In my current PBEM-game I noticed an "unrealistic" feature: I was playing as german and my opponent was russian, battle took place 10/1944. I outmaneuvered one of his ISU-122, coming out of a forest right behind him. Suddenly his ISU-122 spins around and takes a shot at me!!!
Where is the surprise factor? Even if the experience level is greater among russian crews than among german StuG crews, I'd expect my sneaking german StuG to take the first one or even two shots, because turning a heavy tank around takes time...I'd expect that the sneaking tank everytime gets the first shot if approaching from behind the enemy.
Thoughts anyone?
Colonel von Blitz
Opportunity fire
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Colonel von Blitz
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Opportunity fire
--Light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak--
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Paul Vebber
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The game uses experience and suppresion generally to judge such things. He may have heard yor engine, or happened to look around if unbuttoned. IT is easier inthe game to sneak up on low experience troops with high suppression than experienced ones without suppression.
Was the enemy suppressed? I ask you to consider how realistic it is how realistic it is to assume one can sneak on an enemy tank in your tank to within 50 or 100 yards just because you are behind him?
A lot can happen in the 2-3 minutes that a turn represents and thinking the enemy can't see you because his gun starts the turn pointed away from you is pointed the other way is not tactically sound. The game has to show the enemy "whip around" but he could have detected you approaching well before you closed him. Since we can't show things in "continuous time" such "radical manuevers" must be viewed a little abstractly in a turn based game. The enemy is not "frozen in time" simply becasue it is your turn
[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 02, 2001).]
Was the enemy suppressed? I ask you to consider how realistic it is how realistic it is to assume one can sneak on an enemy tank in your tank to within 50 or 100 yards just because you are behind him?
A lot can happen in the 2-3 minutes that a turn represents and thinking the enemy can't see you because his gun starts the turn pointed away from you is pointed the other way is not tactically sound. The game has to show the enemy "whip around" but he could have detected you approaching well before you closed him. Since we can't show things in "continuous time" such "radical manuevers" must be viewed a little abstractly in a turn based game. The enemy is not "frozen in time" simply becasue it is your turn
[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 02, 2001).]
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Colonel von Blitz
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The situation was this: enemy ISU-122 "knew" I have couple of King Tigers just a kilometer away waiting for him. A couple of IS-2(M) had been destroyed nearby. My sneaking StuGs were supposedly undetected until I drove behind (150 meters away) of that ISU-122. So, would any tank crew turn around their tank knowing that King Tigers were lurking somewhere out there??
Of course I realize that enemy isn't frozen during my turn, but situation should be noted and not just look experience ratings. I dunno if this is possible with current game engine though...
Colonel von Blitz
[This message has been edited by Colonel von Blitz (edited March 02, 2001).]
Of course I realize that enemy isn't frozen during my turn, but situation should be noted and not just look experience ratings. I dunno if this is possible with current game engine though...
Colonel von Blitz
[This message has been edited by Colonel von Blitz (edited March 02, 2001).]
--Light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak--
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Paul Vebber
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I don;t know how you would do that in ANY game engine. What would YOU do in that situation? You think thereare King Tigers manuevering 1000m away, but you are not certain they are even after you...now you hear engine noises on your flank moving behind you. You do not know for sure if they are coming after you or not either.
Anytime you put a human in a life or death dilema like that what is other than coin flip, skewed to some degree by your experience with this situation IF you are Rambo then you use the terrain in the hex you are in to screen yourself somewhat from fire form the potential direction of teh KTs and try to get teh drop on the guy getting hte drop on you, or you may simply panick and decide teh closer threat is the more important, becasue are those engine noises of a Stug with an L24, or L70?
We tend to imprint the level of knowledge we have as players on the game situtaion and then think "what would happen in real life" when in reality someone in the situation would have far less detailed info and time to analze it than we the God-gamer. SO we fall back on expereince to skew the coin flip...what is teh right answer, let teh stug perhaps drive buy and be totally focused on the threat to teh front, or turn?
I don't think there is a "right answer, except the one when teh situation arises, resultsin the 122s survival - and that is impossible to say. That is teh fundamental problem with the grail quest for "good AI" - it assumes we all have teh same ideal of goodness in any given situation. THere is none, so there will never be 'good AI' until the computer reads our thoughts and figures what we consider teh "right answer" to be.
