Sorry, long-term fan who's had enough

[tigercub]

Finnished with the remakes?I hope they have started with the new version...built from the ground up, if i have the money i would put a team together and make it happen...[>:]


Tigercub!

[Rosseau]

Good post. I believe there are things going on in the code that even the devs don't know about. I also believe this series of games is haunted--in a good and evil way.

Last night, I'm just cursing as I babysit my armor moving through a town. The scenario was generally unsatisfying.

Tonight, I go with TLD first and then LSA. Three or four incredibly realistic battles. In the last couple of minutes my bazooka team hits the front of a Panther at 60 meters. "Clank"

They sneak away and set up again for a flank shot at 30. "Whamm".

Scenario ends in a victory. It's still a good series, not to mention CCMT.

[Redmarkus5]

I played board games with cardboard counters (Avalon Hill etc.) for many years and I used to draw up my own simple tables listing the enemy's options at tactical/operational/strategic level - such as 'defend Moscow vs. retreat to the East', etc. Then I used a dice to determine what the AI would do and I applied that strategy for the rest of the season, next 10 turns, etc.

I recall one board game 'Carrier' that was built for solitaire mode and it had a similar approach which could really put the human player under pressure.

That dice roll method played out better than most of the computerised AI war game systems I have come across. I think that the computerised systems are probably too complex to be workable and that a random die roll could actually do better. Some variables that could be decided by die roll to make the AI less predictable are:

1. Attack/probe/defend? (Shift to the right or left based on factors such as strength, supply, leader, etc.)
2. Defend whole map or just setup around 1, 2, 3, etc VPs?
3. Ambush mode or defend mode?
4. Advance down roads or avoid roads?
5. Road march or cautious advance?
etc.

just some ideas...

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: squatter

The comment about being willing to pay $500 dollars for a fully-realised, fully functional version of Close Combat is very indicative - the comments being posted here are not from people who hate close combat, they are by and large by people who recognise it as a classic, who have played it for years, and have spent $100s over those years supporting new versions. However, the 'newness' of those versions is declining and we're feeling like we're increasingly paying full-whack for what would have been released as mods not long back.

If this game was properly re-tooled, all of us here would gladly pay premium price for it, a la War in the Pacific which is, what $70. The business model for future Close Combat development needs to be addressed.

A higher squad limit. A functional AI. A more integrated operational/tactical interaction. Pathfinding sorted. The outstanding tactical issues addressed - mortar accuracy, troop behavior re: buildings and cover etc. Easier modding. A close combat that featured all this would reignite the market for this game.

But with the current 'new lick of paint' approach to new releases the number prepared to keep investing is sadly going to dwindle I suspect.

Exactly mirrors my opinion.

I purchased WiTP and AE, as well as BftB and would certainly pay $70 for a truly rebuilt CC6. But I won't be buying this 'mod' until all the issues have been fixed.

[Adam Rinkleff]

I have made a lot of mod changes that make the singe player game somewhat more interesting, is there a way I can post a new data file somewhere that people can try it? So far I've only done this for the German side, but if people like it I would consider making an Allied version as well. Some of the changes I've made are listed below:

) every enemy infantry squad has 10 troops
) every enemy AT squad has two bazookas/piats
) every enemy MG squad has two MG
) every enemy HQ squad has one AT and one MG and one sniper
) every enemy mortar squad has two mortars
) you can't tell which enemy squad is which, they are all just named 'infantry'
) every enemy battlegroup has maximum morale, maximum AI, and maximum experience
) you have very few replacements available
) every battlegroup has a completely revised unit list
) mortars are more inaccurate now, but they fire faster
) mortars are less effective against enemy infantry
) AT guns finally have some survivability, they are armored like halftracks
) the AI has been modified to be less suicidal
) flamethrowers fire faster
) MGs and Mortars set up faster, which helps the AI more than it helps you
) I got rid of a lot of stupid redudant squads and fixed some icons
) tanks are now much faster, with more acceleration and turn rate (they took driving lessons)
) the soldiers are more athletic and can actually sprint
) when fires start, they tend to last longer
) its easier to dig trenches now
) battlegroups will try to retreat instead of disbanding

The most interesting result of my changes is that the AI attacks in a series of waves, which feels more like a real battle. Each wave gets mowed down, but as they keep coming, casualties mount and ammunition begins to run out.

