newbie, confused

[neofit]

Hi.

I've just started playing the game. Manual read, check. Stickied guide read, check. Both tutorials played through, check. Played a few scenarios and am quite confused as to what happens and why. I am playing the 2.2.86 patch.

I like the fact that units seem alive on the battlefield and that the AI seems to be doing quite a competent job by itself. I like to see the combat groups form up for the attack, leave a reserve, fall back, regroup, go back, commit reserves, etc.

The only real-time game with competent AI I can compare HTTR to is the Close Combat series. The units' self-preservation routines were great to watch. Problem is that I rarely see this in HTTR.

For instance, I give a battallion or regiment the order to formup inside a forest, 200-300m from the edge, before a thrust into the open. No matter what formation I'd use half the units would regroup outside the woods, right in the open. Even if there were enemy units sighted 500m from the woods, be it 1 or 5 hours ago. Why would any batallion or company commander choose to FUP in the open when there are woods 100m from there? I've seen this in many scenarios - units moving getting out of cover when forming up. I believe than any commander, given the order to form up units into a line at a forest edge, would do so in cover. Half the time they move out of cover. 500m inside the woods seems OK, but why is the code acting in such a way as 'only' 200-300m in is a signal to go out and form up in front of enemies? Problems in the code or am I missing something?

Let's see a few other things about the lack of self-preservation instinct of the AI. I think it's quite easy to see in the "PI on the Popenberg" scenario.
Most of the time the SS Pz Regt 'spawns' inside the Rechs Wald forest, sometimes to the North of the forest, between Galgensteen and Tuthees.



I've got a cunning plan, my Lord - form up at the SW edge of Reichs Wald, 500m inside the woods, then make a head-on attack with different types of formations and see what happens. Intel has some current but vague info about 3-4 enemy units, some around the hill to be attacked, and one in the village N of Kruishoeve. The brigadefuhrer has two paths to reach the FUP: a fully covered road crossing the forest from N to the SW, and a completely unprotected one along the edge of the forest, in view of the units he knows about. An unspecified route will make him reach the FUP through the full uncovered view:



A 'Covered' path would be planned as follows (not much difference):



The 'Safest' seems the best:



but why is the AI trying to avoid at all costs the road that is crossing the forest? It's not like they are in partizan or maquis country, and it takes the regiment 8-9 hours out of 14 just to reach the FUP off-road in the woods and start reorging. In my mind any route setting but 'Quickest' should go through the roads in the woods. What am I missing?

Here is the follow-up assault, in 'Successive Lines' formation:



I may be misreading the manual, but what I understood is that when I am making a regimental (complex) assault, it is best to choose Successive Lines. In my case this would mean that each batallion will form a line and attack one behind the other. By line I understand a line that consists of a batallion, e.g. Bn 1 in line, followed by Bn 2 in line. What seems to be happening is that in fact each company is a line, and they all go one after another. Looks more like a Colum formation to me.

And what's with the Lt Flak Plt - 11 men in 2 Wirbelwinds - leading the assault right in front of Pg and Pz companies, the guys in front are lighting up Panthers like Christmas trees for chrissakes Did German Batallion commanders really send Wirbelwinds platoons in the first wave of the assaults or there is a little glitch with the OOB database?

In the trailing Bn 2, the Flak Plt is behind, but should it even take part in an assault, or were they used to protect the HQ and Base IRL? If Bn 1, leading the assault, needs recon (but does it happen IRL in a full out assault?), why didn't the regimental HQ not provide its Recon company for this purpose but kept it in the 2nd wave with Bn 2 (in the screenshot above it's the icon that is reorging behind both the 2.1 HQ and Flak unit)? How was it IRL and what am I missing?

The little defend icon to the South of the attacking line is best shown on the zoomed out view:



The attack is underway, assaulting units are taking fire, and the Nebelwerfer Bty (in direct support) has been ordered to relocate. And to a point between the FUP and the direction of enemy fire to boot. Is this normal or some Brigadefuhrer is going to have a taste of the Eastern Front shortly?

