all good

[fuselex]

Don`t worry .
Rico said if we all step high we will be fine .

[rico21]

Hi Fuselex,
but I'm not agree![:D]
Rico said if we all step fine we will be high.

[fuselex]

just finished- A morning at the Zoo - Another enjoyable scenario. Well done.
Just a couple of quick comments .
The Red text in the combat log is a little hard to read . The yellow , green , orange , are fantastic , great improvement.
The 50% improvement to OBA played very nicely in this scenario.
Still random but makes the OBA worth having a go at , I was at the point of not bothering with it .
Overall a nice patch combined with some inventive scenario making is starting to make this game look pretty damn good
Thanks all

[fuselex]

Have finally bought the Kursk campaign , due to the comments on the lagging I figured my comp would not cope well.
The latest patch promised improvement in larger scenarios , so I figured it was time to have a look.
My machine is fairly old and the video card is not even supported by world of warcraft anymore .
Nearly time to get a new one I know
Just started turn 13 in the first campaign , still early ,and I `m guessing there is more units to arrive on the board.
But for the lag , not a problem , turn 7 was a little slow for a short period of time but nothing that detracted from the scenario.
The last turn placed a few more units on board so I`ll see how that goes over the next couple of days,
The patch looks good so far . I had more lag in some of the smaller scenarios when the game was released .
The improvements are there to be seen if you look , good job Peter.
Only finished day 1 of the first campaign but am enjoying the campaign Jorgen . Thank you

[Paullus]

That is great news[:)]

[Peter Fisla]

I'm glad to hear that CGs are new much faster for you fuselex I will continue to work to improve the game futher

[fuselex]

Just wondering .
There seems to be a bit of an issue with the ai not firing at long range .
Seems to be easy to move units just outside their normal range and picking them off.
Without the other side returning fire.
The other side to this is everyone will move a sacrifical unit into their long range and have the ai
waste their move on attempting to kill that unit. Generally not that successful unless it is a nice stack.
Any reason why to even have long range fire ?
MG`s, AT, tanks can perform that function .
Basic units i think have a range of
American -6
German -6
Russian -4
this may not be correct but in the ball park.
Something i do not have a clue about but is it possible to have the russians move to a range 4 before attempting combat.
The Yanks ,germans doing the same at range 6 .
Still units can pick units off outside their range but in the german/american situation its only 1 assault move
away from retaliation .
The russian of course have to move a few hexes closer

[Peter Fisla]

As you said, there are pros and cons to have AI personnel doing long range fire. AI will never be perfect, in order to have a fun challenging scenario the scenario designer needs to keep the AI behaviour in mind. I will see though what I can do to improve the AI in the next update. Adding long range fire to AI can certainly be done, I will look into it. Its important when designing a scenario to make sure that AI poses a challenge to the player. The scenario designer can add more AI units, adjust the terrain to benefit the AI, not giving enough time to the player will force the player to be more aggressive and gamble. The AI was designed with command and control in mind, normal difficulty is really for the scenario designers to check their scenarios. Human player should really play on HARD/VERY HARD difficulty levels.

[fuselex]

AI to myself has never been an issue:)
I personally find it challenging , but I`m not in the same league as others here.
I really don't recall a scenario I thought I had whooped until the last few turns , and many I had to replay

[Peter Fisla]

I will continue to make the game better that's for sure and I do read user's feedback

[rico21]

ORIGINAL: Peter Fisla

As you said, there are pros and cons to have AI personnel doing long range fire. AI will never be perfect, in order to have a fun challenging scenario the scenario designer needs to keep the AI behaviour in mind. I will see though what I can do to improve the AI in the next update. Adding long range fire to AI can certainly be done, I will look into it. Its important when designing a scenario to make sure that AI poses a challenge to the player. The scenario designer can add more AI units, adjust the terrain to benefit the AI, not giving enough time to the player will force the player to be more aggressive and gamble. The AI was designed with command and control in mind, normal difficulty is really for the scenario designers to check their scenarios. Human player should really play on HARD/VERY HARD difficulty levels.

You're right about that.We have to think globally.
Changing the AI to make it more aggressive seems difficult.
But perhaps in the editor, could we have an option specializing some units in the cover shot or more easily obliterated the units that have machine guns to use them on the targets encountered.

