Possible FUP/Assault Issues?

[Marshal Villars]

Note to others: Arjuna and I are on the hunt for situations which replicate a minor problem which occurs only infrequently in the game. So, these screenshots are an effort to find duplicates of these situations and provide Arjuna with the files surrounding them. Really not much interesting going on here otherwise. I would recommend spending your time elsewhere.

Arjuna,

This is where I will post images for you to look at and see if you would like some files for them. Most of these are situations where a unit was not moving or seemed to be taking dramatically inordinate amounts of time to do so (for instance... in spite of showing arrows indicating movement there was none).

To summarize, some of these seem to be red herrings. For instance, situation A turns out to be of low interest perhaps. Situation F is perhaps the most interesting.

To others: Simovitch has pointed out that I may be pushing my units too hard. I do appreciate his help. And since I have learned to push "less hard all the time", I have certainly achieved better results out of my games. This is my response to him, so that you can better know the purpose of this thread...

@ Simovitch: First of all, thank you for helping Arjuna put together what is probably the best operational/tactical wargame in the history of mankind. Yes. Your points are well taken. And since I have been taking it easier on my men, I do seem to get a bit more out of them. However, when reviewing Situation F, in light of the fact that they sprung to life and immediately ran to another portion of the map without any problems, makes me disinclined to believe they didn't attack up the hill because they were tired. I am not sure on all of the task symbols and what they mean -- or when exactly they are used -- but I have provided this as one example of a situation where no movement was seen during a critical period, but an order to put them elsewhere was immedately followed. Arjuna has agreed there is a minor issue with a) occassional HQ leaving their units behind, b) occassional non-movement when orders given, when in his opinion there should be, c) occasional "lost battalions" (units being left behind). I am merely trying to help him pin down areas in the code, on his request, to help him find these curious moments so the program can be further improved. I must admit, I am not sure in every situation what is happening and I have admitted to him that in many cases, I will come up with red herrings. But I am not the expert in his programming that he is, so I have to report most of the odd instances I see. I have noticed that on occassion he points out problems which he would like to look at which I would have never even noticed myself. Please note that in Situation F, I did have my units on "normal" rest and after giving orders, they got up early and got moving on their own accord. Also, I do know that if you put "aggro" to low, they will be less likely to engage everything around them and try to move to their objectives around them. Notice in Situation F, my aggro was set to medium. Also, in some of these screenshots, you will see that I have my orders set to "rest: NONE". This is not how I started out in many of these situations. I have long since learned that "rest: NONE" gets me nowhere fast. But, when I have been trying to get an attack going for hours, I will often switch from normal rest to "Rest: NONE" to get them moving...which seems to sometimes give them the kick in the pants they need. This was the case in situation G if I recall.

It is also important to recall that I am NOT saying that ANYTHING is wrong in any of the situations presented. I am saying that a few situtations seemed suspicious and nothing more (please see my other post "2 Day Regimental FUP and Assault" for proof that there is ONCE IN A BLUE MOON a problem and Arjuna and I are working to find the source of it and eliminate it. It is possble, in fact, that ALL of the examples here exhibit normal and intended behavior for the engine.

We'll call the events around the screenshot below: SITUATION A.

Note that I think this situation A is PROBABLY a red herring as by 10:23, elements of this KG had occupied the assault target. So, unless this jumps out at you, skip to SITUATION B.

[Marshal Villars]

Let's call this SITUATION B.

Again, this order to simply fall back had been given some time earlier. In fact, there is a screen shot below which shows that at 08:23 that morning they had been indicating movement (I am assuming that is what these arrows mean), but they had not moved in the intervening three hours.

[Marshal Villars]

Tell me if any of these are interesting to you.

SITUATION C

See follow up shots posted below.

After placing the attack order at around 16:20 (I believe file saved immediately thereafter), objective finally moved in on and taken between 00:00 and 02:00 hours on D3. Perhaps by re-issuing orders?!?!?

[Marshal Villars]

Not sure what I am looking for in a withdrawl situation. Other than lack of movement. LOL.