Anytime you put a human in a life or death dilema like that what is other than coin flip, skewed to some degree by your experience with this situation IF you are Rambo then you use the terrain in the hex you are in to screen yourself somewhat from fire form the potential direction of teh KTs and try to get teh drop on the guy getting hte drop on you, or you may simply panick and decide teh closer threat is the more important, becasue are those engine noises of a Stug with an L24, or L70?
We tend to imprint the level of knowledge we have as players on the game situtaion and then think "what would happen in real life" when in reality someone in the situation would have far less detailed info and time to analze it than we the God-gamer. SO we fall back on expereince to skew the coin flip...what is teh right answer, let teh stug perhaps drive buy and be totally focused on the threat to teh front, or turn?
I don't think there is a "right answer, except the one when teh situation arises, resultsin the 122s survival - and that is impossible to say. That is teh fundamental problem with the grail quest for "good AI" - it assumes we all have teh same ideal of goodness in any given situation. THere is none, so there will never be 'good AI' until the computer reads our thoughts and figures what we consider teh "right answer" to be.
He does bring an interesting point up Paul, that a unit could have a threat so serious that he would not react to the Stug, or perhaps would try to manuever away from both.
If players notice that the reaction is always to the unit that suddenly appears, then the Ktigers wait for the Stug to move before firing, thus exposing the Soviet side armor to the KTigers. What the player has to learn to do, is after the Soviet fires at the Stug, one Ktiger will fire, probably drawing the Soviet's fire and it thus spinning again, THEN, the Stug can get that side shot it was moving there for in the first place (sort of a tactical badmitton with the victim in the middle).
If players notice that the reaction is always to the unit that suddenly appears, then the Ktigers wait for the Stug to move before firing, thus exposing the Soviet side armor to the KTigers. What the player has to learn to do, is after the Soviet fires at the Stug, one Ktiger will fire, probably drawing the Soviet's fire and it thus spinning again, THEN, the Stug can get that side shot it was moving there for in the first place (sort of a tactical badmitton with the victim in the middle).
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Colonel von Blitz
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Charles22, that badminton 'playing' with your intended victim is quite easy currently.
Shouldn't that turning be decreased somehow according to historical reference. I mean, tanks can't spin 360 degrees a second, so maybe historical rate-of-turn figures could be used somehow. I remember calculating that one turn represents app. one minute real time in SP2, I think that timescale has been kept same in SPWAW too. If one thinks, it would look quite stupid seeing a heavy tank destroyer spinning around furiously when the crew tries to decide which target is more a threat, a King Tiger kilometer away or a StuG 150 meters away
Is there anyway to represent rates-of-turn with SPWAW engine?
Colonel von Blitz
Shouldn't that turning be decreased somehow according to historical reference. I mean, tanks can't spin 360 degrees a second, so maybe historical rate-of-turn figures could be used somehow. I remember calculating that one turn represents app. one minute real time in SP2, I think that timescale has been kept same in SPWAW too. If one thinks, it would look quite stupid seeing a heavy tank destroyer spinning around furiously when the crew tries to decide which target is more a threat, a King Tiger kilometer away or a StuG 150 meters away
Is there anyway to represent rates-of-turn with SPWAW engine?
Colonel von Blitz
--Light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak--
If Matrix had the inclination and if it were feasible, you could come up with 45 degree angles that the 'open timeframe' will allow each vehicle during opfire for each turn. Maybe tanks in general, would have a total of 32 45 degree angles they could spin, while TDs in general might have only 12 45 degree angles they could spin.
Question-if your Stugs were going through woods to 'sneak' up on the JS3s, then how would they know that the JS3s would still be there when they emerged...too many variables to consider for a Pentium 3. No, heavy tanks can't spin 360 degrees in 'a second', but the time is an abstraction to a degree in any wargame. Consider: the particular JS3 may not have known about the King Tigers to his front, or maybe so, or maybe his radio was out, etc., etc....maybe he was just lost. The battlefield, unlike our pristine computer environment, is rather chaotic and confusing. I agree in essence, Colonel but the idea doesn't have the horsepower to make it happen yet, and frankly I'm not sure that any truly accurate rendering of the 'real thing' is possible, as Paul alluded to, for a myriad of reasons. Save yourself the frustration.
