New Arty Routine
 

While I applaud the effort to make the game more interesting I think the new AI arty routine has brought back an old problem that SSI had to fix, namely "borg" arty.

The arty routine for the AI allows instant and always on target correction and in some cases spotting where nothing has moved and it has no LOS.

Please don't ask for a test file since this can be easliy seen in any game you wish to set up.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Every time we release a new version of either game somebody complains the AI has developed supernatural arty ability ( ie we let it cheat )

However, you're the first to assume that EVERYBODY must already see this so there's absolutely no need whatsoever to prove it.

Well, I tell you what I always tell people and it's not because I'm covering anything up but because it's true

The AI does not have "special powers" It cannot see through hills or beyond the visible range in the game. It WILL however, because Andy programmed it this way, select likely areas of deployment and hammer those areas if given the chance at the start of the game . If you got nailed that way, blame Andy, not the AI as it's only "following orders".

If you move in high visibility and create dust the AI will target the dust. That's something any human would do.

If you fire on map arty or mortars that produce smoke the AI will target that. Again, this something any human player would do as well.

The AI does NOT use Forward observers. Only human players use those to adjust fire.

So, if this "can be easily seen in any game you wish to set up." then the test game I just set up should show it easily as I gave the AI SIX British Divisional artillery groups but I only gave it a company of infantry. I wouldn't want to throw the test off with troops infiltrating my lines and spotting "where nothing has moved and it has no LOS."

I set up my troops away from the front and behind high hills and away from the roads. ( Italy 1943, November ) ( ... the AI likes Roads and little towns BTW so expect it to try to neutralize them )I then moved them here and there and sometimes nowhere at all and it was no surprise to me that of all the artillery under the AI's control there were only a couple of stonks that came only a bit close to any of my troops but it did beat the living crap out of the two roads leading through the town on my side of the map. At the very least, 98 % of the arty the AI fired at me landed on empty ground because I avoided the places we've told to hit becasue people like to put troops there. That's not "cheating" that's what any human player would do if given the chance.

For 14 turns I paraded a full strength panzer company around in circles within a ten hex area of the map. Any AI with the ability you claim it has and all that arty at it's disposal would nail that right away. I even moved them a couple of turns then waited a couple of turns so the AI would have lot's of time to target them and NOT ONE SHELL was directed at them but the AI did target the areas around the Victory hex clusters that it's one company of infantry was advancing on but I wasn't within 20 hexes of them . I ended the game at turn 14 and there was not one casualty on my side. NOT ONE. Now...you'd think with 34 troops of artillery and "borg" ability the AI would have killed somebody on my side wouldn't you ?? ( I had two companies of tank and three companies of infantry )

So, if anyone else agrees with this "borg" arty theory and can actually prove this is happening I will be happy to fix it.

Good luck..

Don

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Swell DRG you set up some armour where you "knew" the arty wouldn't target and then ran around inside that area posing no threat to the enemy and receiving no damage and this test PROVES that I am wrong about the AI routine????

The game is supposed to be about tactical warfare (or so I thought) but if your're going to be fair to the human player let him adjust his core to every battle like the AI does etc etc.

I set up a battle in a camp with all my armour behind hills away from the roads and out of sight of the enemy and guess what the arty targeted all the high asset stuff and either outright smoked or made useless (killed all the guns so it couldn't fire) on 9 tanks BEFORE the first move.

The result was half my armour out the game before I started.

Not to mention that any player infantry anywhere close to an arty bust is routed where as I have had the AI troops take barrage after barrage of 15cm arty and never flinch.

Never the less thanks for the answer it is what I expected so I will just continue on without further comment.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Jim - this "problem" keeps coming up and keeps being disproven to the point that it gets annoying and some people get a bit testy.

Personally I have never had this problem nor have many others. <font color="red">This isn't to say you aren't running into problems in your particular setup.</font> You may well have discovered a legitimate bug - <font color="red"> BUT </font> - a test game is needed to prove it. Please take the time to post one and I'm sure the powers that be will take a look at it.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

LOL ok well I just had a battle where his (The AI) 81 mm morters killed more troops than my 150 MM arty in fact the only time my arty was really effective was when it was blue on blue (which happens alot in this game if you try to use it as close support).

