Future Directions - Features

[RayWolfe]

ORIGINAL: nicwb
But the only information I get about placing a barrage too close to my own troops - is when I'm told the fire mission is completed - that's after some minutes have elapsed.

The thing about this game is you cannot act as a god. On the real battlefield if an artillery shoot is made too close to friendly troops, you don't know immediately, you know when someone shouts at you! Try to get away from the old style war game thinking where the commander knows everything. You will be advised if friendlies are in the way in due course, meanwhile, as in real life, some of your guys die.
Just think about the number of friendly fire incidents today in modern conflicts and you will get some idea of the huge numbers of such incidents there were in 1944.

[nicwb]

Thanks for the replies Simovitch and RayWolfe.

I know the game does display a message -eventually but what concerns me is that if I have to lay artillery that close it usually means it's situation of some urgency and time is of the essence. (or it does given my hamfisted ability[8|]).

To be honest Raywolfe, I don't think I'm asking to act as a god. The question becomes how far you abrogate your involvement to the game. BFTB is very good in removing or at least allowing you to delegate micromanagement to your subordinates (the AI) but if you delegate everything I feel it ceases to become a game and more a semi-interactive movie. The game allows intervention to a degree- but then again in RL the challenge for any senior officer is how much do you intervene ? Sometimes the senior officer might have more awareness of the significance of an event to the overall situation than a junior officer on the spot. At that point an order by the senior commander may be"acting as god" but I think that's what they do.

I suspect my real problem is the difficulty of placing a barrage on the map without making an estimation or guess) - (as I write this it occurs to me the LOS tool is gradated and might provide a partial solution to my problem - so thanks for making me think this out properly). I still think an immediate message would be of gameplay value though.

I think in RL the request for artillery support would come normally up the chain of command from the unit commander on the ground. He or another officer would also place the shots for the artillery support. But that means someone is spotting and calling in shots which gives something the game doesn't quite replicate - a man on the spot saying "map ref here","too close" or "too far" etc. The game replicates this well for normally occuring barrages but not "barred' strikes.

Perhaps the concept requires some examination. I understand from the tutorial vids that the restriction replicates US fire support doctorine. But as you say RL is something different. Inexperience, ineptitude, fear or simply worn out equipment all caused FF incidents - maybe the game should allow this too? As I undertstand it - airstrikes can result in FF incidents so why not artillery ? Or even some form of "error factor" based on unit training and experience ?

I started out wanting a simple message - now I'm suggesting programme changes !

[Arjuna]

[:D] Don't worry it happens to the best of us. [:)]

BTW you do know that arty will default to lifting their fire if friendlies are too close anbd you do have the option to ignore the automatic lifting and wear the consequences if your friendlies gte clobbered by your own fire.

[nicwb]

Arjuna,

don't tell me that !! I knew that the artillery will default to not firing if too close to friendlies but but I had the operation to ignore this !!?!! [X(]

Ignore what I said - and it's back to the manual then.

[Lieste]

A tick-box on the call-for-fire dialogue - I think it only applies to player called missions though, and the AI won't use it.

[nicwb]

Thanks Lieste !

Found it !

[save]

An idea, tanks and vehicles should have the ability to be immobilized by an attack. If they are routed or are retreating , the unit simply abandon the immobilized vehicles.
Given time though, they can be be repaired, specially in entrenched position or if they are not in direct contact with enemy / under fire.

Since I used to be a tanker IRL myself, I have witnessed so many occasions where we where left tanks for repair , in battle we would probably have abandoned them if we where in a retreat situation.
 

[Arjuna]

save,

A good suggestion. In fact it's on our wish list already.

[Deathtreader]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

save,

A good suggestion. In fact it's on our wish list already.

Soooooooooooo................... any chance of a preview of what's on the list from all of the feedback in this thread (and others).[:)]

Rob.

[wodin]

I asked that a couple of months back...I think they are going to be busy with Military contracts for awhile yet before anything is done again.

We will get the HTTR scenario expansion pack and maybe another most likely CotA (though I don't see enough difference between BftB and the original CotA to require doing it again).

[parmenio]

A couple of points.

Is there any way these suggested features could be collated? Something along the lines of the Comprehensive Wishlist for TOAW that Bob Cross maintains.

It's difficult to determine duplicate items and the following may be one.... [:D]

An Intel view that fades enemy unit icons from fully opaque to totally transparent (and just the border) based on age and possibly validity as well.

[Arjuna]

Re Intel view fading with age. Great idea. Love it. Again I've been wanting this for ages. But alas our graphics engine built on the nerable MS MFC doesn't support transparency effects. MS have put out a new version of MFC that does support them but you have to be using Vista/Win7. I still think there are large numbers of users out there using XP. So that makes it difficult tyo make the jump.

[parmenio]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

But alas our graphics engine built on the nerable MS MFC doesn't support transparency effects.

You mean.... MFC's still going!

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

MS have put out a new version of MFC that does support them but you have to be using Vista/Win7. I still think there are large numbers of users out there using XP. So that makes it difficult tyo make the jump.

