Joel says he doesn't think they will look at getting rid of
altitudes because the're afraid to many players would gripe.
After all the contensciousness caused by "low level/high level"
and everything in between, what DO WE THINK?
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HAVING THE "ALTITUDE" OF YOUR
STRIKE DETERMINED BY THE MISSION, THE AIRCRAFT, AND THE
BASE COMMANDER SUB-ROUTINE? Would mean that you would
issue a mission (and target, if allowed) to a squadron or more,
and the program would decide that B-17's attacking an airfield
will strike at 18,000 ft. Or Betties level bombing a port will bomb
at 10,000. Whatever range of altitudes were commonly used by
that type of aircraft to do that type of mission during the war.
Do away with the whole "shell game", and by placing aircraft
at historically realistic altitudes do away with some game prob-
lems as well. And leave room on the aircraft control screen to
perhaps deal with other requests for game changes. Given the
supposedly "high level" of command the player represents, I
for one would be perfectly happy not to worry with altitudes.
I'd much rather be able to influence naval strike target choices.
SO SOUND OFF WITH YOUR OPINIONS AND LET'S SEE WHAT
WE GET AS A CONSCENTSUS---OR IF WE CAN ARRIVE AT ONE
AT ALL.
Things 2by3 Nees To Fix......
Moderators: Joel Billings, wdolson, Don Bowen, mogami
-
Mike Scholl
- Posts: 6187
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 1:17 am
- Location: Kansas City, MO
I would be more in favor of being allowed limiting/setting search areas than in setting altitudes of my air groups. But I understand what Joel is saying. If we did not have the ability to set altitudes in UV we would have been howling our heads off - and you would hear the "just because they didn't do it IRL doesn't mean it couldn't be done" argument if B-17s always bombed from 15k ft. But because we do have that ability in UV we have (or at least in my case) learned that it is a micro-management pain in the rear when we see so little difference in the outcome (o.k. - thats mostly for fighters, the bombers do make some difference).
I would suggest - let the local commander decide altitudes (if we even have them) and when a group has enough experience for special ops (skip-bombing) then have a button on the panel which will allow that mission to be selected.
Or just have a high/medium/low altitude setting and the program defines what altitude those represent for a particular type of aircraft.
IHMO any of these would be preferable to having to set individual altitudes for a group.
As for individual pilots - it is a nice touch and for UV scale might be appropriate. For WitP it does not seem to be as necessary.
I would suggest - let the local commander decide altitudes (if we even have them) and when a group has enough experience for special ops (skip-bombing) then have a button on the panel which will allow that mission to be selected.
Or just have a high/medium/low altitude setting and the program defines what altitude those represent for a particular type of aircraft.
IHMO any of these would be preferable to having to set individual altitudes for a group.
As for individual pilots - it is a nice touch and for UV scale might be appropriate. For WitP it does not seem to be as necessary.
Quote from Snigbert -
"If you mess with the historical accuracy, you're going to have ahistorical outcomes."
"I'll say it again for Sonny's sake: If you mess with historical accuracy, you're going to have
ahistorical outcomes. "
"If you mess with the historical accuracy, you're going to have ahistorical outcomes."
"I'll say it again for Sonny's sake: If you mess with historical accuracy, you're going to have
ahistorical outcomes. "
Altitude settings are fine as long as the pros and cons are properly balanced. Along with indiv pilot exp ratings i feel it is a nicely increased level of detail over older generation wargames.