I am sorry but if your not seeing this I would love to see a test game of urs.

I find that the supression routine works great on the Player troops but doesn't seem to apply to the AI. I mean in this last battle any 81mm shell dropped within a hex of my troops caused thme to rout (vets) while the AI troops took hit after hit 150 mm with little or no effect to moral.

It's not a real problem since it is just a game but it has NO bearing on what a battle is really like at all. This could just a well be called Lizards and Wizards and would be just as describtive

Re: New Arty Routine
 

I just want to add in right now that artillery is not a very useful close support weapon. This is the very reason for tactics that involve the method of "grabbing your enemy by the belt" to negate his artillery advantage. They call it "danger close" for a reason.

You're also not giving us any additional info here. What type of terrain were your units on? Their units? Were they moving? Were you stationary? Did they have LOS to your troops? Did you to your targets? These all have a bearing on how effective artillery is in game and in real life.
I'd also be interested to see what the countries you're playing with.

I mean, I've had my guys in dense forest or jungle take a serious pounding from a half dozen 82mm mortars and not take casualities or serious suppression, and they were stationary. Also bear in mind that these were MIKE Force infantry, which as I've set them up in my Vietnam OOB pack have reduced exp and moral ratings to begin with

Re: New Arty Routine
 

The problem with the suppression may come from the fact that 81mm mortars do land more shells per turn on target than 15cm guns, so while 15cm do create more suppression and more chance to create a casaulty per shot, 81mm gets more shots, thus creating in result more casaulties and suppression.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Hi BigJim,

Please try to compare results concerning the attached test scenario (slot500).

This is a one turn scenario with identical nations/units and identical pre-emptive heavy artillery missions for both AI and human.

Simply hit "END TURN" on turn1 and examine the casualty reports for both the AI and the human.

Since everything is mirrored try to note down the results of 20 tests and then calculate an average.

If there is anything (concerning the code) that works in favor of the AI then you should notice a significant difference.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: New Arty Routine
 

You imply the game will deliberately target your best equipment .."the arty targeted all the high asset stuff and either outright smoked or made useless (killed all the guns so it couldn't fire) on 9 tanks BEFORE the first move."

The game is not programmed to favour the AI. The AI has no knowledge of your deployment and, if it does have artillery, will target areas behind your deployment line at game start either at random, or at points of interests that Andy programmed it to target.

You also imply that the AI gets an advantage over the Human player in regards to suppression......"the supression routine works great on the Player troops but doesn't seem to apply to the AI"

Again, the game is not programmed to favour the AI. Suppression is applied equally to both the human and AI based on a wide range of factors ( did the unit move or not, what level of suppression where they at before being attacked, etc ) that may or may not be obvious to the player.

You have complained about a number of aspects of this game and I have asked you on a number of occasions to provide us with a save game so we can see what you are seeing. To date I have not received one. This arty complaint ( "borg spotting") is the same one you brought up in June 2005 on the " SPAA or SPAG ?" thread of the WinSPMBT forum and Andy wrote a long post to you about that at the time and now a year and a half later we are right back to this again. The answer is the same now as it was then.

There are further similarities in your complaints from recent and past posts. From June 2005.." I could list dozen's but why bother, as a beer and pretzels game it's OK but bears NO resemblance to a real life situation. " and now in November 2006...."It's not a real problem since it is just a game but it has NO bearing on what a battle is really like at all. This could just a well be called Lizards and Wizards and would be just as descriptive "

In all that time you have not provided us with ONE shred of evidence of your assertions in the form of a save game. Also, wouldn't you think that if this was so obvious that everybody could see it that you'd have dozens ( perhaps hundreds ) of people supporting you and also asking for change? There's wasn't then are there aren't now.

The last time you brought this up Andy ended his post with the following statement.....