I can feel the need for an IF...THEN... statement

i.e.
if (Windows 7 || Vista)
{
// Nice shiny new transparency option
}
else
{
// Bad luck mate!
}

[Deathtreader]

Hi,

Here's another one for consideration:

Allow the placement of orders/waypoints across rivers whilst bridges are being constructed so that as soon as the bridge is completed formations can begin to cross. I'm playing the Axis in "No one comes back" (just to see what the battle looks like from the other side) and I've been monitoring bridge building progress very closely. When I figured the bridge was about 90 mins to completion I tried to give movement orders to my formations to cross thinking that this would save me the orders delay period. i.e by the time the bridge finished the orders to move across would be almost down to the unit level. No joy......[:(]
The game kept snapping me back to my side of the river with the usual message that my orders were adjusted to the nearest reachable location. This meant that I had to wait until the bridge was actually finished before Icould issue orders to cross and that cost me lost time with no movement due to orders delay.
Maybe that reachable placement restriction could somehow be tied in to the "start at" function??
Just a thought........

Rob.[:)]

[Arjuna]

Rob,

That's a tricky one. It is very hard to second guess a human players intent. I'll ponder that one a bit more.

One thing that would mitigate this is if we supported sequential tasking. This would mean that you could order a Bde to Move to the crossing, then construct a bridge and then Move somewehre else on the far bank. We could then check to see if a preceding task was a bridge construction and if so, then to ignore the reachability test. moreover, we could readily reduce orders delay between sequential tasks.

[johndoesecond]

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader

Hi,

Here's another one for consideration:

Allow the placement of orders/waypoints across rivers whilst bridges are being constructed so that as soon as the bridge is completed formations can begin to cross. I'm playing the Axis in "No one comes back" (just to see what the battle looks like from the other side) and I've been monitoring bridge building progress very closely. When I figured the bridge was about 90 mins to completion I tried to give movement orders to my formations to cross thinking that this would save me the orders delay period. i.e by the time the bridge finished the orders to move across would be almost down to the unit level. No joy......[:(]
The game kept snapping me back to my side of the river with the usual message that my orders were adjusted to the nearest reachable location. This meant that I had to wait until the bridge was actually finished before Icould issue orders to cross and that cost me lost time with no movement due to orders delay.
Maybe that reachable placement restriction could somehow be tied in to the "start at" function??
Just a thought........

Rob.[:)]

Hi Deathreader,

I don't know if you know this, so just saying ...

If you have a bridge eng. coy attached to the battlegroup for whom you want to set the move destination on the other side of the river, it works.

Not that what you're proposing isn't a somewhat different concept, and would indeed be of some use.

Cheers.

[Deathtreader]

Hi johndoesecond,

I didn't know that!! Thanks!

Sadly though that's all it does i.e. it allows the placement of orders on the enemy side of the river without the reachability rules invoked and it does generate a constuct bridge task at the HQ level (914 Grenadier Regt HQ in this test)with the entire regt moving to the proposed site but the engineers never construct a bridge they just sit and go to defend tasks. Fastforwarded to the end of the scenario in the test and zippo in the way of built bridges.

Again, thanks anyway.[:)]

Rob.

[Arjuna]

The Engineers must have a bridge available, as indicated by the pontoon symbol on their command bar.

[johndoesecond]

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader

Hi johndoesecond,

I didn't know that!! Thanks!

Sadly though that's all it does i.e. it allows the placement of orders on the enemy side of the river without the reachability rules invoked and it does generate a constuct bridge task at the HQ level (914 Grenadier Regt HQ in this test)with the entire regt moving to the proposed site but the engineers never construct a bridge they just sit and go to defend tasks. Fastforwarded to the end of the scenario in the test and zippo in the way of built bridges.

Again, thanks anyway.[:)]

Rob.

Hi Rob,

Actually, when I give such order, for me the bridge engineers (if they indeed have bridging capabilities, as Arjuna said earlier) usually start building the bridge. Then, once built, the whole battlegroup almost immediately trace its route to its destination.

I said "usually", for once it happened to me that bridge eng. didn't start building the bridge, but just sat nearby in defend position. Unfortunatelly, I wasn't able to reproduce that behaviour so I did't signal it as a bug, for maybe I was mistaken.

But, for example, I just tried the scenario you were mentioning ("Nobody comes back"), and it worked. You can give such move order to a divisional HQ which has bridge eng. as it's organic subordinate, but it also works if you attach it to another battlegroup (I tried with the FJ eng coy at the north crossing attached to that FJ regt. further east). Give it a second try.

Anyway, I agree this is not exactly what you were asking for, and is not a perfect workaround to avoid the order delay you were mentioning.

[freeboy]

I find myself repeatedly givingthe same set of clicks, no rest, etc.. as I push my weary troops at night to meet the needs.. can we fix a default settignthe user creats for these orders?
For myself I am always clicking off straglers.. basing, and less rest?? thanks