[fuselex]

Just finished the Seelow scenario.
Played as German , normal setting , with fog of war .
First observation was no infantry but crews, 4 tanks if I remember rightly , some nice AT weapons, some decent MG`s
and a mortar . All manned by crews . Yes , you read right no infantry .
Ahhh sorry , forgot about the 1 and only officer who had some decent OBA and nothing else.
Around about turn 4 I had spent most of the game watching or listening to the rumble of Russian tanks .
And that was to continue throughout the game . 25 of them maybe ?
May have taken a couple of them out by then but had lost a couple of crews manning the AT`s , The officer
constantly could not contact the OBA throughout the game
By turn 5-6 the german defences at the front of Seelow where looking pretty grim , Around this time I was wondering
should I get another beer and try a different scenario , well I got the beer anyway and thought I`ll finish this one
first.
As luck would have it , things changed , and by turn 9 I`m thinking maybe I can scavenge a draw.
The end result was a german minor defeat , happy with that.
This is a great example of positioning troops . The MG on the right . the tank on the left VP , the entrenched
units.
Every game will be different , but for me this was a great scenario .

[fuselex]

In the end it was 15-3 AFV`s.
Comment on the AI - the first half of the game, the AI was certainly aggressive in trying to take VP`S.
- the second half of the game , can`t really comment because I was running out of troops to spot anybody

[rico21]

For me it was worst, in the three first turns , I lose OBA, two tigers and a third immobilized with only one operational.Of course I made the scenario but I damn Peter to have created a black eye IA.[:D]

[fuselex]

The 3rd immobilized may have been the one sitting on a VP?
He kicked butt , Russians came along the road , held them up big time , A medal shall be bestowed upon him .

[aaatoysandmore]

Problem I see in the AI is it's not aggressive enough when it outnumbers the player opponent. Sitting back and waiting till it routs the unit that can fire on them is a sure way for the ai to lose that scenario as I've shown in another post. The ai needs to advance each turn toward the goal and spread it's troops out enough that a full stack won't be routed by one lone enemy unit that is preventing the whole army from reaching their objective. Hitler would have had a field day with those types of units. He was always for attack attack attack and no retreat.

Rush that one unit and close assault. Use a lure like the player does and if the player doesn't fire use another one an another one but keep advancing toward the goal. You can always build a stack back up; spread them out when in danger of fire but keep them advancing and give up a unit or two; afterall the game is about collecting objective points not about how many men or units you lose. Especially when you outnumber the opponent 2 to 1.

In tutorial 1 twice I used the leap frog method to keep the german AI opponent from advancing cause I saw early it wouldn't advance if in danger of being fired upon. It always waited till it routed that unit. That unit to the right closest to the german units held them off for 3 turns or more. With that many turns not advancing it's not likely the ai will win on offense with only 7 turns total. I edited the scenario to 12 turns for the AI and it still lost. That's how bad the rule of no advancement is for the AI.

[Peter Fisla]

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore

Problem I see in the AI is it's not aggressive enough when it outnumbers the player opponent. Sitting back and waiting till it routs the unit that can fire on them is a sure way for the ai to lose that scenario as I've shown in another post. The ai needs to advance each turn toward the goal and spread it's troops out enough that a full stack won't be routed by one lone enemy unit that is preventing the whole army from reaching their objective. Hitler would have had a field day with those types of units. He was always for attack attack attack and no retreat.

Rush that one unit and close assault. Use a lure like the player does and if the player doesn't fire use another one an another one but keep advancing toward the goal. You can always build a stack back up; spread them out when in danger of fire but keep them advancing and give up a unit or two; afterall the game is about collecting objective points not about how many men or units you lose. Especially when you outnumber the opponent 2 to 1.

In tutorial 1 twice I used the leap frog method to keep the german AI opponent from advancing cause I saw early it wouldn't advance if in danger of being fired upon. It always waited till it routed that unit. That unit to the right closest to the german units held them off for 3 turns or more. With that many turns not advancing it's not likely the ai will win on offense with only 7 turns total. I edited the scenario to 12 turns for the AI and it still lost. That's how bad the rule of no advancement is for the AI.

Tutorials are just that, tutorials. If you want to have to some fun, play the scenario #3 Pershing to the Front as German on Hard or Very Hard difficulty.

[aaatoysandmore]

Difficulties that stifle the player are bandaids not a fix to the ai intelligence. This ai could eaisly be fixed by the methods I said above.

[rico21]

Playing with very hard difficulty.[8D]
This Pershing is already dead![:D]

[aaatoysandmore]

ORIGINAL: rico21

Playing with very hard difficulty.[8D]
This Pershing is already dead![:D]

Thing once again is players shouldn't have to stifle themselves on difficulties if the AI was programmed a bit better on normal like Field of Glory II where the AI at least tries to advance and destroy.