We're still waiting . If you can support what you claim with proof we will look at it. If you are unable or unwilling to do so there is little point in you posting here

Don

Re: New Arty Routine
 

The only evidence that suppression favors the AI, comes from just giving the AI the side that is less susceptible to it, such as an AI Germany against the USSR or France. Most of my games have been played as Germany and the enemies get suppressed quite a bit quicker than my guys, but part of that has to do with strategy too. If you're throwing 4 tanks against 20 infantry units, the tanks might often get pinned just from the quantity of fire alone against them. This would be more so when playing a nation such as the USSR.

About the artillery thing though, I used to think the same way he did, and it might has been true back in the day (SPWAW probably) but when you see a number of barrages hit where you have absolutely nothing, then you know the use of a borg arti is non-existent or largely curtailed.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

I have already learned not to deploy at places the AI is likely to shell (ie places I would preemptively strike myself if I was playing the other side).
Have to say the initial bombardment from the AI is now similar to initial bombardments I've witnessed during PBEM.
As for the suppression, in some cases it may be frustrating to have salvo upon salvo falling at a well dug-in squad and it remaining in "pinned" status. Other time, with the same opponent and time, even a single _MG barrage is capable of causing "retreating" status... Just like IRL where you also have the die-hard's and the fleeing...

Re: New Arty Routine
 

The "borg" artillery was true for the original SSI code. however as we have stated before on this forum and the old Yahoo! board, it was one of the first things we removed on recieving the source code.

The original SSI AI arty code did have advantages built-in to make it fall nearer to your troops (Whether located or not).

We removed this AI arty advantage, so new AI predictive code was required. My AI artillery code has to use prediction to plot any fires that are "blind", just like a player. Therefore it is interested in areas around objectives, approach road hexes and so on just like a human opponent. Sometimes it just plots random fire into the whole box of the enemy deployment zone, since there likely will be troops in there, somewhere.

A year or 2 back I added the "AI Interest" routines to give the AI a "clue" about things that a human opponent would see reported in the playback (such as rooster trails, fire weapons events and so on that are reported to the other player), details in the release history section of the game. (Otherwise it could only react to troops visible in its turn or random plotting - now, if you do the "hill dance" where you bring up a sucession of vehicles to fire from a hill, and end up all hidden behind that hill, it will tend to start some arty falling on you - as the number of "fire events" from that location go up and up, despite your running behind the ridge for cover after the firing).

So occasionally the AI gets lucky and drops a shed-load of predicted arty onto one of your blocks of troops. Most players see this as the AI having a lucky guess this time (which is what it did do), but there still happen to be one or 2 players who when this happen, come bleating here about "borg AI artillery". Simply not true for the SPCamo code. I happen to know this, since I wrote it .. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Cheers
Andy

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Ok guys get out ur six sided die roll it 10 times and tell me how many times in a row you get a one

Re: New Arty Routine
 

AI lacks all the talents a human has, creativity, flexibility and planning ability. So why even start that the AI has advantages over a human player, because it has none whatsoever, lacking these three most important skills devised by nature, ever.

So AI could complain that you have these three "borg" traits that it lacks and deem the whole situation intolerable and unrealistic. Bu-huu the human beat me again..

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Except that if I remember my basic probability getting a 1 ten times in a row is no more unlikely than getting any other number 10 times in a row. In fact, since the probability of rolling any specific number on a 6-sided die is 1/6, rolling any number combination should have the same probability, with 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 being no more statistically unlikely than any random combination of ten numbers from 1-6.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Ok Thatguy96 I will take you up on your idea. I will give you 10 bucks everytime you roll back to back ones in a 10 roll series you give me 5 bucks each time you don't.

I will take 5 out of 6 odds every day and so will the boys at Vagas.

The facts are that everyone of you "if honest" can recount many times when a 95 percent chance to hit has been missed several times in a row in this game (this is tandamount to rolling the 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 you speak of.

My complaint about the arty routime is that Andy has programed in a situation where the arty can target what "a human would see" but has not programmed (as near as I can tell) the human player's arty propensity to "miss" the called target on the first shot by 1 or more hexes but rather it lands Borg like ON target. If this is what was intended fine let him say so.

As far as Don's lame claims about proof, his is the usual programmer/developers comment. If you can't rave about us get off our boards.

