Formations - Progress

[Phoenix100]

Arjuna said

Re the so called bypass issue. First off, this is not a bypass issue. Rather it is a case of the force replanning its route. This can happen for a number of reasons but often happens after a reassessment or routing. The engine doesn't allow for you to set a route for the force to follow. Rather it allows you to set a series of waypoints. We kill off waypoints as they are passed. If we don't do this then when it comes time to replan you would all complain when the force goes back ten kms to the first waypoint even though it was now on the eight waypoint. We had all those complaionts when BFTB was first released...remember. So, when the AI replans it uses whatever waypoints remain. So if if you are on the eight of ten then it will replan with just the remaining three waypoints and this may well mean that it uses an avoidance route to get to the first remaining waypoint and that this route differs from what you had originally marked out. That is a feature of the engine and I don't envisage changing this for the forseeable future as there are far more significant issues to attend to.

You think it's not significant, Dave? Why? The force meets an obstacle and, if the lead element has already eaten up all the waypoints, it replans around the obstacle. Are you saying that if we want it to do otherwise (for instance, attack the obstacle) we should tick 'attack' (and hence this is not a very significant issue). And you say it's not a 'bypass' but what's the diff? (I assume there is one, from what you say). And why bother with a box titled 'avoidance' or 'quickest' if it will just go round anyway? But what about if I just want it to go past on that very route I have planned? Are you saying I should place lots more waypoints to ensure this?

It's not a killer issue in one sense - I can watch out for it and incur an orders delay and issue new orders (though that's far from ideal). But in the examples I sent you the AI planned a route right through what I KNEW was the heart of enemy occupied trerritory. That's as irritating as any of the other little issues that hurt the gameplay (or the realism). No? It can certainly make or break a tight, time-constrained scenario if you are planning around this enough, with all the consequent delays.

Not asking you to change the waypoint thing. But why does the HQ re-plan the route? That's the prob, surely.

I can get other saves easily enough, by the way, with other variations of this.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Alchenar

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

The casualty issue I will deal with after I finish the current work on formations. Please be patient. Imagine this is a car and I have just taken off the head to replace the gasket. It is going to be impossible for me to test the electrics while in this state. So too I don't dare start chaninging code that is not related to what I am working on. Please remember that there is just me working on these AI issues.

Didn't mean to come off as impatient, just providing feedback on what my priorities as a consumer are.

Thanks I appreciate your feedback.

[jimcarravall]

What it amounts to is the engine allows one to micromanage the battlefield and control each working unit or manage the battlefield as a commander would, and trust the units to address the commander's goals within the constraints of available resources, and sub-commander capabilities.

If one is prone to micromanage to the unit level, ignore the "cmd" attributes assigned a commander and move each unit as one would were they in charge to eliminate the influence of AI.

If one is prone to manage at a higher command level, pick unit assignments based on "cmd" attributes for the commander at the level being managed and live with the results right wrong or indifferent.

In the first instance, one can enjoy the game by taking months to accomplish a three day mission by addressing each individual detail.

In the second instance, one may enjoy the game by managing the battlefield at a scope and within the time constraints given the original commander when ordered to accomplish the mission.

Personally, when I want to micromanage the battlefield, I open Opart and have at it.

When I choose to act as a commander would, I go to BFtB / HttR and manage the command structure assigned me.

It's kind of like the difference between being the architect or the carpenter.

Architects don't count nails used, but estimate how many should be available to assure the carpenter can secure the structure to the assigned design criteria.

Carpenters use the nails to meet the criteria.

[dazkaz15]

The problem is Jim the game is not giving you a real life experience in rerouting the Battalion through the enemy held locations.

A real life commander would likely know that enemy are in the locations, that the AI has chosen as its new route because you as the commander would have told him during your orders.

That's what the order delay is for. For you to give your subordinates detail orders of the enemy situation as you see it.

So after telling him the axes of advance you want him to use, imagine how you would feel as commander if he decided to totally ignore it and march the whole Battalion through the enemy locations you told him where there in your briefing.

I don't think he would be a Battalion commander for much longer after that kind of manoeuvre.

I'm afraid this is a gaming/computer/path finding problem, not something that you should have to endure as a commander.