Thanks for clearing up any misconceptions I may have.

[KNac007]

Lots of thinks I don't have time to comment now, more later, but anyway you should use waypoints if you want the AI to use the internal wood tracks, just place one waypoint in the crossroad inside the woods and it will do it.

However, moving in the woods maybe is not the best way and maybe is that because the AI didn't pick it (if you don't enforce them with a waypoint). Hidden units inside woods, slow movement (and so, more fatigue) are vairous possiblities.

More later.

[Golf33]

The main problem you are having is with the positioning of your waypoints & FUPs. The marker itself is in the centre of the position, not the forward edge, so if you put the marker on the edge of woods part of your troops will form up in the open because you have told them to! Take note of the yellow box that surrounds your task markers when they are selected - it is not always 100% accurate but generally it is a pretty good guide as to the area your troops will occupy.

Routes are a similar issue. The AI is very good but not a mind-reader and it tends to prioritise speed of movement pretty highly. If you want it to traverse difficult terrain like woods (even given the cart track that runs through the woods) you will need to give it a couple of clues in the form of waypoints along the desired route. One or two at crossroads in the woods would be sufficient guidance in most cases.

The NW Bty is probably moving forwards so it can reach the enemy. NW are only a fairly short-range weapon (select the unit and press the "B" key to see the range rings, black is minimum and blue is maximum) and as in real life your artillery will be positioned where it can not only hit the objective but has a bit of range left over for depth targets. This could also be a result of orders delay, but I can't tell from the screenshot as the info display is showing Rout Status ("F3" key) rather than Task Status ("F4" key).

The Flak Pl leading the assault could be a few things. Prior to the 2.2.86 patch there was a problem with line support units like Flak and AT guns consistently leading moves and attacks. This problem has been fixed but you may occasionally see this sort of thing happening because units have a certain amount of flexibility in their formation positions and from time to time for various reasons one may get ahead or fall behind without causing the whole formation to need to be reset. This might be what you're seeing - the flak pl is simply outrunning the unit it is supposed to accompany. IRL the German flak platoons were often used as direct-fire support for attacks and defence, as they were quite useful against ground targets.

Re: Successive Lines formation, I'll leave that one to Arjuna.

I'll also try and post some more this afternoon about levels of command - for now, I'll just mention that in this scenario you are in fact the "Brigadeführer" (or in this case actually the "Standartenführer") so it makes sense to provide orders in somewhat more detail than if you were playing a larger scenario. For instance, you might want to detach a company or two to secure your FUP ahead of the main assault, or to give orders to each Bn for an attack on converging axes, or to take more direct control of the NW Bty, or any combination of these and more.

Regards
33

[MarkShot]

Glad you read everything. It's late here. So, I'll try to read through your post tomorrow and see if I have anything to contribute.

[neofit]

Thank you for the responses folks.

When I read that the game has some competent unit AI I started running this pretty straightforward scenario and see what it will do with different types of orders. I didn't want to start trying to divide my force with securing the FUP, separate batallions and learn how to synchronize attacks from different directions, that is for the future. But I need to know to what extent I can rely on him to do basic things and where I need to nurse him. I've seen AI units retreating into conceiled positions, so I was testing the extent of this self-preservation code.

I understand that I can give the formation a few waypoints and force it to go through the woods. AI has a track in the woods, and a similar track, that I understand gives the same movement speed, in the open, less than 2km from a spotted enemy unit. For some reason the AI does not want to use the track through the woods. So it fails the self-preservation test, note to self: it doesn't care whether it is spotted or not, only in the 'Safest' route settings will it use a truly covered path, and even then it will be a very long one, not optimized - so nurse it. I would have expected it to use the track through the woods at least on the 'Covered' setting.

Re FUPs: Thanks Golf33, now I understand that the AI will form up along the edges of the deployment box. This was also a test of self-preservation and to what extent I can rely on the AI.