If heavy bombers in particular bomb at low altitudes, thats fine but they should be far more suspectible to flak as a result. Specifically in terms of "to hit". A big lumbering four engine bomber after all is a hard target to miss even with a pea shooter if it's coming in at 100-1000 feet. Disruption penalites for planes hard and/or frequently hit should also be severe. Such controls would reign in low alt bombing and skip bombing at least as far as in how careful the defending player is. If he/she neglects AA defense (as the Japanese did ala "Bismarck Sea") then the player can still be spanked. Taking precautions though can reduce the risk or at least force the player to attack from higher up
If bombers attack at higher altitudes, then naturally accuracy should fall but so should disruption/damage effects. That might sound contradictory but remember that by "accuracy less" I mean that at higher altitudes you should see a greater preportion of bombs that miss the target completely. (as experienced at Guadalcanal) The pro, though is that your bombers suffer less damage and possible op losses allowing them to conduct sustained attacks over a longer period of time
Finally, Flak/AA units along with ground units in general need to be made far more resiliant to air attack than current in the game. Even players who dont "game" the system eventually start bombing at low altitudes by the simple realization that their previous raids have so quickly damaged AA and support units that the target's helplessness becomes all too apparant.
If heavy bombers in particular bomb at low altitudes, thats fine but they should be far more suspectible to flak as a result. Specifically in terms of "to hit". A big lumbering four engine bomber after all is a hard target to miss even with a pea shooter if it's coming in at 100-1000 feet. Disruption penalites for planes hard and/or frequently hit should also be severe. Such controls would reign in low alt bombing and skip bombing at least as far as in how careful the defending player is. If he/she neglects AA defense (as the Japanese did ala "Bismarck Sea") then the player can still be spanked. Taking precautions though can reduce the risk or at least force the player to attack from higher up
If bombers attack at higher altitudes, then naturally accuracy should fall but so should disruption/damage effects. That might sound contradictory but remember that by "accuracy less" I mean that at higher altitudes you should see a greater preportion of bombs that miss the target completely. (as experienced at Guadalcanal) The pro, though is that your bombers suffer less damage and possible op losses allowing them to conduct sustained attacks over a longer period of time
Finally, Flak/AA units along with ground units in general need to be made far more resiliant to air attack than current in the game. Even players who dont "game" the system eventually start bombing at low altitudes by the simple realization that their previous raids have so quickly damaged AA and support units that the target's helplessness becomes all too apparant.
-
LargeSlowTarget
- Posts: 4957
- Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Hessen, Germany - now living in France
Re Altitude
I say get rid off the altitude setting in xy feet because they are not needed for most missions.
Therefore I recommend implementing four altitude options for tac bombing, CAP and sweep missions - high altitude (say 15.000+ feet), medium (6000-15.000), low altitude (1000-6000) and strafing/skip bombing (below 1000).
For escort missions the options should be 'close escort' or 'high cover', putting the fighters 1000 and maybe 6000 feet above the bombers.
All other missions should have a default altitude with some possible variation. You would only have to select one of four options for level bombing/sweep/CAP missions, the AI would take care of the details and all other missions.
In this context we need the option for sweep/CAP/escort only , with rest as secondary mission (although regarding CAP missions, the resting pilots should scramble all servicable planes into action as soon as radar or CAP reports bandits).
Only problem that remains is if you wish to split a squadron between CAP and sweep missions at different altitudes.
- Dive bombers and torpedo bombers attack from a hardcoded altitude anyway. They use the player assigned altitude only for the way to and from the target, which seems to be irrelevant for the combat results, so why bother with the alt settings? The only impact the 'player altitude' might have on the way in and out is on radar detection.
Same with transport missions, altitude settings don't seem to influence interception rates or cargo capacity, so why bother with alt settings here?
Recon/search/ASW is more difficult - the higher the safer, but the lesser the chance to spot something. Default those missions to 20.000, 6000 and 1000 feet or whatever was common.
I'd postulate that naval, ground, airfield and port attacks by fighter-bombers are usually conducted at low altitude, often including strafing attacks - no need for other alt settings here either.
Escorts are hardcoded to fly a few thousand feet above the strike they are escorting, regardless of the player's altitude settings - so in that case the alt option makes no sense, too.
Most confusing is the option to put part of a squadron on a sweep mission at 100 feet to strafe a target while the other part has to remain on CAP - at 100 feet as well, I suppose. Not a good CAP altitude, I'd say. Solution?
So in the end alt settings are only useful for level bombing attacks, fighter sweeps and CAP, which will fly/bomb/loiter at the assigned altitude.