While the AI is not very good I admit, it does have already many "features" to keep it competitive. It only has to keep the player from achieving a "decisive" to have accomplished its (read the programmer) goals.

I view computer vs human as programmer vs human and so the programmers else why the rub http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: New Arty Routine
 

The AI may target hex X,Y where something was determined to be of interest, or it may decide to pound objective 17's hex X,Y.

However - unfortunately for your "borg" premise, the AI, just like you, is subject to the normal rules for scatter of the target hex, and then for the scatter of shells around the new target point. (And whether or not it has an observer with LOS to the target hex etc).

But then as DRG has already pointed out to you - we already seem to have had this discussion with you back on the old Yahoo group, over a year or so back.

As for your "ad hominem" attack on DRG - I will refer you to the Shrapnel board rules, where this sort of behaviour is specifically ruled against. Consider this your first warning.

Andy

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Hey, I'm just saying. This is exactly the reason why Vegas odds aren't based solely on odds, but on a little bookie intuition too. Also remember that a computer has to be programmed to be random, so it will never be 100% random in reality.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

I've played this game a lot. And I mean a lot. From that perspective I have to say that,
Bigjim, your claims are completely bogus. And your inference that you don't have to give proof 'cause all can see it when playing is the biggest bogus of all. You are one of the very, very few who think they see this borg arty thing happening. And I'd like to stress think.
So no, it's not just a programmers respons. It's also a players respons. Which makes me wonder how much you've actually played the game if at all?

Narwan

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Well Andy I have never been band from a board before but I guess if you consider that mild statement and attack on DRG so be it. I will be happy to refrain from further posting since your warning aptly proves my point. So good day to you sir and farewell.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Haven't played this game as much as some other members here but still I do consider myself experienced, though lacking a bit in the infantry department http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
The AI back in old SP2 times WAS Borg-ish a bit, but it was compensated by being not-so-bright. It had to be Borgish to be able to compete atleast with inexperienced PI (Player Intelligence).
Andy and Don made a great effort to bring the AI as close to PI as possible. While doing so they've removed Borginess as it's not needed anymore now the AI can react with its arty fire plan very close to PI.
And the AI dispersion is working right the same way as PI dispersion. Enjoyed myself in one game how AI was lobbing salvo after salvo into thin air where my tanks have once been, Loathed the AI when it started shelling hill behind which my TD's were lurking. But never saw Borgish behavior in SPMBT/SPWW2. Just an intelligent, some times almost human behavior.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

You were warned about breaking board rule number 3 by your referring to DRG's "lame claims". You were not banned, that is a formal process which further behaviour of that sort may require.

Please read and digest the Shrapnel message board rules, especially No. 3, and if you are prepared to abide by them in future then we have no problem. You can find these by clicking on the link marked "board rules" at the top of the page.

Andy

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Hi BigJim,

In order to prove you that there isn't anything wrong with the artillery I have initiated a series of tests concerning the artillery routines.

I think that by presenting you the data of one of those tests you will be convinced that the game code works the same way for both the human and the AI.

I am waiting for your comments concerning the following test scenario:


TEST TWO

Second set of test (use of HQ for calling arty missions without LOS)
i) number of tests for AI is 4 samples
ii) number of test for human is 4 samples


The second set of tests is also based on the simple method of mirrored settings with two testings modes:

A. AI vs AI
B. Human vs Human


For the second test (without LOS) I preplanned several arty missions by the use of a group of mortars (stacked in a single hex). As a consequence of this action the rest of the available enemy AI artillery (a second group of mortars) took the opportunity to design several arty missions directly on top of the previous point of interest (mortar concentration with preplanned arty mission).

The results from the AI vs AI mode are extracted by interrupting the game sequence by hitting the "ENTER" and going into human control (thus investigating the assigned by AI artillery missions and the scattering of the mean point of impacts).

For the second series of tests (without direct LOS) the results proved that the Artillery performs equally for both the human and the AI modes (in other words the AI is using the same code for determining the artillery accuracy over the mean point of impact).