If on the other hand its all that can be done at this present time then advice on work around are our best hope for now.

[dazkaz15]

I may be way out of my depth here, but for future projects on sequels, to the game would it not be possible for you to draw where you suspect enemy units to be, to give the AI some awareness as to the location that you as commander think the enemy may be?

Just as a real commander would keep is tactical map up to date with not just the current sitreps but also his impression of what he expects the enemy to do next.

I already mentioned in another post about how useful the overlay map in Hearts of Iron 3 is, now imagine if you had a drop down, with enemy symbols for enemy units, that you could paste onto your battle map that would tell the AI that is where you think there may be enemy, and the AI would take this into account when planning.

[wodin]

Blimey dazkaz..I could imagine that being a nightmare to code..good idea..but I doubt feasible.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: wodin

Blimey dazkaz..I could imagine that being a nightmare to code..good idea..but I doubt feasible.

Well maybe the AI would not need to know every detail it does now about the units you suspect to be there.

You may have a nice selection of icons to place on your overlay battle planner like the FLOT, Divisional/ Battalion areas, lines of advance, and even detailed unit Icons for known enemy forces in the area. They just need to be a graphical representation for you so you can keep abreast of your own plans but all the AI would need to know is that you suspect the enemy has a zone of control there, which can be adjusted in accordance to what symbol you place. For example armour would have a larger zone of control than infantry.

Now when you give it way points for a move task, you have another box to tick that says "avoid enemy zones of control" AKA a smarter Avoidance route.

It has to be mentioned that I have absolutely no knowledge of computer programming. Intact I can hardly find my way around a computer at all, and I am totally in awe of people like Dave that have made all this "Modern Magic" possible.

[jimcarravall]

In World War II, the real life commander only knew in real time what his scouts fed back to him as they moved through the battlefield. Determining how much the forward unit scouts can feed back based on the terrain and weather conditions is handled by the LOS tools.

Using the game's terms, Orders Delay is the administrative lead time between when the commander issues an order and the time a unit can react to that order. It takes into account the time necessary to transmit the commander's decision to the affected units and the time it takes to distribute the details among the various components of the unit (in effect, down to individual soldiers). In World War II, the most effective means for transmitting orders from static command posts was via wire. In the phase of the war modeled, there were also various forms of radio communication at the smaller unit level, but those were affected by weather and LOS considerations for transmitting between two tactical radio communications nodes.

There is a game delay utility that allows a commander to pause units and issue orders, but again, that modification to existing orders is subject to the orders delay, and the commander is still dependent on the information the units on the ground have fed back for evaluation.

If a commander knows that a bit of terrain is more likely to contain enemy troops even though the form of intelligence he has fed back to him to him has not confirmed it, he can define a route with way points to avoid that terrain, or issue an order for the immediate commander to pick a route which avoids fire (covered route) or detection (avoidance route)to avoid being slaughtered by marching directly through it.

If the commander's "cmd" measures for things like leadership, aggressiveness, efficiency and the like coupled with unit health measures like supply, fatigue, cohesion and the like mean anything, the rear commander should have a reasonable idea about how effectively the unit commander will follow the details of his orders, and how effective the unit will be in meeting his expectations based on what he knew and felt at the time of issuing those orders.

Again, it's like ordering the appropriate amount of nails for a house, or using those nails effectively to build the house.

A commander can order at either extreme, but if he starts ordering the quantity of nails, he'd better make sure that the carpenter he's asked to build the house will be efficient in using them, or build the thing himself and leave the carpenter out of the loop.

[navwarcol]

I know that the game "Harpoon" does have zones much like this, at least effect-wise. Called nav-zones, you can draw them on the map, and make each one (a,b,c, etc) then you can order some groups to "ignore nav zone a" for example, allowing them to navigate through it, while other groups will avoid it in their route planning.
In the case here, could do roughly the same, drawing a "threat area" on the map, and assuming that if you have ordered "safe" routes, your subordinate commanders will avoid these zones, while perhaps they will still pass through them, if you order "quick" routes.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

In World War II, the real life commander only knew in real time what his scouts fed back to him as they moved through the battlefield. Determining how much the forward unit scouts can feed back based on the terrain and weather conditions is handled by the LOS tools.