Therefore I recommend implementing four altitude options for tac bombing, CAP and sweep missions - high altitude (say 15.000+ feet), medium (6000-15.000), low altitude (1000-6000) and strafing/skip bombing (below 1000).
For escort missions the options should be 'close escort' or 'high cover', putting the fighters 1000 and maybe 6000 feet above the bombers.
All other missions should have a default altitude with some possible variation. You would only have to select one of four options for level bombing/sweep/CAP missions, the AI would take care of the details and all other missions.
In this context we need the option for sweep/CAP/escort only , with rest as secondary mission (although regarding CAP missions, the resting pilots should scramble all servicable planes into action as soon as radar or CAP reports bandits).
Only problem that remains is if you wish to split a squadron between CAP and sweep missions at different altitudes.
Because of the scale in WiTP, I would suggest letting the local commanders decide the altitude of an air strike as per historical usage. As air crew experience rises, then options could become available for other historical bombing missions (such as skip bombing, etc).
This would eliminate a bit of micro-management and allow for more historic bombing missions. . .
As a theatre commander I should not have to worry at what height my bombers attack from; that is why I have local commanders. . .
This would eliminate a bit of micro-management and allow for more historic bombing missions. . .
As a theatre commander I should not have to worry at what height my bombers attack from; that is why I have local commanders. . .
Altitude and other things
Hi,
I agree on letting base commanders set the altitude for my planes (or maybe have a switch manually/automated).
I think in RL choice of altitude was made for a reason. So if there were no hordes of B-17 at 1000 ft attacks in RL there was a reason for it (thousands of Air Force officers sure had more insight into the subject than a couple of wargamers 60 yrs. after). If it would have worked they would have done so. So every plane should fly were 1000s of Air Force officials agree is the best altitude taking the subject out of my hands. This should also eleminate wrong accidental altitude settings (like fighters at 1000 ft while the bombers are at 10000 ft. and the like)
On a different note:
I wanted to check on the achievements of Yamato/Musashi and checked the sunk by 18 in. allied ships, noting, that most of them were DD's. Then I remembered that during those battles it struck me as weird, that the BB's would fire all the Guns on the DD's and the other BB's alike. Same goes for the DD's. They would gladly fire all weapons on enemy BB's and DD's alike.
But: Which BB commander would aim for a DD with his main guns when a BB is around and with the same logic why waste secondary gun fire (5 in) on a BB when enemy DD's offer plenty targets. I think thats what they invented the secondary armament for. As for the DD's why waste 5 in. ammo on BB's when enemy DD's are lining up for a torpedo run. I think thats what DD's were invented for, torpedo runs on capitol ships and defending against enemy DD's trying the trick on my capitols. Sure if no other targets are around go for it with everything you have but in the battles I remember there were BB's, CL's and/or CA's and DD's on both sides (can't remember which kind of cruisers, sorry but at least some were there).
Ohh, and most of those battles took place at least one or two patches ago but I do not remember having read about that in the readme's.
Gosh it's hot outside
Rainerle
I agree on letting base commanders set the altitude for my planes (or maybe have a switch manually/automated).
I think in RL choice of altitude was made for a reason. So if there were no hordes of B-17 at 1000 ft attacks in RL there was a reason for it (thousands of Air Force officers sure had more insight into the subject than a couple of wargamers 60 yrs. after). If it would have worked they would have done so. So every plane should fly were 1000s of Air Force officials agree is the best altitude taking the subject out of my hands. This should also eleminate wrong accidental altitude settings (like fighters at 1000 ft while the bombers are at 10000 ft. and the like)
On a different note:
I wanted to check on the achievements of Yamato/Musashi and checked the sunk by 18 in. allied ships, noting, that most of them were DD's. Then I remembered that during those battles it struck me as weird, that the BB's would fire all the Guns on the DD's and the other BB's alike. Same goes for the DD's. They would gladly fire all weapons on enemy BB's and DD's alike.
