ORIGINAL: Arjuna
The way the new Ambush option works is that the unit will not open fire on enemy outside its ambush range unless it is under fire or has been in the last fifteen minutes. Ambush range depends on the unit/force. It is that range at which the force can bring 67% of its firepower to bear. This range will vary depending on the target and the type of fire - eg an Inf Coy may have an APer ambush range of 300m and an AArm ambush range of 100m.
I understood that part, as you've explained that in another posting already, and I've viewed the screen dump showing the ambush range before.
But this is like an automatism. My idea was to give the user additional "power" to tell a given unit to prepare an ambush on purpose. An ambush is different than a situation where a given enemy unit approaches (probes) or charges a friendly defensive perimeter, right?
Setting up an ambush with the friendly unit's troops hiding in a city environment, or in the woods, should cause way more casualties than regular defensive or offensive actions once the friendly troops open fire, imho.
The word ambush implies that it's about surprise fire that seems to appear from nowhere. According to my observations, the engine prevents these kinda situations at times, as a good LOS will often reveal info about the presence of an enemy unit nearby. Keeping the ambush feature to be a feature controlled by an automatism only would be like half of the real deal only, i think. Enabling the player to freely choose an ambush location, with him being able to set a minimum distance where it's "fire at will", would make a real difference, IMHO. Hmm, a more flexible ambush feature as I've just outlined, may require a change in sighting procedures within the engine as well, as a small unit would really find ways of staying put, in order to avoid detection, if ordered to do just that... -> to conduct a mean + tricky ambush.
The most classic example would be the mini-KG during the battle in Arnheim (Group Butlar, consisting of 6 soldiers, incl. CO). A small group like that shouldn't be seen even from medium distance at all, if it would hide in woods or in a city environment, and IF it would hold fire, IMHO. In the Arnheim scenario, Group Butlar is being spotted from a distance most of the time, as if it would consist of let's say 50-60 troops.
That leads to the next question. If I'm not mistaken, a given unit would still fire occasionally, if set to MIN aggro? Right? That's where I really wish that there'd be a hold-fire button, as it would make withdrawal or sneak-around-moves easier, since it would be easier for units to disengage or to avoid that the given unit would reveal its presence. That way, custom scenarios at platoon level (SP/MP) would start to make sense and I can imagine that these would be fun, as they'd be less time consuming in MP. Imagine close combat fights in a city environment with "hit and run" tactics.
Right now, withdrawal tasks are almost useless, since units with heavy losses (which aren't routing yet) can't be pulled out most of the time (even if playing without order delay), as they would not disengage in time. In real life, if the shyte would hit the fan, a commander would just say "let's get out of here" or "run", hehe, maybe even if he'd have to sacrifice/drop some or all of his heavy weapons.
That said, a hold-fire button would be useful in such situations as well, i think... or, alternatively, a RETREAT task. We've got a withdrawal task that can be issued by the user and the automatism that triggers/controls retreating and routing. The withdrawal task appears to be a pretty time consuming but well-regulated procedure. I for one, wish there'd be a third option, where I, as the "commander", would be able to determine the direction of a retreat. Also, in real life, commanders were able to abort a fully fledged attack (due to unexpected heavy enemy defense for example) in a timely manner (minutes only).
For the imaginary retreat-task, order delay should be set to "1" or something like that (means less than 2 mins basically), if issued on a company level, as a retreat order does NOT take up to one hour in real life...... really.
This is like this engine's only drawback:
All those situations, where it lets a single Coy either retreat, without the player being able to do anything about it, or where it lets a Coy just execute the last order stubbornly (it's worse if playing with order delay) with it "patiently" taking casualties and returning fire (if not routing/retreating), make we wish to issue such a retreat order. Even MIN aggro would not make it completely detach from the enemy on many occasions, it feels like the soldiers are digging for their ties and full dresses and are waiting for their wifes to receive a fare-well kiss first, before they are ready to leave the perimeter, being attached to enemy units like magnets at times.
Abort of attacks (attacks against long odds) had been done and will be done in the future, in real life combat. If a given unit is not going to be surrounded, there are plenty of opportunities to use withdrawal routes/retreat routes.
Oh hey and a "drop everything and run"-button would be neat [8D], too [;)].
EDIT: One more thing comes to my mind. Looking at the "retreat"-automatism, there's a tendency of friendly units retreating or routing towards enemy perimeters... a good example would be a mission objective residing in a major city, with enemy units deploying within the objective "ring".
