How to prevent HQs from "Leading the Charge"...

[Marshal Villars]

And this is what it looks like when I set the formation which was just switched "right side up" by an attack order into a defensive formation again... Things fall into place making sense. With HQs at the back.

So, I am wondering if the program is having problems orienting the formation on the battlefield and when the formation "vee" gets flipped (a "vee" with blunt end trauma at the wide end and the brain at the very small back). Once "flipped", the "Vee" is backwards and then the HQs will then lead the charge or lead the defense until another order is placed which corrects the problem. So the whole formation is backwards somehow until an order which is cooincidentally given in the right situation and from a perspective the program understands rights everything again.

Just a hypothesis.

[Marshal Villars]

Not so much "leading the charge", but failing to fall back with (almost) everyone else.

[Marshal Villars]

Not so much an HQ LEADS the charge, but an HQ LEADS ITS OWN CHARGE example.

All were close to the origin of all arrows and then my brigade commander decides NOT to follow his units into combat the safe, open way. No. He decides to head into the German infested woods on his own and then try to seek his way BACK to his units!

And fails. There are German engineers and everything in those woods at that crossing point. I already had to find out the hard way.

[Arjuna]

Marshal Villars,

Re the Hoogerheide Defend incident.

I ran your saved games that you sent me ( thanks for that ) and in fact the formation chosen was fine as was the locations of the sub units. However, you gave that order to them at night time and left the Rest option to "normal". The subordinate BN HQs got their orders and started moving, reaching their nearby objectives in a few minutes. However, just after that the standard night reassessment kicked in adn all the sub units went to sleep.

Lesson #1. If you are going to give orders to units at night, and it's important they act upon them pronto, then you had better set their rest option to None.

[Arjuna]

Marshal,

Re the 901st Attack incident.

I checked out your saved game ( thanks again ). You had ordered the 901st Regt to attack with the stargglers option checked. Your Bn HQs were pretty tired but still able to Move. Alas the rest of your troops were knackered and refused to press on. See below. If you had unchecked the stragglers option then the Bns would have stopped en masse and the HQ would not have ended up out front. In this case I would not have ordered the attack as the troops were too tired.

So lesson #2 - Check fatigue Levels and Straggler options before ordering attacks

[Arjuna]

I'm going to leave this issue for now as I think everything is working as designed. Next time I come to do the tutorial movies I will mention both these lessons. Thanks for the contribution guys. [:)]

[Fred98]

RE: Stragglers
 
Page 63 of the manual needs to be updated.
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[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

RE: Stragglers

Page 63 of the manual needs to be updated.
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What needs to change?

[Marshal Villars]

So to summarize:
Lesson #1. If you are going to give orders to units at night, and it's important they act upon them pronto, then you had better set their rest option to None.
Lesson #2 - Check fatigue Levels and Straggler options before ordering attacks
LESSON NUMBER THREE FOR BFTB NOOBS LIKE ME: To reduce the likelihood of "HQs Leading the Charge" incidents uncheck the stragglers box, forcing the HQ to wait for exhausted units before launching an attack or moving towards contact with the enemy.

Wow. Well. Like I said, I am always worried about throwing in a red herring. I hate it. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Anyway, great, great game.

There are a lot of intricacies to learn here. "Set rest to normal in this situation"/"Don't over exhaust your troops"/"Don't set to no rest in others". But it is only in its complexity that you can offer players options. So I fully support this. But, as you said, it probably is worth mentioning in tutorial videos.

Actually, I had been ordering movement at night with "no rest" options as I realized that was the only way to get troops to really move in the middle of the night. But I had been "disciplined" (in a nice way!) by fellow posters for issuing no rest orders as a possible reason for non-compliance by my units.

[Marshal Villars]

Actually, I play the game with p. 63 printed out and in front of me.

This is what p.63 says about the stragglers option:

"Stragglers=when checked, the force will not stop and rest with any subordinates that are too exhausted to continue. Instead it will press on leaving the exhausted "straggler" behind. Otherwise the whole force may stop and rest with the exhausted unit. The default is on."

I think this would explain the situation then. And as I get better at the game, I will make fewer mistakes like this.

So, the box was checked and the force in the very first example (the two HQs) did not stop and rest with the subordinates who were too exhausted to continue, pressing on and leaving them behind.

I think that p.63 is worded correctly then. And I have learned something which will help me understand other "problem situations" which I fear may be red herrings.

[Marshal Villars]

edit

[Fred98]

I think the intention was:
 
A HQ is commanding 4 companies.
 
1 company is exhausted and ther other 3 are fresh.
 
The 1 company remains behind while the others continue.
 
But your example worked like this:
 
All 4 companies are exhausted but the HQ company is fresh so it continued to move.
 
It seems to me that if 2 or more companies are exhausted then the HQ then the HQ should stop moving too!
 
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[oldspec4]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

I think the intention was:

A HQ is commanding 4 companies.

1 company is exhausted and ther other 3 are fresh.

The 1 company remains behind while the others continue.

But your example worked like this:

All 4 companies are exhausted but the HQ company is fresh so it continued to move.

It seems to me that if 2 or more companies are exhausted then the HQ then the HQ should stop moving too!

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My thought too...

[Rbug]

Just an observation here - not looking to challenge anyone, but:

should we consider the percentage settings for Leadership, Aggression, Determination, Efficiency, etc of the advancing battalion and any advancing companies? If these %s are high, perhaps the commanding officer has decided to proceed alone?

I have not made a study of these ratings, but I wonder if they change over the course of a scenario based upon combat/supply/etc results.

BFTB is an excellent game and the engine is only going to improve.

[Marshal Villars]

I do agree that it is a bit odd to see an HQ which has ALL of its units exhausted set out on its own.

It is a matter of this being AI and us wanting it to "do what we want and not what we say". I think if Arjuna changed the code so that the HQ always waited and did not allow us override this, then we would also have a complaint here and there. Perhaps for now the best policy is to select units from the HQ which are not exhausted for your missions. Leave the others behind and then reattach them.

However, I have wanted to do this a couple of times and fear that I will forget to reattach them. I wish there were a button on each HQ which basically said, "Reattach all of my subordinates".

[dordo59]

Many thanks, very useful !
I will try !