But: Which BB commander would aim for a DD with his main guns when a BB is around and with the same logic why waste secondary gun fire (5 in) on a BB when enemy DD's offer plenty targets. I think thats what they invented the secondary armament for. As for the DD's why waste 5 in. ammo on BB's when enemy DD's are lining up for a torpedo run. I think thats what DD's were invented for, torpedo runs on capitol ships and defending against enemy DD's trying the trick on my capitols. Sure if no other targets are around go for it with everything you have but in the battles I remember there were BB's, CL's and/or CA's and DD's on both sides (can't remember which kind of cruisers, sorry but at least some were there).
Ohh, and most of those battles took place at least one or two patches ago but I do not remember having read about that in the readme's.
Gosh it's hot outside
Rainerle
Image brought to you by courtesy of Subchaser!
They fire on DD or BB because of fog of war. In night battles, which most are in UV, you can not see every ship so they fire on what they see.
"Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the people.' 'We the people' tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us." -Ronald Reagan
I think a game as complex and involved as WitP will likely mean a lot of players playing will be playing against the AI , at least initially. So I would suggest an improved AI. I know this isnt easy, but at least an AI that will provide CAP over surface and transport TFs. Something the UV AI is totally imcapable of doing.
Originally posted by TIMJOT
I think a game as complex and involved as WitP will likely mean a lot of players playing will be playing against the AI , at least initially. So I would suggest an improved AI. I know this isnt easy, but at least an AI that will provide CAP over surface and transport TFs. Something the UV AI is totally imcapable of doing.
Have to second this motion. A more robust AI is essential IMO.
I know there are a few hard core players (Raverdave, Mogami, U2 come to mind) out there who can exchange prodigious numbers of turns per day but most of the people I play UV with are 1-2 turns per day and that doesn't include normal interruptions for life, family, career, vacations etc. At that rate it will take about 2 years to play a WitP campaign and I am just not that patient so I will probably only play the shorter campaigns PBEM. The campaign I will probably play against the AI and let's face it, that's the reason we are interested in this game in the first place, to play the entire war!
Secondly, when things start to go bad for one player or the other in long campaigns it is quite common for them to bail. While the AI may not be as challenging as another person, the AI never bails. I have had only one UV campaign make it into 1943 and that is because it was a ladder game.
Things I would like to see changed in the UV AI for WitP;
1) Tighter control of its own air units as operational losses are excessive for the AI. The AI flys in all weather and appears to think nothing about morale/fatigue when assigning missions.
2) Sailing transport TF's into known enemy LBA range. This is huge as you can essentially defeat the AI just abusing this AI behavior alone.
3) The AI does not know how or when to set up a defense in depth, (to be fair most human players don't do this either). It will only start building up secondary bases to protect its supply train when it is too late.
4) The AI abuses its naval TF's, letting sys damage accumulate for no good reason.
5) The AI does not shepard damaged ships. It frequently sends heavily damaged ships back to Truk even when they have flotation damage and they sink in route when they could have been saved by sending them to the nearest level 3 port first. This appears to apply mostly to transports but it could affect combat TF's as well.
6a) AI's 'battle plan' is solely focused on one area at a time and is generally uncoordinated so that it can be defeated piecemeal.
6b) AI does a poor job of dividing its attention. When the AI is focused on an offensive operation it does not know how to respond to an emerging threat elsewhere and will continue to carry out its plan sometimes at terrible cost.
7) AI control of submarines is functional at best. It is too predictable in its patrol placement and does not do a very good job of identifying areas where hunter/killer groups are operating.
Most of this boils down to a few things, assessing risk, divison of labor and coordination of forces towards a common goal.
I fully appreciate how difficult this task is but I figured I would ask for it anyway.
-g
AI
Agree wih all the AI suggestions, it is too easy still to beat the AI in UV, not sure how it will go on the changed scale of WITP.
Would like to never ever see again a unescorted , non air covered invasion force heading into a heavy LBA protected port again.
