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I've played every game of this series and yet I still find things that at times baffle me. One of the significant frustrations I've found with this game is that when I order a Bn to defend, the AI doesn't necessarily deploy its companies in what I would consider the best defensive positions. No problem I'm informed - put your companies where you want them and then reattach and order the the Bn HQ to defend "In Situ". EXCEPT that in looking at the fire table a formation that's "In Situ" only fires at 30%!! What am I to do here? Micro-manage companies and deploy them in better defensive positions (with say, a "Line" deployment) and lose the value of the Bn HQ or let the Bn HQ poorly manage their defensive positions?

ORIGINAL: BK6583

What am I to do here? Micro-manage companies and deploy them in better defensive positions (with say, a "Line" deployment)

Yes !


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Micro manage into line deployment then reattach in situ...which means they will stay in line deployment...if I can remember right...in situ means they stay where they are...I think if you do a move order in situ then they are considered 30%

this is a prety important point.. can units defend in situ and not  take a hit to effectiveness?

ORIGINAL: freeboy

this is a prety important point.. can units defend in situ and not  take a hit to effectiveness?

This is a good question. I'm fairly certain that if a unit's formation is "in-situ" it will be experiencing the 30% regardless of the what the task is.

ORIGINAL: simovitch

ORIGINAL: freeboy

this is a prety important point.. can units defend in situ and not  take a hit to effectiveness?

This is a good question. I'm fairly certain that if a unit's formation is "in-situ" it will be experiencing the 30% regardless of the what the task is.

A very good question indeed..........if it does mean you're down to the 30% effectiveness then it almost nullifies any advantage gained by player positioning of units on the defence. Possibly the old trade-off of preferred positioning at the expense of horrendous "boss" command loads.
Geez, I hope not.

Rob.[:)]

Really isn't how i thought it worked...we need an answer....

Do a word search in the manual.
 
The answer seems to be on page 191
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That's the page and the fire table I used to reference my initial post. If the 30% fire appears to be the case, I'm hard pressed to see what utility the "In Situ" order has.

Bump!

Any chance of getting the official line on this?

I use this, as it seems others do, to set-up a bespoke defence and then reattach the units to their hq which has an 'In situ' order to prevent the AI moving my deployments and also keep the command load down for the on-map boss.

If 30% is confirmed, I'd love to know how I'm supposed to do this without using 'In situ'.

That's kind of beside the point. Micromanaging every company is gamey in this game where you're supposed to let subordinates do their thing.

The problem is that the AI should be defending well in the first place. I mentioned this about CotA here. Fortunately I haven't noticed this nearly as bad in BFTB so far.

I wasn't particularly happy with the assumptions in the Formation table - particularly formation vulnerability - where line formation was more vulnerable from the front (where each man is a target, but over/unders are no risk) than from the flanks (where only a fraction of the unit is directly targeted but the overs/unders may cause many casualties per burst, or a higher proportion of effective impacts of HE rounds). As a result I modified most to be similar, with slight increases in vulnerability to column front/rear, line flanks etc.

The absence of 'corners' in the direction table means that the oblique formations don't get their strengths or penalties well represented - here echelon left is more-or-less an obliquely inclined line formation - with the enfilading fire coming from the right front and left rear directions rather than left and right.

Arrow and Vee have a compromise between half enfiladed and half 'frontal' when hit from a front-flank.

I think if you set in-situ and 'aggressive' or 'allow attacks' if they aren't greyed out, that the AI will use relevant local formations to maximise firepower/protection, so the difference between line and in-situ may not be that relevant.

Talking about "useless" formations...

Did you ever use the left/right echolon ?
Cant you get a similar result with line and setting the facing manualy ?

Left and Right echelon can be useful for movement to contact of moderate sized forces, where the enemy direction of approach will be from a flank. I tend not to over-specify these orders though - most of the time routeing is more important, and the AI can be left to deal with formations most of the time. (Once orders can be nested and issued without cancelling existing orders, then it might make sense to specify formations for particular portions of the march, manoeuvre, assault, recovery - right now it is fiddly getting the right formations with manual orders and changes can throw formations into disarray)

ORIGINAL: simovitch

ORIGINAL: freeboy

this is a prety important point.. can units defend in situ and not  take a hit to effectiveness?

This is a good question. I'm fairly certain that if a unit's formation is "in-situ" it will be experiencing the 30% regardless of the what the task is.

Did this ever get confirmed? I use to use in-situ for units that start a scenario as Waiting for Orders, make them Defend but in-situ so they don't move from their entrenchments. Just like the first poster said...

It's really sad that such a basic feature is not really understood by the fan base. We need information from dev here.

I brought this up in the dev forum and the answer is yes, the force will take on the lower values of in-situ.

There is only so much that can be done by re-coding a better solution but they will try to come up with something for the patch.

Simply using the same values for in-situ and all-round would deal with most people's concerns, and is a 30 second 'fix'.

ORIGINAL: simovitch

I brought this up in the dev forum and the answer is yes, the force will take on the lower values of in-situ.

There is only so much that can be done by re-coding a better solution but they will try to come up with something for the patch.

Hi all,

Lieste raises a good suggestion!

Something horrible just occurred to me..... does the 30% effectiveness rule also apply to the bombardment strength of player controlled arty units in situ when manual bombardments are initiated??

Rob.

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader

ORIGINAL: simovitch

I brought this up in the dev forum and the answer is yes, the force will take on the lower values of in-situ.

There is only so much that can be done by re-coding a better solution but they will try to come up with something for the patch.

Hi all,

Lieste raises a good suggestion!

Something horrible just occurred to me..... does the 30% effectiveness rule also apply to the bombardment strength of player controlled arty units in situ when manual bombardments are initiated??

Rob.

The modifiers to Bombard weapons are for cohesion, experience, training and suppression. So the cohesion effect would apply. If I exempt this then an arty unit that has been involved in combat and suffered a loss in cohesion is going to fire at full strength, which is not a good thing. I realise the need to avoid the severe 30% cohesion for in-situ. Let me ponder this.