Elmer and Artillery?

[Telumar]

The following is a screenshot from the Allied side in a test game of Anzio Allied PO. I wondered in my attacks why Elmer had no artillery support from his divisional artillery in 3rd Division's sector. A look on his side revealed that his artillery is out of range. The marked (red circle) artillery batteries are organised as formations of their own. They are set to limited losses, independant formation orders and their objective tracks follow those of 3rd Division's battalions and regiments (blue on green). Their range is 13 and 15 hexes (depending of equipment). Has anyone else seen such a PO behaviour? Is it because 3rd Division has also support from two Mortar battalions that Elmer moved one or three hexes behind the front and Elmer thinks it's sufficient? There are also some 155mm Long Toms at Anzio which are in range and participate in attacks and defence. I also used the Move PO feature, changed the losses emphasis to ignore losses and set formation orders to attack. Still didn't move his artillery.

EDIT: I have saves from other players, one shows the same problem in the British sector but not in the American - there the Americans didn't advance that far, but the Brits. It looks like at some point the artillery doesn't move further.

[ogar]

I do not have evidence from any of my saved PO Anzio games -- yet.
EDIT - And now I do, and yep, the save I looked at it is a lot like the one you posted.

I wonder what are the formation objectives for the artillery ? Could the units be stopping within range of any earlier objective, 'thinking' this is close enough - that is, Elmer is stuck at an earlier point on the formation list ?
EDIT - I checked on the 41st FA Bn. range = 13; its batteries are out of range for almost all German units, and barely cover a handful of Allied units at max range. Batteries are scattered in artillery stacks near but not on objectives 2, 3, 4. HQ unit is past objective 10, working on objective 11. HQ unit is a 9-stack with 8 other HQs (and a AAA).


So, when does a formation achieve an obejctive ?
EDIT -- Dunno, but it looks like when one of its units occupies it, or worse when one of the force unit occupies it.

Oh, and at least 1 of the 4.2 units is in reorg in your pix, so I do not think those units are 'good enough for Elmer'. Note too, the ships are in garrison and mostly out of range ('cept the ol Brooklyn).

Not that this helps, but maybe Elmer is tired of beating up so much on us poor humans playing the Axis in this scenario ? EDIT -- this is still my best bet for the cause of the problem.

[Telumar]

It just came to my mind that it could be related to the relatively immense range of these batteries. Maybe Elmer's routines work better at lower ranges?

There are the US Regimental HQs and their formations which contain a recon platoon, AT company, and a Gun company. Same problem. The artillery is left far behind, all else is on the front.

It's also odd that the artillery battalions' HQs are actually behind the front.

All else, like changing formation emphasis, formation orders, formation objectives doesn't work. Elmer leaves the artillery where it is.

[Telumar]

Might well be range related. I changed the ranges of some units and Elmer moved them to the front. See the screenshot. The two units behind the front have range 5 and can actually support attacks now. The other unit in the second row of the front (Arm Art. - light green icon) has range 3.

[Telumar]

Maybe Bob, Ralph or James have something "enlightening" to add. [&:]

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Maybe Bob, Ralph or James have something "enlightening" to add. [&:]

You might want to try toggling your settings for "experimentalAIP1" & experimentalAIP2". If "Y", change to "N" etc.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Maybe Bob, Ralph or James have something "enlightening" to add. [&:]

You might want to try toggling your settings for "experimentalAIP1" & experimentalAIP2". If "Y", change to "N" etc.

Had it set it Y, changed it to N, didn't help.

I'm (still) pretty sure it's range related. He used the artillery properly when i reduced the range. In this thread: tm.asp?m=2601549 Ralph speaks of po_search radius and such:

Set the po_search Radius to between 7 and 11 for a smart opponent and 5 and 9 for a dumb one.

and

For III I re-enabled some code that Norm had which said to look in a half-circle instead. If the objective has a value, he will try to occupy it directly, otherwise he will only try to control 75% of the hexes in a 10 hex radius or some such number.

Now, if he would be here he could add something to this. Especially if the po_search radius can be set in an .ai file.