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Colonel von Blitz
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A Forward Observer had visual contact so he could have informed the StuGs that the ISU-122 is still there facing the other way, but this is just assuming things. I just want to say that purely relying on experience level and suppression is not that good a way to determine when one can sneak up on enemy or when you're spotted before you're able to shoot.
Actually, Charles22 brought up an interesting and maybe even well working idea
Colonel von Blitz
Actually, Charles22 brought up an interesting and maybe even well working idea
Colonel von Blitz
--Light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak--
Why not thinking to this as a possible solution :
Adding something like a second movement rate next the major one which is related to turret turning movement or tank spinning ?(something similar to having a second shots as regards firings) such as
SHOTS 3:5:5
MOVE 13:6
(for each unit )
Just to avoid tanks firing to everything is moving in each possible direction with op-fire ? ( and maybe without loosing each time that same target ...)
Maybe simply subtracting some fractions from MOVE points everytime each turret or facing movement occurs (if creating a second field about moving is too difficult..)
Things should go better in many different
situations in a natural way !
Italian Soldier,German Discipline!
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Paul Vebber
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I for one read your suggestions ruxius, you tend to advise more than we can implement - If you want to send something more consolidated I'll be gald to look at it.
In the case of turret turning there is teh problem of gaming it. The inherent difficulty is that in a turnbased IGO-UGO game, both sides moving is a complete turn - a very asynchronous arrangement. Because each unit "does its whole turn" before another unit starts, ther is no way to sequence such actions. What happens if you set a max limit on turning, is players will find teh triggeres to make the tank use up its tunrs and "freeze" and then take advantage of the direction it is pointing.
It causes more problems than it solves. As it is units may or may not "spin around" depending on its expereince. Like the changes in opfire, the idea is that you can't use the asynchronous nature of the turn structure to do things. THere are good things about turn based games IGOUGO and bad, you have to look at it from the point of view of a pair of player turns being a "whole turn" and things don't necessarily "really happen" in the order that you happen to execute them in.
You can't model kinematics explicitly becasue the clock keepd getting set back every time you move a new unit. TO do otherwise makes the game very mechanical and predictable - the antithesis of a battlefield.
In the case of turret turning there is teh problem of gaming it. The inherent difficulty is that in a turnbased IGO-UGO game, both sides moving is a complete turn - a very asynchronous arrangement. Because each unit "does its whole turn" before another unit starts, ther is no way to sequence such actions. What happens if you set a max limit on turning, is players will find teh triggeres to make the tank use up its tunrs and "freeze" and then take advantage of the direction it is pointing.
It causes more problems than it solves. As it is units may or may not "spin around" depending on its expereince. Like the changes in opfire, the idea is that you can't use the asynchronous nature of the turn structure to do things. THere are good things about turn based games IGOUGO and bad, you have to look at it from the point of view of a pair of player turns being a "whole turn" and things don't necessarily "really happen" in the order that you happen to execute them in.
You can't model kinematics explicitly becasue the clock keepd getting set back every time you move a new unit. TO do otherwise makes the game very mechanical and predictable - the antithesis of a battlefield.
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Mike Rothery
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There is a quite famous account of an anti-tank gun crew in the GrossDeutchland Panzer Grenadier Regiment who encountered a KVII. The KVII hadn't seen them and drove past, so the AT gun got the first shot off, which bounced.
The AT gun reloaded will the gunner watched the turret start to very slowly turn toward him.
The AT gun got of 4 more shots whilst the KVII moved into a firing position, and they finally got a penetrating hit just as the KVII's 152mm gun was coming level with them.
On another note, the Panzer IV J was differed from the preceeding H model in that it only hand a hand cranked turret with no power assist. This was deleted to save production cost and time, and was thought to be no real loss as the Germans were fighting a defensive battle at this time. Which warms up the old chestnut about the M4 Sherman and its variable speed traverse...
In the old miniatures rules in the 70's (like TSR's Tractics) turret turn spped was modelled as a modifiy when engaging any targets at close range, and the US tanks with variable speed electric traverse were given an additional bonus.