Note that I became so concerned with the exposed positions of Co's 1.1 and 2.1 that I simply reissued orders (giving a defend order in about the same place) and had the units in place quickly thereafter.

SITUATION D

[Marshal Villars]

Not sure here. Probably okay.

SITUATION E

[Marshal Villars]

Can't get Piper to move. LOL. He's been sitting there too long for my liking. Even though those orders arrows show movement.

SITUATION F

[Marshal Villars]

Can't seem to get these guys defending the town to get into place. Feels like it took forever to get them to do anything.

Again. Not SURE what I am looking for here.

SITUATION G

[johndoesecond]

Marshal,

I'm not quite sure what you find strange in these screen shots.

I'll try to make few guesses and provide some possible reasons

But first, I'd like to try to stimulate your imagination a bit.

This game is so much different from all the other games out there so it needs a whole new mindset. Once you "get it", it's enlightening.

What you have to keep in mind is that each of those companies really are usually 100-150 ppl. (some smaller, but some, like heavy arty, as big as 400-500 ppl.), frequently with AFVs, non-AFVs, guns & c. They are not just icons, but they occupy space, approximately abstracted by their footprints.

So take for example the 1st screenshot: your 1.2 mech inf. coy (with a footprint we don't see) is one such company with two enemy companies (let's estimate, say, 150-200 ppl.), one of which quite a fearful and deadly flak, just some 200-300 meters further SW! (again we don't see their footprints here, so if you check, you'll probably find their's and 1.2's footprints are even closer than just their respective icons).
They are firing and engaging each other, it's quite a scrum. It would be quite undestandable that 1.2 is halted. Being fired at is probably one of the worst human experiences possible. Likely, also the rest of the BN is engaged or under fire, maybe also bombarded. Maybe the're all fatigued, and there's mud, cold, some forests, ...

With such close encounters, things simply cannot play out as snappy as you'd like.

Second screenshot: again, not sure what you find odd, but again: few companies are engaged in the open terrain, during a bright day, they are armoured, but in the middle of the mud. In such cases, if you were a foot soldier in the, say, 3.1 pion coy, you'd duck down a lot, and wouldn't just rush further SE or whatever destination your HQ is asking you to go.


3rd screenshot: I assume the "problem" here it the attack not going as flawlessly as you'd like. But just look how scattered the whole BQ is: two coys delayed (being ambushed by an AT coy from the woods?) to the east, S.1 engaged to the west, etc.

5th screenshot: can't see what's up in this one, really.

6th screenshot: it's 5th day, they may all be exhausted. They seem trying to get to the FUP, but are engaged (at least I see that for the 3.1 pion coy).

7th screenshot: it's day 6, so let's assume some fatigue. You're asking SNDG regt. to go and defend, "fastest" (really tiring!) and "no rest" (who knows for how long!), and it's 2 o'clock a.m.!

And they're in the middle of a nasty scrum receiving fire from the right flank by some 500 enemy troops. I'll make an educated guess: many of them are halted, engaged, being under fire recently, quite fatigued, low on morale and training, and the commander is not exactly a genius

It may seem to you just a bunch of chits on a map, but what is going on really are some 1500 your soldiers flanked by some 500-600 enemy soldiers is an approximately 1000x1000m area, with some woods, village houses, ice and darkness.

You don't know exactly where each solider is, and that is how it feels to be operational commander. So it's not that something is missing in this game: you can imagine all these things as you'd have to do in the real world, and that gives you reasons why things ARE so much more inert, lenghty, and uncertain when troops are engaged and entangled.

Hence, you really have to assume a different attitude. An attitude that takes into account that sorts of "uncertainty principle": don't be too much worried about the exact position of the icons, for the soldiers down there are doing a lot of reasonable things: taking reasonable facing, firing reasonable amount of ammo at what seems to be most important treats, and so on.
There are no hexes, so you don't have to have the kind of anxiety to get exactly there. The space and time are continuous here, and given their underlying fidelity, you have to take a different attitude and see things on different scale (for example, imagine: if a coy from a moving Bn enter into a close contact with an enemy company, with some fire exchange and all the rest, some small scale probing before some replanning, some 30-60 minutes of halt at least sounds so realistic to me: indeed, what would be unrealistic is that the whole company of 150 ppl. just turn around and walk away in 5 minutes, having replanned the whole thing and given the appropriate orders to every soldier and vehicle with bullets flying by their ears).