Using the game's terms, Orders Delay is the administrative lead time between when the commander issues an order and the time a unit can react to that order. It takes into account the time necessary to transmit the commander's decision to the affected units and the time it takes to distribute the details among the various components of the unit (in effect, down to individual soldiers). In World War II, the most effective means for transmitting orders from static command posts was via wire. In the phase of the war modeled, there were also various forms of radio communication at the smaller unit level, but those were affected by weather and LOS considerations for transmitting between two tactical radio communications nodes.

There is a game delay utility that allows a commander to pause units and issue orders, but again, that modification to existing orders is subject to the orders delay, and the commander is still dependent on the information the units on the ground have fed back for evaluation.

If a commander knows that a bit of terrain is more likely to contain enemy troops even though the form of intelligence he has fed back to him to him has not confirmed it, he can define a route with way points to avoid that terrain, or issue an order for the immediate commander to pick a route which avoids fire (covered route) or detection (avoidance route)to avoid being slaughtered by marching directly through it.

If the commander's "cmd" measures for things like leadership, aggressiveness, efficiency and the like coupled with unit health measures like supply, fatigue, cohesion and the like mean anything, the rear commander should have a reasonable idea about how effectively the unit commander will follow the details of his orders, and how effective the unit will be in meeting his expectations based on what he knew and felt at the time of issuing those orders.

Again, it's like ordering the appropriate amount of nails for a house, or using those nails effectively to build the house.

A commander can order at either extreme, but if he starts ordering the quantity of nails, he'd better make sure that the carpenter he's asked to build the house will be efficient in using them, or build the thing himself and leave the carpenter out of the loop.

Well I for one would be happy for the carpenter to sort out his own logistics, based on my plan, but if I give him a plan, detailed or otherwise, to build a block of flats, I would be mighty p****d if he then went and build a bungalow!

Edit: Its a very strange adage to use in this situation. Im not quite sure it fits lol

[Arjuna]

What I think would address your concerns are control graphics such as an opArea - usually defined in real life by left and right boundaries, line of departure and limit of exploitation. An opArea would constrain the area in which a force could move and fight. It would apply a bias to any route favouring locations within the opArea. You cannot make it a total inclusion zone as you would end up with all sorts of problems if the only way from the south to the north was via a bridge just outside the right boundary.

This is on the wish list already. It will require some UI and AI changes. The way I would see it working for the AI is that it would automatically create an OpArea so many metres wide centred around the mission route. Eg for a Bn it may only be 2km left and right of the route. FOr a Bde it may be 5kms etc. Of course we would need to provide the human player with the UI to adjust the automatically generated one by selecting the OpArea polygon and inseting points to extend it.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

Arjuna said

Re the so called bypass issue. First off, this is not a bypass issue. Rather it is a case of the force replanning its route. This can happen for a number of reasons but often happens after a reassessment or routing. The engine doesn't allow for you to set a route for the force to follow. Rather it allows you to set a series of waypoints. We kill off waypoints as they are passed. If we don't do this then when it comes time to replan you would all complain when the force goes back ten kms to the first waypoint even though it was now on the eight waypoint. We had all those complaionts when BFTB was first released...remember. So, when the AI replans it uses whatever waypoints remain. So if if you are on the eight of ten then it will replan with just the remaining three waypoints and this may well mean that it uses an avoidance route to get to the first remaining waypoint and that this route differs from what you had originally marked out. That is a feature of the engine and I don't envisage changing this for the forseeable future as there are far more significant issues to attend to.

You think it's not significant, Dave? Why? The force meets an obstacle and, if the lead element has already eaten up all the waypoints, it replans around the obstacle.

If the lead element has eaten all the waypoints - or more precisely, has completed the execution of the plan you assigned to the force in question - then it will be adopting a "Defense" stance. That is, it will be waiting for further orders. What Dave is telling you is that the AI will try to comply to your orders in a way which is consistent with (1) the preservation/aggression/ammo conservation policies you set for it, (2) the abilities of the commanding officers of the force - they're not all geniuses, (3) the situation of the enemy forces and how much of a threat they do convey - and this threat assessment it also does by those commanding officers and (4) an assessment of feasibility - you won't get in this game a force to engage the enemy at crazy odds.

