3 in 1 bug

[dazkaz15]

This is a composition of a problem with a unit holding out under crazy circumstances in St Vith, during the Cracking the Goose egg, playing Axis.

[dazkaz15]

AAR Showing small number of RPG hits.

[Bobbybat]

Ok, so now I'm confused because this post (and a couple others I am sure I have read) suggest that units are fighting on as if they are indestructible, and other posts like this one

tm.asp?m=3527665

saying that units are giving up more quickly in the beta patch...

Which is it? Or is it both? Either way this is a major stumbling block, personally, for me to start up a game at the moment albeit that I completely understand the nature of the beta cycle...

[dazkaz15]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the bleeding away of units, is the men joining other units, if there are no longer heavy crew served weapons in the unit.

If an artillery unit loses half its guns when it has to leave them behind after a route, the men that are no longer needed will join other units where they are better needed.
So working as intended I guess.

I have had no experience of this yet though, so am unqualified to comment further.

The bug reported by me above, seems specific to units with armour, and artillery.

It may even be that the game sees the units as we do, and does not fire the appropriate weapons at them.

In this example there is a discrepancy that I have found quite common since the patch where there is an AFV listed in the general info tab, but none in the E&S tab, so maybe the game thinks the AFV is destroyed so the units stop firing the AT weapons at it.

Then cant destroy it because of this?

So the whole problem may be linked to the Intel bug.

Once again that's just an uneducated guess.

Yes, the last patch has introduced some major problems that need fixing, but it was a very big update, with a lot of work on the engine, especially supply.

I would suggest you re install the official release patch if you find these problems cause you to much frustration, but play one of the smaller scenarios, where supply does not play such a large part.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: Bobbyb1

Ok, so now I'm confused because this post (and a couple others I am sure I have read) suggest that units are fighting on as if they are indestructible, and other posts like this one

tm.asp?m=3527665

saying that units are giving up more quickly in the beta patch...

Which is it? Or is it both? Either way this is a major stumbling block, personally, for me to start up a game at the moment albeit that I completely understand the nature of the beta cycle...

First off, users are told that a Beta patch is a preliminary test patch to address issues / complaints that the interested user community has posted to this forum.

At it's release the game developer, Dave "Arjuna" O'Connor, will post a list of issues the patch is designed to address with the understanding that those who use the patch are invited to provide their feedback on the game's behavior in relation to those issues.

A few things to understand are:

1) The Tech Support portion of the forum is a place where any issue with game use is expected to be reported. Not all issues surfaced here are related to the Beta Patch.

2) Issues reported here cannot be evaluated for causes and potential fixes unless they are accompanied by a game save, ideally taken after new orders are issued and prior to observation of the problem, so the game can be run in the test bed to determine a potential cause for the reported problem.

3) Unless the issue reported here is repeatable (meaning various users running the game save on their machine experience the same phenomena at roughly the same time and under circumstances similar to what is reported in the Tech Support thread) it is difficult to provide a fix.

4) A user installing a Beta patch assumes a level of risk, because the patch is intended as a preliminary test release for community evaluation before releasing the official patch to the larger purchasing public. The nature of software development is that "fixes" for specific problems may have unintended impacts on functions down the programming stream from where the problem was "fixed." The intent of a Beta patch is to assure that the list of problems identified by the game developer have been addressed, and any "new" observed issues were not caused by programming changes implemented to address the original list of issues.

Hope this helps.

[Mahatma]

Daz you crush the AI every time and still haven't manned up to painfully realistic order delay. I am appalled.

[Lieste]

Hmm. The FBB HQ seems to have the wrong "displayed" size. Not sure if that is purely a counter issue... currently showing as an Bn formation (with two visible Bn subordinates), should be a Regt(+) sized Brigade Formation, as with 200 Bde.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: Mahatma

Daz you crush the AI every time and still haven't manned up to painfully realistic order delay. I am appalled.

LOL [:D]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm quite comfortable with realistic now, and find it the most enjoyable.

The name of this scenario is very appropriate, because it is a hard one to crack, but once you have that crack, and start to widen it, there done for.

I played around with it for a few evenings, to get the feel of it before I decided to go for the full deal, and did several re-starts after day one.

I never intended to play the full game, I just wanted a platform that I was not familiar with to see how the new patch was handling, so never did any research on the objectives, or the reinforcements schedule before hand.
That's why I needed the re-starts after the first day.