Of course Im not a programmer and have no appreciation at all of how intensly difficult programing the AI is. In mid 43 scenerios UV it seems to perform better, having LBA in theatre helps it .
Cant wait for this game!
Hey, mogami, how does the AI seem to go in your testing?
Got to go, wobblies fleet awaits decapitation!!!
Would like to never ever see again a unescorted , non air covered invasion force heading into a heavy LBA protected port again.
Of course Im not a programmer and have no appreciation at all of how intensly difficult programing the AI is. In mid 43 scenerios UV it seems to perform better, having LBA in theatre helps it .
Cant wait for this game!
Hey, mogami, how does the AI seem to go in your testing?
Got to go, wobblies fleet awaits decapitation!!!
Big seas, Fast ships, life tastes better with salt
AI----Amen!
Have to totally agree with the above AI comments. I love UV but I've played several scenarios (of varying length) against the AI and trashed it each time....and this is certainly not due to my skills!!!
I've noticed all of the above habits of the AI, but my personal favorite (and it has happened in every one of my games) is when the AI sends a carrier task force to bomb my airbases....for no apparent reason other than inflicting some (very temporary) airfield damage.....not in support of an invasion or anything else. This invariably results in the loss of one or more AI CVs while my CVs are still tucked away in Noumea. And the AI will repeat this "tactic" once it has repaired its carriers! Bizarre.
I thought I'd try the scenario where the IJN (I always play Allies) starts off with Moresby (give the AI a real chance). Well, a couple weeks into it, the AI sends three combined CV task forces to bomb my bases in N. Australia. Bringing it within range of Cairns, Cooktown, and Townsville. And it stayed there for several days, inflicting minor damage, while losing lots of planes and suffering some damage to CVs.
I then sailed my (3) CVs up from Noumea and polished off the Japanese fleets. Three AI carriers were sunk outright and all the others were blazing wrecks. (I suffered one hit to a CV).
I gave up the game because the rest would have been too easy. Guess PBEM is the only way to go until WitP comes out.
I've noticed all of the above habits of the AI, but my personal favorite (and it has happened in every one of my games) is when the AI sends a carrier task force to bomb my airbases....for no apparent reason other than inflicting some (very temporary) airfield damage.....not in support of an invasion or anything else. This invariably results in the loss of one or more AI CVs while my CVs are still tucked away in Noumea. And the AI will repeat this "tactic" once it has repaired its carriers! Bizarre.
I thought I'd try the scenario where the IJN (I always play Allies) starts off with Moresby (give the AI a real chance). Well, a couple weeks into it, the AI sends three combined CV task forces to bomb my bases in N. Australia. Bringing it within range of Cairns, Cooktown, and Townsville. And it stayed there for several days, inflicting minor damage, while losing lots of planes and suffering some damage to CVs.
I then sailed my (3) CVs up from Noumea and polished off the Japanese fleets. Three AI carriers were sunk outright and all the others were blazing wrecks. (I suffered one hit to a CV).
I gave up the game because the rest would have been too easy. Guess PBEM is the only way to go until WitP comes out.
"The Navy has a moth-eaten tradition that the captain who loses his ship is disgraced. What do they have all those ships for, if not to hurl them at the enemy?" --Douglas MacArthur
Originally posted by Joe 98
Suggestion:
Take a scenario which is 6 months or longer.
Go to the scenario editor.
Remove all CVs and all BBs from both sides.
Set to the hardest level.
Then play as the Japanese.
The AI will crush you.
Hey Joe98
I will try your custom scenario, could you post it either here or on Spooky's web page so we can give it a try?
IMO the AI is beatable in any scenario and at any difficulty setting. Dialing up the difficulty certainly is a way to make the game more challenging but it does so simply by increasing the level of damage the AI units dish out, it is not like the AI thinks longer and harder as a chess program would. It also makes the game ahistorical as the combat results are now totally skewed. You will also notice that all of the behaviors that I mentioned in my previous post are still applicable regardless of difficulty setting, the AI will just be able to get away with making these mistakes for a longer period of time.