Again, I am comparing it to the only competent unit AI I know of, the Close Combat series. In these games, when I ask a team to go to location A, they will arrive there but won't stand right there in the open, they will scurry around and find the closest cover, like trees, shellholes, etc., and position themselves according to the last threats they know about. It relieves the armchair commander from the burden of tedious micro-management.

I was testing whether I can rely on the HTTR AI to do the same for me. I was assuming that if I told a formation to "get to location A 200m from the wood edge and form up in to formation X for an attack into location B", it would understand that I wanted them to FUP inside the woods and change the forward edge location accordingly. At least the known threats in the direction of B should make them do so. Hey, I'm commanding thousands of men, I can't plan every man's position .
So here again, test failed, need to micro-manage.


Re: NW



Its 9km range is enough IMHO to reach the attack location, about 2/3 of the way. Most of the time it stays in the woods and fires from there. I've run this mission many times, from the same save I made after giving the orders as per the first screenshot in this thread. One thing I noticed is that sometimes the NW Bty takes its final position during while the rest of the brigade is forming up and will stay there until the end. But about half the time, as soon as attacking line (or column) has left the woods, it will decide or receive the order to relocate itself to about 1km closer to the wood edge (even though it was in range), and deprive the attackers of it firepower for some time. I was just 'lucky' to make a save and a screenshot during one assault where it actually moved out of the woods.
I wonder what prompts the AI to relocate fire support assets this way. Example:



The formation is reaching its FUP, NW got into what seems a nice position and is deploying.



The formation is reorging, NW is ready and on call.



The attacking force is getting some heavy fire from the hill. Why does the Bty suddenly decide to relocate at this very moment? It still has 825 15cm HE rounds left, and was firing fine even at the farthest spotted unit. Its log only contains 4 engagements, it did not receive any fire.

I understand that its former position may have been far from the edge of the attack. If it takes into account the farthest position of the 'westernest' unit after the objective is secured, and take into account that it should fire at units that may come from even farther west we'd be out of range. Now why didn't the rather competent Pz Regt staff take this into account before the assault was launched, and the Bty spent 1.5 hours digging in too far while the rest were forming up? What am I missing?



Re flak:
I was expecting the accompanying flak Plt commander to try and actually not overrun the edge of the assault, he should be aware of his vulnerability, it's an assault, not an envelopment. OK, will try and micro-manage that, though I'd prefer to leave it to the AI.


Re: Brigadefuhrer
I was referring to the rank of the guy commanding the Pz Regt HQ in this scenario. I've been considering myself as the guy who gives orders to this Regt commander and see what he's up to.


Please note that I am not trying to destroy the game or anything. I've found a new toy that does a lot of things the way I was dreaming some toy would. It reminds me of the blast I had commanding my tank hands-off with just a microphone in Panzer Elite. But there are some things I don't understand and want clarified before I get to larger scenarios and to what extent I can exercise my hands-off commander attitude.

[MarkShot]

Neofit,

I have reviewed your posts. It looks like you are taking a very thoughtful and analytical position towards the game and its mechanics. I like that.

(1) Regarding the fine detail of routes very close to the enemy. If you read through some of the stuff which I have posted, you will seen that in some cases I used what others call an inordinate amount of waypoints. I usually do this in order to shortcircuit any AI pathfinding algorithms. In my opinion, a few waypoints over long distances works relatively well for getting the best routes. But when small variations in position close to the enemy matter, don't leave it to chance. (with order delays, if the AI misunderstands your intent; then, you are in trouble). Also, on long hauls where it is important, I may put a waypoint at each road junction to guarantee the route.

(2) Regarding your NW unit. I use firebases for the most part. This takes the issue of how the AI manages arty units off the table. Of course, I do that for many reasons beyond just the single example you sighted. On attacks, I may or may not leave mortar units under AI control depending on the particulars of the situation. You'll find that discussed in a few spots in my sticky threads.