-I might add that a lot of these are changes which should have been made standard years ago in Close Combat. Making troops dart across a street or through a field... that's not something I should have to mod for. Putting armor on the AT guns? Great idea, but why hasn't it been done already? Fixing the slow ass tanks going in circles... it took me an hour, but why doesn't Matrix do it? Did you know there are like 250 different combinations of 'AI' built into Close Combat, and most of the battlegroups are deliberately set to weaker settings? The highest level isn't great, but it sure is better than what it was doing before, I just can't understand why the designers don't edit the data files themselves and release an official patch. Anyways, if someone wants to try it, let me know I think it makes for an interesting grand campaign and if thats too easy, well, I know how to make it a lot harder.

Ultimately, however, none of this really helps because of the horrid AI. Either it makes direct frontal assaults, or it sits there and does nothing. I've never believed that its a 'programming' problem, but rather its a 'concept' problem. The person who made the AI had bad tactics, that's exactly the problem here. The AI doesn't need some complex chess-like mathematical algorithm, it just needs some common sense rules. "If there is a victory location, and its undefended, move a squad in that direction." Stuff like that seems to simply elude the AI. It should really have a way to measure the number of enemy infantry within a radius X of each victory location, and if the number of infantry in that radius exceeds some other value Y, then the computer should probably not launch a direct frontal assault. Clearly the program knows where the infantry are, so it shouldn't be complicated to create such a function, except that the people at Matrix aren't actually trying to think of solutions.

Meanwhile, somebody clearly programmed the AI to decide that every game it is going to launch all of its infantry directly at the position with the most machine-guns in it. It is clearly capable of identifying the logical place where you will be defending, and then it simply makes the wrong decision about what to do. Rather than go around you and avoid your center of mass, it insists on a direct frontal assault. It would probably take just a couple hours for a competent programmer to examine the AI code and figure out how to switch that around and have the AI decide its going to focus on taking the victory location with the least number of defenders. I'd do it myself if Matrix would release the code so it can actually get worked on. That's why people here are acting like Matrix is a tight-fisted slumlord. We are smart people, we see the problem, and we know the solution. Matrix refuses to even acknowledge the problem, let alone fix it.

[Andrew Williams]

zip it up and post it here...

or email to

info@closecombatwar.com

[Adam Rinkleff]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Williams

zip it up and post it here...

Well, I was going to when I got some of the problems fixed, but now I think I'm just going to give up. I can't understand why sometimes the AI, with the exact same aggression settings, will decide to charge headlong in a suicide wave against 5 machine-guns and 2 tanks and a mortar and some flamethrowers... and then, in another situation, I'll have 30 people against 150, I'll have no machine-guns, no mortars, no anti-tank, nothing but poorly trained low morale infantry, and I'll be defending the last victory location on the map, and the AI will do -nothing-. I won't even see enemy troops. In fact, I sometimes will get bored and go grab the victory location in the center of the map, and I still won't see anybody! That's not a problem with the program, that's a problem with Matrix. This is not a problem of having 'bad' AI, this is just an incomplete unfinished product.

[Sheytan]

I would buy "All I want is solid gameplay which essentially operates like the boardgame Advanced Squad Leader". That is pretty much my holy grail in respect to this as well.

ORIGINAL: AdamRinkleff

ORIGINAL: Dundradal
Code a new engine with the best features... for modern machines with modern graphics.