Mike R
The AT gun reloaded will the gunner watched the turret start to very slowly turn toward him.
The AT gun got of 4 more shots whilst the KVII moved into a firing position, and they finally got a penetrating hit just as the KVII's 152mm gun was coming level with them.
On another note, the Panzer IV J was differed from the preceeding H model in that it only hand a hand cranked turret with no power assist. This was deleted to save production cost and time, and was thought to be no real loss as the Germans were fighting a defensive battle at this time. Which warms up the old chestnut about the M4 Sherman and its variable speed traverse...
In the old miniatures rules in the 70's (like TSR's Tractics) turret turn spped was modelled as a modifiy when engaging any targets at close range, and the US tanks with variable speed electric traverse were given an additional bonus.
Mike R
MikeR
I agree on the a problem with the oppertunity needing a slight overhaul. In a recent game one of my SS MArk 4Gs had an approaching sherman that it was front aligned with, the enemy then moved an infantry unit toward the tank from the lower right, my tank then spun around on the infatry some 5 hexes away and fired on them. The sherman then promplty shot my tank in the rear and destroyed it. In an internet game I would have ignored the approaching infantry in favor of the sherman not getting a rear shot. Also the mark 4 had a squad of paras 2 hexes to its rear which could have dealt with the infantry had they approached closer. My main problem with op fire is target prioritizing and units getting way to many op fire shots. I once tried to storm a Greyhound from 3 different directions with panzerfaust At teams and a whole platoon of para. The one greyhound got like 10 op fire shots and completely stopped all of my attack, alittle ridiculous if you ask me.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Paul Vebber :
I for one read your suggestions ruxius, you tend to advise more than we can implement - If you want to send something more consolidated I'll be glad to look at it.
[QUOTE]
Thanks Paul , to be read and to make you think about is my only target..and you do it ! I know many suggestions can not be achieved and that is why I do not expect my ideas to be applied in each release of SPWAW..I am out from SPWAW engine and souurce code so I do not know if that would be possible or not..that's why I try the same..
I will summarize all my suggestions into a post to spwawfeature@matrixgames.com
just to be sure I pay my duty
)
Is that an address that you are still looking at ? (so I can rest my soul ? )
about the topic : I read your notes...some things were slightly attempted as you said that tank spinning has an experience check..and also changing targets with op-fire..as Mr.Caos45 and Rothery rightly reported I too had some difficulties about the useless possibility to buy minor armors to get advantage of their hidden position to shoot at the rear of enemy's tanks..even if they are far and attacking elsewhere they can see with no difficulty my Marders and shoot at them turning at once , spotting them at once , firing to them before my marders have their single first shot..on another a single enemy unit is able to fire everything even if it is outnumbered...
It would be nice to use tactics of hidden encircling to take advantage of rear tank protection...
Now you say this is a problem of SPWAW Engine so I surrender..I am happy that prioritizing targets and so tank facing is a question that has been pointed.
As regards player's triggers I remember
sometimes that could be called "tips of war" that divide newbies from vets..but you are right when you say you have to control the real seriousness of these tips !
As for istance
It was exciting to discover that using planes all togheter in the same turn is a way to avoid the full answer of AA-guns but their special op-fire limits this tip
So things are balanced..maybe the same results could be obtained upgrading experience level check to turn turret everywhere or firing to everyone..
Ok Thanks for attention Paul ..I like very much this kind of free discussion about SPWAW!
Greetings ! Frank
I for one read your suggestions ruxius, you tend to advise more than we can implement - If you want to send something more consolidated I'll be glad to look at it.
[QUOTE]
Thanks Paul , to be read and to make you think about is my only target..and you do it ! I know many suggestions can not be achieved and that is why I do not expect my ideas to be applied in each release of SPWAW..I am out from SPWAW engine and souurce code so I do not know if that would be possible or not..that's why I try the same..
I will summarize all my suggestions into a post to spwawfeature@matrixgames.com
just to be sure I pay my duty
)Is that an address that you are still looking at ? (so I can rest my soul ? )
about the topic : I read your notes...some things were slightly attempted as you said that tank spinning has an experience check..and also changing targets with op-fire..as Mr.Caos45 and Rothery rightly reported I too had some difficulties about the useless possibility to buy minor armors to get advantage of their hidden position to shoot at the rear of enemy's tanks..even if they are far and attacking elsewhere they can see with no difficulty my Marders and shoot at them turning at once , spotting them at once , firing to them before my marders have their single first shot..on another a single enemy unit is able to fire everything even if it is outnumbered...