Enjoy.

[Marshal Villars]

Follow up shot for Situation B.

Note: This is three hours earlier and there was no movement between this shot and the one above. Even though the unit icons are showing movement orders.

[johndoesecond]

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

So, these screenshots are an effort to find duplicates of these situations and provide Arjuna with the files surrounding them. Really not much interesting going on here otherwise.

May I ask what the "situation" and the minor problem look like?

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

(for instance... in spite of showing arrows indicating movement there was none).

Just one thing about that arrow icon.

The status icon under F1 tells you the task the unit has been ordered to perform. So if it's a thin arrow (thick is for attack, of course), that means it's been ordered to move ...

BUT, to know what the unit is doing exactly, it is more indicative to press F5, and there only the "man on foot" icon really means moving, otherwise it is still.

Also, F2 is often essential to understand what's going on. There, "halted" (green square) is quite frequent if the unit is engaged or under fire contact, even if under F1 you'll see it's trying to execute a move task (which it is indeed trying).

I'm trying to make things clear, just in case ...

[Marshal Villars]

Follow up screen shot for situation A.

[Marshal Villars]

SITUATON C follow up 1.

May be a red herring. Maybe the HQ has little to work with and can only manage to use the Recon Bttln. Don't know. I can tell you that the two companies off to the east (elements of the 501) are exhausted from fighting in a bad situation on day 1.

[Marshal Villars]

SITUATION C follow up 2

[Marshal Villars]

Situation C follow up 3

Note. Here I may have detached two companies of the 501st (I think by clicking "reattach"), perhaps causing a replan.

[Marshal Villars]

SITUATION C follow up 4

SUCCESS! But what finally got them to move is beyond me. I don't remember now if I reset the orders. Or what.

[Marshal Villars]

Stuation D - Follow up 1

This is moments after the order was given I believe.

[Marshal Villars]

SITUATION E - follow up 1

I think this situation might be a red herring. Perhaps in the heat of battle nothing seems to develop quickly enough. So, I am inclined to discount this as an example of any problems. Never-the-less, here is a follow up screen shot.

[Marshal Villars]

Situation F - follow up 1

I believe this is the first screen shot and save I have of the situation. I don't know for sure if this was within seconds of my giving the order or not.

[simovitch]

Marshall, I notice you do a lot of assaulting at night and early morning, and with max ROF and 'fastest' move. All of these will contribute to excessive fatigue within 1 day of operations. Try not to use assault unless you have a well rested group and you need to force an objective. Sometimes just detaching a company of tanks or assault guns on 'defend' overlooking a group of enemy will cause enough casualties to get what you want - make sure you check the range rings to see if the target is at least within effective range (HE or AP depending on the target) and your tanks will keep firing away on there own. Even using the 'fire' command within effective range will cause an enemy target to rout away.

You had asked about the "attacks" toggle - you'll see it there opposite the 'aggro' setting. it is only an option when you are not assaulting; i.e. using the 'move' or 'defend' commands. Try using it in conjunction with a strategy of maneuvering toward and securing your objectives with battalion sized groups.

Make sure you reset your 'low' or 'off' rest settings to normal or max when the night comes or they will stay up all night in sentry duty and will not be effective by the time morning comes. Try to make your big gains during the daylight hours and rest at night, preferably in a village or town, it will really pay off.

High 'aggro' settings will make these already aggressive SS units want to pick fights wherever they can. If you want to achieve a bit more forward momentum set 'aggro' to a lower setting.

You can't keep pushing these guys on the assault into the wee hours of the morning and expect them to obey your commands the next morning. By early evening you really need to start managing how your guys who aren't in the thick of it are going to rest and regroup for commitment the next day.

[Marshal Villars]

Situation F - follow up 2

Repost of initial image from above to put it in chonological order.