conpletely? This would explain some of the behaviour and I can probably work around that if that is indeed the case. Would be ideal if player could decide default SOP themselves. People will always disagree on this. But for me personally the particular problem is infantry exiting a transport start at the quick/max, which is always bad for them. What I want for them is short. This means during an assault they will instantly be able to act along the orders without having to wait for command delay. Cover/quick will both cause them to deviate from the assault. Personally I prefer effective/effective for target ranges but that is a lot more personal preference and not such a dealbreaker when it comes to this. Seek cover is a really welcome feature for sure. As to what comes to formation speed. I have actually noticed �improvisation� aka free formation to be quite effective speedwise. It�s when they try to maintain formation rigidly like a roman army that they slow to a crawl. Now a little more freedom here might actually improve things if the unit would detect falling behind and accelerate to catch up to the others when terrain allows. Oh if 75 is average level training it is fine then. Let me change the perspective: Why is the professional British army, that has taken part in active warfare, training so low? Sadly I meant regular tanks that the AI seems to end up sending first into anything, even if it is a town. This does not seem to happen nearly as often in the premade missions conpared to generated ones, I can not tell you why. But in generated missions it is more often than not that the first AI units to arrive in a town is an armor formation(not counting recon). I have a hunch this could simply be their higher effective speed compared to mechanised infantry but I�ll have to do more experiments regarding this.

Veitikka -> RE: Some impressions (4/9/2019 4:54:20 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JoonasTo How does the defend command work if there is no line of sight to the target then? Because I have had units go behind a hill when issuing a defend command to a certain direction. Could they perhaps see no line of sight to target and then not care at all? Like it is a binary switch of see or not. So if they do not see target then disregard line of sight conpletely? This would explain some of the behaviour and I can probably work around that if that is indeed the case. Yes, if they cannot see the target (the defend waypoint) then they ignore the LOS, and use other parameters instead. quote: Would be ideal if player could decide default SOP themselves. People will always disagree on this. But for me personally the particular problem is infantry exiting a transport start at the quick/max, which is always bad for them. What I want for them is short. This means during an assault they will instantly be able to act along the orders without having to wait for command delay. Cover/quick will both cause them to deviate from the assault. Personally I prefer effective/effective for target ranges but that is a lot more personal preference and not such a dealbreaker when it comes to this. Everyone has different views about the default SOP options. The main question here is that what kind of a UI should there be for setting the defaults? quote: Oh if 75 is average level training it is fine then. Let me change the perspective: Why is the professional British army, that has taken part in active warfare, training so low? I'm not the database designer, but I think some research showed that the British army had more limited resources than the U.S. Army, which has the training level of 80 points in the game. It's hard to come up with a single number to represent something as obscure as this. In the world there are armies that have been in active warfare, but are still generally seen as low quality when it comes to performance.

JoonasTo -> RE: Some impressions (4/23/2019 1:39:09 PM)
I don�t particularly care how the UI works, for my use(stopping disembarking infantry issues) a menu switch in the gameplay options is sufficient. Probably others would prefer a way to set it at the start of each engagement to suit their plans and I do think that approach would be a superior way to do so. Ability to switch on the fly during gameplay would be even better. But these give diminishing returns and as such should be implemented only if there is very little to none extra work involved. As for training, ofc Britain always priorised navy over army so do not disagree with that assessment, however does that not only work to show that the US training is possibly also too low? That said the US training value changes a lot over the years so there�s probably a method to that as they go from lot conscription to professional. Similar to how the USSR stat values are low but their airlanding troop stats are high. Generally though, the �good� conscript armies of FDR and Finland seem too good in comparison to the professional armies in training stat.

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