(3) Regarding self-preservation ... there is quite a bit of that in the game. The AI will bypass enemy strong points on its own as needed when traveling. When playing against it, it will assault to eliminate strong points which threaten it, but aren't necessarily located at an objective. Probes will retreat out of sight of the enemy and bunker down. Most orders will attempt to be followed by your units, even if the orders lead to retreats/routes (which are a form of self-preservation behavior). And when in that state, your orders will not be processed (you can consider that you are being ignored). However, it is up to you the commander on the macro level to make the strategic decisions that preserve your forces or sacrifice them as the master plan calls for.

---

On an unrelated side note, I've recently started playing CC3. I've played the CM series for years. However, the aspect of fighting a fight in realtime and with a real tempo to maintain, has gotten me started with EYSA-WF and CC3. I am not sure if I will get deep into these game over the long term, but for the moment, I am in exploration mode.

[Mr.Frag]

Mark, just a CC note ... the biggest problem with the entire series was pathfinding. You will find your armor does really screwy things, turning at the worst possible moment and committing suicide on you. It will frustrate the heck out of you as you go through the series. It was one of the *huge* improvements in HTTR over CC, in that you don't get sucked into pathfinding nightmares at the individual unit level.

[MarkShot]

I haven't played it that much to notice, but I find what you are describing in EYSA-WF. I don't know how old you are, but it reminds me when I was a kid of those tiny race car toys on electrified tracks, the way they used to swerve and spin all over the place. It's just hard to imagine something as heavy as a Tiger swerving and spinning all over the place.

Ah, but these are games/simulations and you have to cut them some slack unless you want to sign up for the National Guard Reserves to play around with the real thing on weekends.

[MarkShot]

Neofit,

I see that you are in France. We had a while back a sticky thread for French speakers as we have quite a few French, French Canadians, and Belgiums floating around here. Bien Venue! (they even got me to struggle with responding in French; I read much more than I write)

I see you're a DBA too. Don't you have better things to do than trying every attack parameter, like creating some rollback segments?

[Mr.Frag]

like creating some rollback segments?

Thats cold! [:D] How about backing up transaction logs... [:'(]

[Mr.Frag]

I haven't played it that much to notice, but I find what you are describing in EYSA-WF. I don't know how old you are, but it reminds me when I was a kid of those tiny race car toys on electrified tracks, the way they used to swerve and spin all over the place. It's just hard to imagine something as heavy as a Tiger swerving and spinning all over the place.

Yep, I think the problem came forward from the CC series into the follow on products.

It really was the only major failing of the series. If you play in areas where armor is extremely scarce, the game is quite fun. Once you have a couple of tanks in play, you start getting really fed up. Loosing a tank causes a major force shift, so getting a couple to pop will generally take a map. Just an issue of putting yours in the *right* spot at the very start so you will never move them and the other guy has to do the dance to approach. Used to love doing that with my 88mm pieces.

#3 was the best of the bunch due to it's larger scale. All the others pretty much had armor facing armor at point blank range so it didn't matter what you had shooting, it was about who shot first and who danced.

[neofit]

Markshot,

I believe all the CC games are very good. The unit AI is very believable, unfortunately the 'strategic' AI leaves a lot to be desired (as in what happens between battles and what units it buys). The Battle of the Bulge one the one I liked the least, no matter what I did after a few battles I always ended up fighting between 2-3 of the same maps which soon became boring. I stopped playing after I saw "Saving Private Ryan" with all the special effects. In CC you are seeing every man and his name, and it was getting too personal . As to SAWF I got burnt by the first version, the very first mission played all by itself without me even being able to intervene, I felt so redundant in this conflict that I shelved it and never took the time to look back.