-g
I doubt we'll eliminate altitudes as my guess is we'd be crucified because we would leave something out that players want to do, but you're welcome to poll on this issue. If I had it to do over again I would make Gary get rid of altitudes and individual pilots.
I can't believe some of the things I'm hearing here. Please do not eliminate altitudes or individual pilots. I really get a kick out of watching Saburo Sakai or Richard Mehle (a friend of the family) mixing it up. It adds a huge amount of depth and attachment to the game. This is one of the things I love about Gary's games.
To me, allowing the AI to do more for the Player is the wrong way to go if you are trying to design a war game. The whole point is for the player to make the decisions and then see the results manifested in successful raids or a CAP that is particularly effective. Otherwise we should just set both sides to AI and sit back and watch. That isn't any fun for me. Not to mention in my experience, AI is usually woefully inadequate.
If there are complaints that changing altitudes is a useless feature I would suggest making it useful rather than just doing away with it. Give the unit with the altitude advantage a modifier and I'll bet a lot of players will want to control their altitudes. Don't hard code any aircraft to attack from a certain altitude. Allow them to attack from what ever altitude the player chooses. Or allow the player to select attack altitudes for all types of aircraft on a "Attack Profile" screen, much like the Doctrine Sceen in 12 O' Clock High. Once the altitude is set a player can choose to leave there the rest of the game or micromanage it. Besides, even if you were totally against altitudes based on a labor-saving point of view, once you set an altitude you can leave it there as it is in UV.
Personally I feel the Altitude system should be more intricate than it is now as that one factor can have a huge impact on an air to air engagement, why anyone would want to give up control of it I don't know.
IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES
-
Mike Scholl
- Posts: 6187
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 1:17 am
- Location: Kansas City, MO
TO THE ELF
I think you missed the point on the altitudes question. The
problems that arise from allowing players to do all sorts of odd
things like "skip-bombing" with B-24's and such create a number
of other game issues. Like having to re-do the flak results to make all this low level stuff more historically expensive and less
effective (which is why historically it was limited to a few specialist
squadrons) and many others. Taking away altitude control from
the player in a game which already won't allow him to select a
naval target was a suggestion to remove abuses, help "fix" some
problems, and rationalize the system.
I kind of like looking at the names once in a while myself, but
if a "theatre Commander" (player) can't tell his planes which TF
he wants them to hit, then logically he shouldn't be telling them
how high to fly either. And it would make other problems easier to fix as well. Sounds as if you are a NO vote in the poll---but
I wanted you to realize what you were voting on.
problems that arise from allowing players to do all sorts of odd
things like "skip-bombing" with B-24's and such create a number
of other game issues. Like having to re-do the flak results to make all this low level stuff more historically expensive and less
effective (which is why historically it was limited to a few specialist
squadrons) and many others. Taking away altitude control from
the player in a game which already won't allow him to select a
naval target was a suggestion to remove abuses, help "fix" some
problems, and rationalize the system.
I kind of like looking at the names once in a while myself, but
if a "theatre Commander" (player) can't tell his planes which TF
he wants them to hit, then logically he shouldn't be telling them
how high to fly either. And it would make other problems easier to fix as well. Sounds as if you are a NO vote in the poll---but
I wanted you to realize what you were voting on.
Originally posted by Joe 98
Suggestion:
Take a scenario which is 6 months or longer.
Go to the scenario editor.
Remove all CVs and all BBs from both sides.
Set to the hardest level.
Then play as the Japanese.
The AI will crush you.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I bought UV because I like playing HISTORICAL World War II games. Taking the CVs out would kind of be like playing a World War I naval game---lots of mini-Jutlands all over the place.
I've tried fooling with the "difficulty" levels, but noticed that the only change seems to be that I lose (a LOT) more aircraft in air-to-air combat. The AI doesn't play any better or smarter. Anyone else noticed this?
"The Navy has a moth-eaten tradition that the captain who loses his ship is disgraced. What do they have all those ships for, if not to hurl them at the enemy?" --Douglas MacArthur