On quite some occasions a friendly attacking unit would then start to retreat (it would first move away [retreat] from the most dangerous enemy unit/fire i guess), but it would start to bounce once the enemy fire would start to do some serious damage. Often, the very next step would be that the enemy units would make the friendly unit rout, with the friendly unit stumbling over every enemy unit available on this perimeter. I'm exaggerating here, but some instances feel like that.
One should think that a soldier's/group's instinct would tell them to try and reach a friendly/uncontested perimeter, in order not to face destruction/captivity, no?
The changes that had been made to the engine's code -COTA-, triggering a higher likelihood that a given unit surrenders (it feels like
foes do it somewhat
earlier than friends now) concealed the problem with bouncing units and the need to detach troops to chase and destroy vital enemy AI units to some extent, but it still doesn't feel right.
It wasn't the "speed" which caused the problem, "speed" describes the time frame from first contact to final surrender, but the freaky behaviour of retreating/routing units, where even the tightest ring of friendly units would not be able to crush a trapped enemy unit and where such enemy units would even rout through the tightest friendly defenses.
Whatever, in fact, I've outlined the idea of having an ambush task (maybe with fixed amounts of available ambush orders.... similar to the air strike feature... or like once a day... once per line unit - like the bridge-building capability-, whatever) in my initial posting, i think you might have overlooked that.
I hate to quote myself, but I'd still love to get an answer to this:
1) some COTA or HTTR(?) inf units (for example) have several mortars (note: i am not talking about mortar coys) ...
a) do they actually use the stuff?
b) is the usage being rendered in the game (visually)? ...
These few mortars carried by line troops would display less than 67% of the weapons for sure... but do they fire right now (COTA)? ... and they won't fire in the future (BFTB etc.) if ambushing?
What kind of algorythm decides which encounter happens to be an ambush, and what exact preconditions have to be met to trigger an ambush? Would the player be able to see the enemy's location beforehand, prior to the ambush?
This automated version of an ambush makes me think of it as a rather artificial (not very realistic) feature, sorry, as it sounds as if the terrain types/weather conditions won't be taken into account, but only the force ratio and appearance of incoming fire. It sounds like anything could turn into an ambush-fest IF the player would place a string of single Coys along an imaginary defensive line and if he'd just give them time to deploy, resulting in the poor enemy chap stumbling over these ambushing units, in case the chap is not conducting an attack mission in this very moment. No?
My personal wishlist for the game after BFTB:
- 1) Loss of XY percentage (depending on type of terrain, weather, season - this will be great for a game focusing on the Russian or African theater) of heavy equipment if unit is routing and suffering severe casualties ("loss" as in leaving a percentage of weaponry [that hadn't been destroyed in the process] on the battlefield !!!!!!!!!!! ),
- 2) Ability to pick up and incorporate servicable heavy weapons (means to regain or capture abandoned vehicles and or heavy equipment in general),
- 3) Option to let the user decide whether captured equipment should be incorporated or not (who'd want a Stuart tank? ..... on the other hand, the Germans liked [to use] Russian T-34s and the Russians liked the Panther tanks later on, but they ignored the Tigers..too unreliable for their liking
),
- 4) Hold fire button as in...ZERO fire,
- 5) Ambush button/task where the player can determine a minimum distance from where it's "fire at will", along with an impact on an ambushing unit's visibility (could be rendered as "type of deployment", just like "dug in" or "fortified" modes)
- 6) New terrain types:
a) "bombed city" layer (* almost impassable for armor/mot. units, unless the scenario designer would add streets..... , * reduced movement values for inf, as ruins, rubble and obstacles would hamper troop movement ....., * extremely low movement values for tanks if they leave the streets),
b) "bomb crater" layer (would look nice and would enhance immersion, it could be placed on top of any terrain, similar to the river/water layers, * impassable for all vehicles but tanks),
- Booby traps (the Russians used to set up these in woods on the eastern front, the Germans used those excessively in Huertgenwald Forest, here and there in woods in the Ardennes, and to some extent behind the Siegfried Line .... mostly consisting of anti-personnel mines or hand grenades attached to trees at waist/stomach level, not sure if the Russians invented it) ... they caused quite some casualties among inf troops. Would be neat as addition to the delayed mine field feature.
- Sequential orders being able to take into account timer settings (discussed in another thread)