Back to HTTR and the PI mission. I think that it's a great beginner mission, you have one nice big organic unit that you can play with and test various settings. I've played it countless times with the save I have made in my first 'cunning plan' screenshot. The amount of randomness is staggering. I lose about 1/3 of the time, and not a single assault plays the same. One Bn can get bogged down due to flanking fire from the Kruishoeve village to the right, the other can be stopped in its tracks by flanking fire from the Keikberg on the left and we lose. Sometimes the commander will send both batallions, sometimes will keep one in reserve to be committed when the first one falls back. I love it.

I've read your stickied guide between tutorials 1 and 2 (actually printed it) and think it's great. Yes, firebases are a great idea, but in this case I don't have much of a firebase at regimental level, just 2 arty and 1 NW. Bar a few times where the NW suddenly moved during the assault, I believe that the regimental HQ is making a pretty decent job AND still have some rounds left by the end of the scenario, unlike when I start poking my standartenfuhrer nose into their business.

I still don't understand why my Regt assumes a 'Column' formation when ordered to do 'Successive Lines'. Not that it's less effective than Arrowhead or Line, I am having the same win/lose ratio with any of these, though I thought that with much less firepower brought to the front such a formation wouldn't go very far. Then again, the attack vector I am playing with is rather dangerous due to possible flanking fire from both left and right, so maybe this Successive Lines/Column formation is good when both flanks are threatened, without being too close to the enemy as in an Arrowhead formation? Are there any other reasons why one would assault in a Column-like formation?

[Golf33]

When talking about 'self-preservation', you need to remember that direct orders from you will override almost any AI consideration. If you tell it to form up halfway out of the woods, it will do so. On the other hand, if you give the AI just the attack objective - no waypoints or FUP specified - I generally find it does a good job of picking a good FUP and getting the attack going. It's not perfect, and you'll find plenty of examples of real commanders who weren't either.

The AI will seek covered terrain to deploy into, but it is limited in the amount of authority it gets to do this - it's only a couple of hundred metres at most so it's often not noticeable. There's always a balance to be struck between units that will find a safe position, and units that will obey the player - I remember frequently getting very annoyed with the dopey CC2 and CC3 AI that would consistently refuse to take up a firing position in the corner of a house facing the enemy, preferring instead to cower in the back room even when no-one was shooting at them. HTTR generally adopts the position that the player is the boss, and your units will do as they are told, unless they come under too much pressure and are forced to retreat.

As far as the player's level of command in the game, in this scenario you are not the Div commander - you are very definitely the Regt commander. In some cases, depending on preferred playing style, you'll need to act as a lower-level commander again.

Regards
33

[neofit]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot
I see you're a DBA too. Don't you have better things to do than trying every attack parameter, like creating some rollback segments?

These parameters have all been sorted out about seven years ago Besides, upgrade to 9i+ and forget about rollback segments

Back to our regular programming. Another thing I forgot to ask: why is it that every Pz unit I see has one extra soldier? IIRC German tanks had a crew complement of 5. I am seeing all the time Pz batallions with 13 Panthers and 66 men (+1), or 4 Panther units with 21 men (+1). Is it the unit commander's batman? Or just some kind of filler used by the code and I should forget about it?

[Mr.Frag]

Just thought I would point you in the right direction looking at your plan ...

You are attacking across open ground with woods on your left flank (thats going to hurt) and woods in front (direct assault against fortified units under cover)

Run your troops into the wooded area *then* attack from the cover of the woods. You will most certainly find a lot more success.

[neofit]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Just thought I would point you in the right direction looking at your plan ...

You are attacking across open ground with woods on your left flank (thats going to hurt) and woods in front (direct assault against fortified units under cover)

Run your troops into the wooded area *then* attack from the cover of the woods. You will most certainly find a lot more success.

I wasn't trying to win this scenario. I've been using it as a testing ground to find out how the AI will manage my Regiment.

