Impressions and Suggestions of an old Grog

[Grumbling Grogn]

Howdy All,

I picked up CC:MT last week on a whim and I am (for the most part) glad I did.

The CC series has always been a series of games where I could sit down, and with less than 5 min of scenario prep/set become emerssed in a (realitively) accurate tactical wargame AND then conclude that same game in < hour every time. That simply can not be said for many (any?) other PC wargame I know of. In this regards CC MT fits the bill.

However, there are a few things that I (personally) think could be/should be looked at with regards to future patching. And before I plunge into my "list" let me also state I am not an "on-line" gamer. My personal situation does not lend itself to "on-line" gaming and my past expericences have proven I simply do not enjoy the click-happy crowd as much as I do a solo game.

My #1 complaint about CC:MT is the artifical intelligence. This comes in two flavors:

1) The vehicle pathing AI is in dire need of adjustment. Vehicles become stuck doing the "Close Combat Shuffle" way, way too often. IMHO, it is so bad as to make the game unplayable if I have more than 2-3 vehicles as I have to baby sit them all (something I hate with a passion).

2) The opponent AI is woefully under powered as well. The new "replay feature" does nothing but expose this with crysal clarity. I realize it has always been quite weak, but now it 'seems' weaker, and it is quite sad to see what the AI does sometimes. For example it will move soldiers form postions 'in cover', 'on a victory location' it is defending at setup out into a field or open location (crawling) (and back again often). The AI should be able to see the AI locations and should be able to be smart enough to simply hunker down and defend them if it already controls them.

Because I play a lot of solo games the problems with these two AI issues REALLY detract a lot from the game. #1 means I can not give the AI opponent vehicles at all as it ends up being is a waste of slots most of the time and it also means I have to "baby sit" any vehicles I take as well. But #2 means even if I don't give the AI any vehicles the AI rarely seems to have a clue as to what is expected from it to win the game and will often start moving its infantry away from the cover/victory locations it begins set up in only to crawl into a field and wait to be shot to peices.

A few other things I have noticed...

3) Response time for air/arty support is WAY, WAY too fast. There should be a delays between when support is called for and when it arrives.

4) If you defeat an enemy by breaking their morale and they can still "win" according to the final screen if they were sitting on the victory locations when they "broke".

5) The animations are quite "jerky" at all speeds and do not display correctly (at all) in slow game speed with figures showing prone when they are really "running".

6) As mentioned before adding back the linked scenarios would be nice

7) No time limit should be required for setup

8) It seems to me that some ATGMs are a bit too difficult to spot when they fire. I was under the impression that many (esp. the early ones such as Sagger) created a large plume of smoke when they were launched and were quite easy to spot even when they fired from long range.

9) It would be nice to be able to start infantry mounted in vehicles

Thanks,
GG

[Venator]

Good points well made. I agree completely.

I'd add though that airstrikes should probably suffer from more delay than artillery support and that in my view the poor pathfinding is the most critical issue, though if the AI could be improved it would be nice - both in terms of 'enemy player AI' and also unit AI (be it AI opponent or player controlled unit).

[jomni]

Can someone suggest a real-time game with good pathfinding?

[EagleMountainDK]

ORIGINAL: jomni

Can someone suggest a real-time game with good pathfinding?

Supreme Commander...