It would be nice to use tactics of hidden encircling to take advantage of rear tank protection...
Now you say this is a problem of SPWAW Engine so I surrender..I am happy that prioritizing targets and so tank facing is a question that has been pointed.
As regards player's triggers I remember
sometimes that could be called "tips of war" that divide newbies from vets..but you are right when you say you have to control the real seriousness of these tips !
As for istance
It was exciting to discover that using planes all togheter in the same turn is a way to avoid the full answer of AA-guns but their special op-fire limits this tip
So things are balanced..maybe the same results could be obtained upgrading experience level check to turn turret everywhere or firing to everyone..
Ok Thanks for attention Paul ..I like very much this kind of free discussion about SPWAW!
Greetings ! Frank
Italian Soldier,German Discipline!
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Paul Vebber
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Chaos - I assume you were playing by email? there is little we can do to avoid problems like that - we simply have chances that a unit will engage a threat, but little can be done to prioritize threats, since they are so dynamic. This is perhaps the number one obstacle to overcome in Combat Leader - threat prioritization.
Players will figure out what has "high priority" to attract opfire and use it to "fork" an opponent. This to me reveals the weakness inherent in a position that has been flanked.
Like I said one of the other threads, its easy to take teh God's eye view knowledge about the minute details of the battlefield and bemoan the fact that our cyber-heroes do not respond in optimum fashion that information would imply.
The game design from the SP1 beginnings assumes that the "cyber heroes" do not posses all the info that you the player do, and like your real life counterparts, you often shed tears for when your troops "do something stupid".
Ruxius - just send it to my paulv@matrixgames.com email - it may not be appropriate for SP - but many of your ideas have influenced my thinking in CL...as have those from many other of you.
[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 03, 2001).]
Players will figure out what has "high priority" to attract opfire and use it to "fork" an opponent. This to me reveals the weakness inherent in a position that has been flanked.
Like I said one of the other threads, its easy to take teh God's eye view knowledge about the minute details of the battlefield and bemoan the fact that our cyber-heroes do not respond in optimum fashion that information would imply.
The game design from the SP1 beginnings assumes that the "cyber heroes" do not posses all the info that you the player do, and like your real life counterparts, you often shed tears for when your troops "do something stupid".
Ruxius - just send it to my paulv@matrixgames.com email - it may not be appropriate for SP - but many of your ideas have influenced my thinking in CL...as have those from many other of you.
[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 03, 2001).]
Very honoured about this Mr. Paul.. I am now regrouping all the things I said into a big one so I can express it one time for all and then quit myself with the counsciousness I made all my best !Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
Ruxius - just send it to my paulv@matrixgames.com email - it may not be appropriate for SP - but many of your ideas have influenced my thinking in CL...as have those from many other of you.
I don't like to speak too frequently about changes because I think that even if there is always something that could be improved there is next to it much much much more to be enjoyed that has been already improved..
so there should be also time for you to rest and stand high in admiring what you have done !
So ensured by your general attention after
my post I will dedicate my self to enjoy SPWAW45 and Megacampaigns..
As regards MegaG I agree with the gentleman of the first page .. He spoke well..I hope there is noone here that would doubt about buying MEgaC-CD ! It's time to pay back all SPWAW series ! But I am conforted as most of us understood this !
As regards your decision to go beyond limits of SPWAW50 with Combat Leader I approve this courage ! This is called EVOLUTION !and you are the new pionieers ! ( I hope this is the right therm )
And I will pay my own copy of Combat Leader too ! No doubt !
As concerns your explanation about what happens behind this forum and the relationships with the programmers I understand well as Sometimes I had to face a C compiler ! Computers are very formal 'personalities' ! I think you did well to make us knowing about some kind of difficulties...it's so easy to forget about that !
OK ! Now at work Mr. Frank ! Bye
..it will take some days after you will receive my ?Last Stand ' for this time !
Italian Soldier,German Discipline!