And to be frank, the first time I loaded the scenario and looked at the map, I totally dismissed the attack from the nearby woods. I was sure that the Keikberg and Oestberg woods to the S had a few sneaky enemy units in them that would prevent proper FUPing and I only have 14 hours, not enough I believe to clear up the woods (with armor units to boot), then reorg what's left and press on to the objective. The woods to the N seem a long way off for the scenario duration, and again I may encounter entrenched opposition in the villages I'd have to cross, I'd be caught up in the open in moving formation and be hurt bad.
And the woods to the S are too small for a whole regiment to form up in, some units will start the assault from inside the woods and others from open terrain with differing movement costs, and from other scenarios I know that they seldom wait for each other and will arrive piecemeal onto the objective.

I was kind of wary to move a Pz regiment (only 2 Mech Inf companies for 10 armored ones) in woods so close to the target. And I believe a quick thrust through open terrain with fast units would be more effective. The woods are too close to the objective, and I'd rather take advantage of my formation's long range weaponry than have them pop out of the woods 200-300m of possibly entrenched AT weapons and infantry. Don't know if it's the best thing to do in the game though.
Sure, the longer they see me coming the more exposed I will be to arty strikes, but I believe that an assaulting force using armor thrusting at full speed should be much harder to target than foot soldiers.

[Mr.Frag]

The woods are too close to the objective, and I'd rather take advantage of my formation's long range weaponry than have them pop out of the woods 200-300m of possibly entrenched AT weapons and infantry.

You can't hit what you can't see. You will die on the move unit after unit in the open while the Arty rains down on your head. Sweep into the woods, but not too far. Once there, send 1 group up, one group left, one ground flanking under and then up. You will run into some tough stuff in the woods, but they like you are subject to arty. Spot, suppress, overrun. You will clear them out of the woods pretty quickly then *you* are the one in the woods firing on their poor units trapped in the open.

[Fallschirmjager]

CC series had terrible AI
I never had problems whipping the AI

CC2 was the best out of the series because it actualy presented a challenge

[neofit]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

You can't hit what you can't see. You will die on the move unit after unit in the open while the Arty rains down on your head. Sweep into the woods, but not too far. Once there, send 1 group up, one group left, one ground flanking under and then up. You will run into some tough stuff in the woods, but they like you are subject to arty. Spot, suppress, overrun. You will clear them out of the woods pretty quickly then *you* are the one in the woods firing on their poor units trapped in the open.

Don't know, sounds rather cheesy. I may be underestimating the accuracy of WWII arty on moving targets, but I certainly wouldn't think of clearing up woods with tanks. If I can't spot and target them from 1-2km away and use my superior long-range firepower, by the time my tanks spot entranched infantry/guns inside the woods they should be literally within melee range, and too close for any arty support. It may work in the game and I am probably overestimating the density of the woods as modelled, but I wouldn't have thought of trying.

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager
CC series had terrible AI
I never had problems whipping the AI

What people usually like in the CC series is not the enemy AI but the friendly one, the way each unit behaves on the battlefield. And it was kinda groundbreaking when CC1 was released. You could stop worrying about having to click on every orc to override your orders to attack that enemy building and have him focus on the enemy unit that was pounding on him. You could finally tell a team to defend a block of houses and forget about it for some time, it would get there, take a covered position, fire when appropriate and even retreat when facing overwhelming firepower, all by itself.

[MarkShot]

You printed my stickied threads! I am honored.

Well, if you are ever passing through, NJ, USA, drop by and I will autograph it for you.

It's admirable that you are delving into the game in such great detail. I have often said that I am using significantly less than the entire feature set to play. On the whole, you can play pretty much everything with just issuing [A]TTACK and [D]EFEND (but for some bridge related requirements). In my mind, the key determinant to victory is having a good plan and good reactions to evolving events.

Although I don't MP, I would say that real finesse in using all the features might prove to be more valuable at a certain level of play in MP (aka the Yakstock level). When I used to fly online EAW, I had classed myself in the top 5%. Someone once asked me what the difference is between a top 5% player and a top 0.5% player. My response ... "everyone in the top 5% makes the right moves all the time ... however, the top 0.5% player consistently has superior execution".

So, I guess you must be working your way to becoming one of those top 0.5% players.