I also had to surrender a few times just to see what the hell was going on with all the engineers, because of the Intel bug.
I kind of came to the conclusion that if the game was cheating then so could I [:'(]
I wasn't even that particular on keeping the Divisions within their boundaries.

Regardless, there was a great in game moment in the North that actually came about from a disaster that I am thinking about writing up as an short AAR.
It came about after an Air strike on 2 Coy 9 SS Pz Regt, that caused it to route off, and take shelter in Neuvill a nearby village, during a Regimental attack on Vielsalm.
The enemy AI picked up on its vulnerability right away, and mounted an attack to finish it off.
The AAR would be about the rescue of what remained of it by the timely intervention of my reserve.

I also learnt something valuable during this scenario, that if the weather clears, keep your Anti Aircraft batteries close to your armour.

There was also a good moment when I attached a bridging unit to an AI Regimental task force, with the mission of reaching a blown bridge, by racing through several Km of enemy held territory, to try and rebuild it before the end of the scenario.

[wodin]

Painfully realistic is in fact not supposed to be as realistic as normal realistic setting if I remember correctly. Thats why I play at realistic setting myself.

ORIGINAL: Mahatma

Daz you crush the AI every time and still haven't manned up to painfully realistic order delay. I am appalled.

[navwarcol]

Painfully realistic-- all the way over on the slider, is the most realistic choice. "Realistic" still leaves some advantages to the player, whilst being **mostly** realistic.

[BletchleyGeek]

Daz,

I think I found the problem with the reluctance of that unit to surrender. It had to do with the increase in the resolution of the grids we use to determine the influence of units firepower: if there's the enemy has fire superiority, the check we make for surrender for units which are in good order (not routed, as it was the case) triggers. The problem is that I forgot to update this to take into account that the area of our grids had been reduced by a factor of 4.

I fixed that and now I'm getting the unit to surrender at these times (with the save starting at D3 23:07)

D3 23:17
D3 23:40
D3 23:19
D3 23:37

Regarding the Intel Reports thing - I'll take a look into the code and see if I spot something weird. In the saved game you sent me, this unit is in closed terrain so it's not that unreasonable to me that your guys failed to spot an M8 amongst all those houses and gardens. I need to check that the degree to what urban/forests etc. obscure intel is reasonable, though.

[dazkaz15]

Nice job Miguel [&o]

With regards to them not seeing the armour I don't see how that is possible unless it took no part in the battle at all, and that's impossible because all the units attacking it were taking casualties, and retreates all night because of it.
At D4 02:02 the Axis infantry were all over it, and by the end D4 10:31 the weather was perfect and it had 998 Personnel all over, and around it actually firing at it.
There is no mention of an M8 being in the unit in the surrender E&S list.

Clearly there is something wrong here mate, and not just with this unit, but all over the map.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: dazkaz15

Nice job Miguel [&o]

With regards to them not seeing the armour I don't see how that is possible unless it took no part in the battle at all, and that's impossible because all the units attacking it were taking casualties, and retreates all night because of it.
At D4 02:02 the Axis infantry were all over it, and by the end D4 10:31 the weather was perfect and it had 998 Personnel all over, and around it actually firing at it.
There is no mention of an M8 being in the unit in the surrender E&S list.

Clearly there is something wrong here mate, and not just with this unit, but all over the map.

That's what I need to check. I could ask you to stretch your imagination - I've been recently going over this book here

http://www.amazon.com/Panzer-Tactics-Ge ... er+tactics

which features a lot of very interesting pictures of what one could do to camouflage AFV's taking advantage of buildings and other locally available materials.

But I won't [:D]

PS: Don't take the above as a book recommendation. The translation from German into English is quite awful. And this is an ESL writing...

[navwarcol]

The author of that book is a family friend. So I would have to recommend it lol. He knows what he is talking about. The wording can be a little rough though.
He served I think 40ish years in the Bundeswehr, and really has a talent for the instruction.

[dazkaz15]

I was wondering what that deafening noise coming from the big bush in my garden was.
Think Ill take a look to see if there is a Panzer III under it [:D]

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: navwarcol

The author of that book is a family friend. So I would have to recommend it lol. He knows what he is talking about. The wording can be a little rough though.
He served I think 40ish years in the Bundeswehr, and really has a talent for the instruction.

Nice coincidence

The problem I think is with the editing and the translation - the content of the book is pure gold. Those pictures are extremely well chosen to illustrate the tactics discussion.