ORIGINAL: phoenix
Are you saying that if we want it to do otherwise (for instance, attack the obstacle) we should tick 'attack' (and hence this is not a very significant issue).

You can't 'edit' order like that at the moment. You need to replot your orders. Or, alternatively, you should (1) plot a move waypoint into an area where the force can't be engaged by the enemy (which may mean to fall back), (2) plot an attack order on the obstacle, using the previous waypoint as the FUP for the attack.

ORIGINAL: phoenix
And you say it's not a 'bypass' but what's the diff? (I assume there is one, from what you say). And why bother with a box titled 'avoidance' or 'quickest' if it will just go round anyway? But what about if I just want it to go past on that very route I have planned? Are you saying I should place lots more waypoints to ensure this?

On the contrary, you should be placing less waypoints or revise the existing set of waypoints and consider - honestly - if they make sense given the new situation.

The AI hasn't human powers of reasoning, it's circumscribed to its knowledge and your instructions (although its behaviour can indeed look very human [:)]). To draw an analogy, imagine you have one of these nifty Roomba robots with the added feature that you can tell it where to clean and also what places it should be avoiding (say you want it to avoid one specific room for some reason). It also has an accurate map of your house - so it knows how to find a path between any two different places in your house. The robot can't open closed doors, but can push doors which are left ajar.

Now, you tell the robot to clean room X, avoiding room Z. Let's say that your house layout is such that there are two possible paths from the current location of the robot, Y, and X. One of the paths goes through Z and the other is a crazy detour which involves the robot getting out through the dog hole in the front door, across the front yard - and possibly over the flower pads there - into the backyard, then through the kitchen until it gets to Z. Possibly it will get muddy wheels in the backyard and make a mess of the kitchen.

But it will get eventually into X, and clean it. You'll be probably be quite mad at it nonetheless [:)]

Now imagine that the kitchen door is closed. You come back home in the evening and you that X is dirty, and the robot is nowhere in the house. You then check the backyard, and you see that the poor thing has run out of power trying to push the kitchen door (and probably has scratched the paint). Again, you'll be probably quite mad at it.

The robot knows how to move around, knows how to clean a room but it doesn't have the possibility to reason about the meaningfulness of what it's doing. A more human-like robot, would have been programmed with the knowledge that if it goes through the front yard the flowers might get trampled over, that if it goes through the backyard it will get muddy wheels and make a mess of any places it goes through afterwards, and ready to recognize when a door is open. Then it would use this information to consider the possible scenarios and tell you that the task you set may well have undesirable side effects (or not feasible at all).

There exists indeed the algorithms to do this, for any house you can imagine and for a substantial number of conditions. But the robot would need a quite good CPU, a few Gigabytes of memory and a few minutes having that CPU engaged at 100% capacity.

Extrapolate the house to a really huge building, with several hundred rooms. Be ready to get your robot "thinking" for several hours before it being even able to tell you about the task being sound or not.

Let's say we make the problem more complex: doors can open and close themselves randomly, there's a dog roaming the house - so its location is not known - that might get startled if it sees the robot and topple it. This - to tell you beforehand whether your orders make sense in any conceivable situation - is not computationally tractable (and if it is, probably there's no definite answer, it might or might not be possible). You'll be stuck with a robot which won't be able to find that conclusion, will have to try its luck (and possibly fail), very much as we humans do [:)] This is actually a famous open problem in AI taken from this game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wumpus

Wrapping up: in Command Ops you can see an extremely flexible and powerful AI assistant that helps you getting the show to move on but needs regular supervision.

ORIGINAL: phoenix
It's not a killer issue in one sense - I can watch out for it and incur an orders delay and issue new orders (though that's far from ideal). But in the examples I sent you the AI planned a route right through what I KNEW was the heart of enemy occupied trerritory. That's as irritating as any of the other little issues that hurt the gameplay (or the realism). No? It can certainly make or break a tight, time-constrained scenario if you are planning around this enough, with all the consequent delays.

Clausewitz equated war to a game of cards. Sometimes you get good cards dealt, sometimes you don't.

