Cover and defensive area's

[MrSpkr]

True enough in some situations. I just played the first Starke engagement (holding the unfinished railroad line) and had much fewer problems than, say the engagements involving Early's division and their failure to stay behind fences or stone walls (damn fools).

Steve

[jam3]

Most of the civil war isn't reflected properly in alot of games due to the lack of field fortifications and other forms of infantry entrenchment. Vicksburg and Grants final push to Richmond became trench warfare in alot of places. Cold Harbor was a complete slap in the face to the union army about the power of field fortifications.

Gettysburg was in alot of ways a meeting engagement but the federals were able to get dug in enough and take the high ground. I think most commanders would have been considered idiots if they didnt grab whatever was available to them to create works if they were expected to hold ground on the defensive. Whether they had time, materials, and could dig in and protect their flanks is another proposition

[norb]

MrSpkr wrote:

Jim wrote:

Paying attention to good defensive terrain is quite important. It can easily be the difference between winning and losing a fight. High ground also provides a bonus.

-Jim

Jim, absent using the "Take Command" button, is there a quick way to tell the units to advance to a covered position; i.e., am I still going to have to micro adjust the regiments' positions when I advance a brigade up to a long stone wall? Will we have to "take command" in order to keep the units from advancing out of cover (even on a "hold" stance)?

Steve

There is an advance to a covered position type command that they had me put in.

[norb]

Shaggy46 wrote:

The AI in TC2 is defiantly the worst part of the game.I cant stand to control anything more than a brigade. I played it on Division today and i had men going every way imaginable instead of holding he objective.. Talk about a Royal Pain in the Rear

I think that one of the issues, and certainly not just for players but for the rest of the team as well, is that the more strategic control of the game design was never adequately explained.

Each officer has "orders" and a "orders destination" OD. They can also have tactical orders as well. I have worked hard on making this concept invisible to the players, but even the test team is still asking questions about it. So I have not done a great job.

The OD is where you want them to finally end up. Or the place you want them to hold. It is where they should move back to after they are done fighting. You have to trust the AI to a degree if you see that a division that you ordered to a hill is doing something odd. They may have seen an enemy, etc., but they will continue to the location that you set.

I think that I need more work on how to present this to the player. Also on how to give the tactical orders that the AI uses. Depending on how many bugs we have, that should be a focus of my patch work. It is very powerful and just not presented well to the player.

[UglyElmo]

Maybe a youtube video showing the concept would be a good way to explain it.

[privatewilley]

norb wrote:

MrSpkr wrote:

Jim wrote:

Paying attention to good defensive terrain is quite important. It can easily be the difference between winning and losing a fight. High ground also provides a bonus.

-Jim

Jim, absent using the "Take Command" button, is there a quick way to tell the units to advance to a covered position; i.e., am I still going to have to micro adjust the regiments' positions when I advance a brigade up to a long stone wall? Will we have to "take command" in order to keep the units from advancing out of cover (even on a "hold" stance)?

Steve

There is an advance to a covered position type command that they had me put in.

And what a great command it is!

[MrSpkr]

privatewilley wrote:

norb wrote:

MrSpkr wrote:

Jim wrote: Jim, absent using the "Take Command" button, is there a quick way to tell the units to advance to a covered position; i.e., am I still going to have to micro adjust the regiments' positions when I advance a brigade up to a long stone wall? Will we have to "take command" in order to keep the units from advancing out of cover (even on a "hold" stance)?

Steve

There is an advance to a covered position type command that they had me put in.

And what a great command it is!

I'm both pleased and extremely jealous!

Steve

[solinvictus88]

hehe I know the feeling...being on the test team gives you the opportunity to see all the wonderful things first....but it's also loads and loads of work! B)

[privatewilley]

MrSpkr wrote:

privatewilley wrote:

norb wrote:

MrSpkr wrote: There is an advance to a covered position type command that they had me put in.

And what a great command it is!

I'm both pleased and extremely jealous!

Steve

Steve
Try to be patient... It will be worth the wait!

Dave

[Janh]

norb wrote:

I think that one of the issues, and certainly not just for players but for the rest of the team as well, is that the more strategic control of the game design was never adequately explained.
...
I think that I need more work on how to present this to the player. Also on how to give the tactical orders that the AI uses. Depending on how many bugs we have, that should be a focus of my patch work. It is very powerful and just not presented well to the player.

I would totally agree. In TC2M scenarios I spent a lot of time micromanaging BGs and batteries to find optimal terrain, especially on the defense ("just stay behind that damned stone wall!"!), and the "HOLD" command given to BGs and DIVs is not particularly helpful to make them stay in place and not to venture out into hopeless situations. AI also tends to turn the BG facing, instead of just the regiment or even stay put behind the protection.

Since the AI opponent itself is unable to find and stay in optimal defensive terrain while striking compromises to connect to other DIVs flanks (perhaps through a stretch of less favorable terrain, but therefore securing flanks), it is even on the highest difficulty levels unable to defend perfect terrain (say Marye's heights) by itself (without TC'ing/ manual or in scripts).

It would be nice if the player could just order a division of a corps into a spot (or strategic AI, resp., would pick the spot from VP location's "minimum men requirements") and the AI DIV leaders would arrange its BGs and batteries himself with respect to terrain and closest enemy concentration (and not center of gravity of every enemy on the map). And then stay there if the order is "HOLD". That way one could allow AI BG leaders or DIV leaders take over the player's own BGs: for example play longst and order "AI controlled Hood" advance against Little Round without need to interfere and micromanage.

I like the idea of AI leaders overriding orders, and having their own mind. But in TC2M they act rather random than doing so in a smart way. And they overdo it, I find, especially pretty much always advancing while actually ordered in a defensive stance.

From what I read so far it seems SOW AI will be a major step ahead with all this. At least I have high hopes. And I hope that the AI routines and parameters will be open this time to modding so that we can improve them even further?