My fear is that if they ever do that, they will waste all their money on graphics. I don't want 3D. I don't want photorealism. I don't want to zoom in to first-person view, or change the angle of the 'camera'. I also worry they will try to distort the game into something more 'fun' which will play more like Warcraft with 'missions', 'commando' style 'special units', and 'barracks' which 'produce' reinforcements.

All I want is solid gameplay which essentially operates like the boardgame Advanced Squad Leader and which models tactical combat as realistically as possible. But watching tanks swivel in circles in the road while infantry wander about aimlessly in the open... that's not realistic! Nor is it realistic to have an arbitrary 15-minute time-limit, or to have the battle magically end when morale drops, or to have an entire regiment or division disappear because a single company got defeated.

Sadly most computer games are designed by nerds who are obsessed with technology, and who have no idea how to actually make a -game-. They keep adding in new features, instead of stopping to fix what already exists. I think what computer game companies need the most is to hire actual game designers, instead of hiring more computer programmers. I suspect you 'need' programming experience in order to work in the industry, but the problem is that programming experience does not mean you actually know how to design a game. Im sure a lot of computer programmers would be upset to be supervised by someone with no knowledge of programming whatsoever, but I would frankly prefer the Close Combat series come under the guidance of a military historian rather than the world's best programmer.

[Adam Rinkleff]

Let me just add that I -hate- how whenever infantry accidentally traipse into a 4-story building, they are magically transported to the top floor and can then get shot by a tank halfway across the map. Meanwhile, when enemy infantry are shooting at me from the top floor of a building, they are completely invulnerable to mortars because they are simultaneously on the bottom floor! That kind of quantum paradox is a great example of how someone got the great idea of adding in a new 'feature', and then didn't bother to take the blatantly necessary step of adding a command to tell your troops whether to move to the top or the bottom of the building. In my mod I actually made every building 1-story tall, and this improved the game immensely, if only because it made it harder to see that the AI was milling about aimlessly while you shot at it with machine-guns.

I also hate how they have never bothered to input a command to force the computer to accept a truce. You'd think they would have done that by now, because it can't be difficult. It's so ridiculous to play with the arbitrarily short 15-minute time limit, and yet at the same time, you don't want to set anything longer because the computer might as well decide to do nothing and you'll want to end the thing altogether. Indeed, attacking in Close Combat is seriously flawed, because if you take too many casualties you might want to quit attacking, and yet even though the computer is defending, it will refuse to accept a truce. With that in mind, do you remember CC1? It had a command that would order every unit you had to attack, and move forward. It also had a command that would order every unit you had to stop, and defend. Why the hell isn't that same command given to the computer, so that it actually attacks when it is supposed to and defends when it is supposed to? Hell, the player should be able to give that order to the computer just in case it forgets what it is doing.

Oh, and what about the bunching up of infantry. Surely there is some way to make them disperse a little? Have you ever watched how the AI moves? It will select a bunch of units and order them ALL to the exact same spot. Meanwhile, your own guys bunch up within their squad. Machine-guns are the most frustrating, you'll put them in a window, and they'll have a nice line of fire, and then you'll order them to fire and suddenly the machine-gunner can't see. Apparently the guy with the ammunition is standing in the window blocking everyone and just won't move.

[SkyStrike]

ORIGINAL: AdamRinkleff

I also hate how they have never bothered to input a command to force the computer to accept a truce. You'd think they would have done that by now, because it can't be difficult. It's so ridiculous to play with the arbitrarily short 15-minute time limit, and yet at the same time, you don't want to set anything longer because the computer might as well decide to do nothing and you'll want to end the thing altogether. Indeed, attacking in Close Combat is seriously flawed, because if you take too many casualties you might want to quit attacking, and yet even though the computer is defending, it will refuse to accept a truce. With that in mind, do you remember CC1? It had a command that would order every unit you had to attack, and move forward. It also had a command that would order every unit you had to stop, and defend. Why the hell isn't that same command given to the computer, so that it actually attacks when it is supposed to and defends when it is supposed to? Hell, the player should be able to give that order to the computer just in case it forgets what it is doing.