[Lieste]

I'm not entirely certain, but I think the complaint was rather that the van moves according to the task, but 'removes' the waypoints as it goes.

Rather than following and concentrating on the destination, the main body and rear guard then 'break new ground' ~ which does kind of defeat the purpose of the advanced guard, particularly when the enemy is no longer on the intended route but infests the alternatives...

[Arjuna]

This issue is more pronounced with larger forces as the hub/subject is likely to be some distance from the van. Thus when it replans its route there is more likely to have been original waypoints between the van and the hub, which have now been removed. If the area in question is good going and relatively free of enemy then the redetermined route is still likely to go straight from the hub to the first active waypoint. It's only is an issue where the going is difficult and the route finding code determines that a better way is along an indirect approach.

So until we implement opAreas and control lines I suggest that if you specify a string of waypoints through covered terrain or an area that is difficult/costly to move through then also specify that the route is "shortest". This will mean that they won't take advantage of roads per se unless they happen to coincide with the direct approach, but it will have the force move directly through the bad terrain.

[Arjuna]

Ok I have sorted out Vee formation incorporating the changes I made for Arrowhead. Here is a shot of a Bde deployed into Vee.

[Arjuna]

Here's a screen shot of a Bn deployed in Vee. Note the centre guard and its co-located line support unit.

[Arjuna]

In this screen shot we have two recon and one tank company deployed in vee with one of the recon companies being the line hub. Note the smaller right guard tank coy has been offset to aligh its forward edge with that of the left guard. The alignment is not always perfect as units can be moved to find ground of tactical importance (GTI).

[Arjuna]

And here is another depicting a HQ hub with a single line units as the centre guard. This is what will happen if you don't have enough line units.

[Phoenix100]

Formations look beautiful.

Thanks Bletchley. The problem isn't as bad as that robot, thankfully. Lieste is right as to what it is. But Dave knows what the issue is, I think. The lead element crosses my last waypoint (before the destination) and runs into a contact. The position is that there is now no intermediate waypoint between the HQ and the destination I've set, because the last waypoint has disappeared as the lead goes through it. The HQ, some way behind (and presumably reacting to the contact), plots an alternative route to the destination, but through country infested with the enemy (and, in fact, quite a long route too). It's not the dubious nature of the alternative route I'm taking issue with, it's that it replots it at all. It's great it does this if you WANT it to, but I had assumed that it would only do this if you had given it some options to do this (like 'bypass', or even 'avoidance', or 'safest' etc - I have in fact, already been using 'shortest' to try to prevent it). If, for example, I had selected 'fastest' and 'shortest' and ticked no options (niether 'Ambush', 'Attacks' nor 'Bypass') I had assumed what would happen is that the Bn would simply try to edge past the contact, or would get stuck (as before, it would 'halt' until the contact was removed). Either would be good for my plan, because I want to deal with the contact by other means (arty, for example) and push on asap (instead of having the BN re-route via the VERY long way round). If I'd ticked 'bypass' I'd expect it would have replotted around the contact. If I'd ticked 'attacks' I'd have expected it to attack the contact. So, niether being ticked I assumed it would do nothing much. But it remains active and it re-routes itself, and not very well. It's great that we have AI like this, of course, but it means I haven't the options I thought I had for dealing with the situation. (I haven't got an option to get it to just stop and wait for ME to deal with the contact). (And the reason I want to do this, manually, is so that it doesn't route through enemy held territory, for example). And it leaves me wondering what would happen differently if I HAD ticked 'bypass'?

[Phoenix100]

A pictorial example does better, maybe. This is a less extreme version. The 560 is headed for the spot you can see. 2 elements have already reached (plus it's slipped the task) so it has no waypoints anymore. The waypoints actually plotted a route that did NOT go straight through Butgenbach, because I know they will not get through Butgenbach, because it's occupied. I wanrt themt o take up a position where the lead elements have already reached so I can then plan a proper attack on Butgenbach. But because there are some contacts on the route I planned (which appeared after those lead elements got through) the HQ has replanned the route. As you can see it was on 'shortest' to stop it doing this and I hadn't ticked 'bypass'.