One of the best paragraphs I've read on these forums. Learn from it Matrix!

[Adam Rinkleff]

I wanted to provide some evidence of how awful the single-player game is. Here is a typical screenshot of my post-battle results. As you can see, even with a single light tank, it is possible to simply decimate the idiotic waves of attacking enemy troops.

[Adam Rinkleff]

And just in case you thought that was a fluke...

[Adam Rinkleff]

Ultimately, I completely uninstalled the program and deleted it, to keep myself from wasting another half hour as the computer simply sits there doing nothing while I wonder if I should just end the battle or if it will ever start attacking. I simply refuse to play it ever again knowing that the "won't attack" bug still exists.

[Andrew Williams]

I always attack... it's the best defence.

teams are always on the top floor of a building AI and human player... no such thing as being on a lower floor.

[Adam Rinkleff]

I always attack... it's the best defence.

Well, although that's a popular cliche, is really not true. You should really read Clausewitz's On War sometime, or Sun Tzu's Art of War. They both really emphasize the strength of a proper defense, which is weak primarily because it is difficult to plan. Its easy to plan an attack correctly, just stop once it quits working, but in a defense you can't choose to stop. In any case, I simply can't rationalize in my head why I would want to attack across to the other side of the bridge, when my obvious strategic goal is merely to hold the bridge. There are lots of cheap tricks like that which make the game more difficult, but they don't actually make the game more fun. Attacking just to attack is really just pointless.

There is a quote from some military theorists who states that the true test of generalship is not attacking and achieving victory, but retreating against a superior enemy force. I wish Close Combat would let me play that style of game, in which I am constantly trying to delay its advance and fall back to new positions. But it just doesn't work, because sometimes it simply won't move, and even when it does move, it keeps more than half of its troops behind to do nothing. How hard could it be for them to code an 'attack' AI which simply ordered its troops to start walking to the other side of the map?

It would be nice of the AI would simply work (it doesn't even need to work well, it just needs to work and attack when its supposed to attack). Unless I hear they've fixed that bug, I don't expect I'll ever play Close Combat again.

[Andrew Williams]

Did Clauswitz play Close Combat... i think not.

So I diodn't read any more..........zzzzzzz

[RD Oddball]

Adam, sorry if you already pointed this out. After a quick search I couldn't find where you did. Are you using the first update with your game? Just curious what game set-up you're reporting this against.

[Neil N]

Those screenshots are not even from LSA

[Razz1]

ORIGINAL: AdamRinkleff

I always attack... it's the best defence.

There is a quote from some military theorists who states that the true test of generalship is not attacking and achieving victory, but retreating against a superior enemy force.
It would be nice of the AI would simply work (it doesn't even need to work well, it just needs to work and attack when its supposed to attack). Unless I hear they've fixed that bug, I don't expect I'll ever play Close Combat again.

Isn't this war happened in Storm Over the Pacific? In WWII the USA Navy withdrew and attacked only when necessary.

In fact the British withdrew until 1944 in the Pacific.

[dandechino]

I agree with squatter. I just purchased LSA and am noticing all of the same bugs that were in CC2 back in the day. I put down good money on a game hoping for the best. I like the idea- the concept. I like having a tactical game on this scale. Pathfinding needs to be fixed- I can't stand having my troops run in circles like ants when I tell them to move forward or fire. I cant stand when the road has a perfectly good bridge and my tanks decide to cross the creek instead and then forget where I told them to go in the first place. I also don't like playing against a dead AI. If the AI is going to be this broken then multiplayer needs to be more simple- like a battle.net client is for starcraft II. Inside the game there should be server with games to choose from and lobbies to chat/post messages. In the meantime fixing pathfinding and really really re-coding the single player game's AI would be great.