Here are the screenshots of the test:

1. General view of the setting
2. Results of AI arty missions
3. Results of Human arty missions


1. General view of the setting

The "pre-planned Arty group" (first group of mortars) will start a sequence of pre-designed artillery missions aiming on a fixed on-map hex (somewhere to the middle of the map) in order to create the appropriate conditions (smoke and activity) and this way to attract (trigger) the other side AI group of "Active mortars" to design several arty missions directly on top of the "pre-planned Arty group".

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1..._Test_setB.jpg


2. Results of AI arty missions

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...y_AI_NoLos.jpg


3. Results of Human arty missions

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...uman_NoLos.jpg

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Amusingly, I've often found myself scratching my head as the AI randomly shells areas that are nowhere NEAR my troops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And that seems to happen far, far more often than the AI pinpointing one of my troop concentrations that are clearly out of LOS. Like narwan, I have played this game a LOT too, and I have never seen the problem that BigJim is stating. Has the AI gotten lucky from time to time and blasted my men out of LOS? Sure, but more often than not, I see the opposite as well.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

Ok pyros I may have found my problem?? I have cut the map down to 60 by 60 and with all the equipment I have now it is almost impossible to position my stuff within the area alotted me at setup (therefore the AI CANNOT miss no matter where it fires). In your test you have only setup opposing arty so I can see what you mean about it being random based on that setup.

Andy as for my remarks regarding Don, I felt his remarks were to say the least abit caustic and responded in kind.

I have played these games since day 1 when SSI first released them as Gary Grigsby programmed them and I recall a large hugh and cry back then about atry effectiveness.

First off this game is primarily a surpression game, ie if your troops are surpressed they cannot see, move, or fire with any accuracy. To me the 81mm motar is just waaay to effective vs armour in this representation. I think I would have to look very hard to find any real life events where tanks were disabled by motar fire (I am sure there must be some but I feel it must be rare, since I am a baby boomer and so grew up with tons of WWII Vets around me my own father having fought at Iwo Jima).

Now the root of my problems to a large degree are that I play for ONLY a decisive victory (this maybe a flaw in my chracter) so when odds like 95% to hit are given and the result is 6 misses or no effect in a row it tends to raise my ire.

That said I still enjoy and play the game daily as I am retired so have some time to mess around and I don't wish to minimize the effort you guys have put in to bring back this old classic.

Jim

Re: New Arty Routine
 

As we found when we had the code in our hands - the AI was getting large "hints" as to enemy location, as well as the ability to "teleport" just-arriving fires across the map AFAIR - but we removed such code back in 2001 or whenever the DOS version of SPWW2 came out. However - the SSI team would have had only the usual 1 year to market game development cycle, and we have been refining WW2/MBT for much longer than that. So I had the time to do such a specialist AI routine (and tune it too), whereas they most likely did not.

However there seems to be a "folk memory" of borg-AI arty in the SP community, despite the repeated statement of fact by the programmers of the Camo verion that we have removed the original SSI code borg, and instituted a human-style decision matrix on the AI. This "folk memory" may still apply to non-Camo versions of the code, but frankly, we are tired of it repeatedly being ressurected as applying to ourproduct http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

In the original SSI code, if HE pen was equal to the armour - it went though. But as stated somewhere in the release notes - now HE pen needs to have signifigant overpenetration to have a chance of penetrating, and WH size of the HE round is assessed. So little 81mm mortars are no longer very effective armour killers. In SP III the 81mm mortar was the primary human M1A1 killer of choice (cost/benefit analysis) because in SP III with its multi-vehicle platoon unit lumps, it could not differentiate between killed and mobility killed (disabled vehicles were not separated off the lump as individuals) - so an 81mm track hit removed (=killed)the tank. (I have no idea whether or not this behaviour was modified for the SPWAW code - based on the SP III code).

And the first Tiger II met by the Allies was killed by a British 2 inch mortar - opinion varies as to wheter it dropped down the turret hatch, or blew up the ammo truck parked beside it but the result was the same - one cooked tigger.

And we have already discussed the random number generator in SP, and done dumps of 1000s of numbers, published (whether here or on the old Yahoo board) which proved entirely normal distribution of the random numbers, and no unusual chains of numbers in the output stream.

Sometimes you have a "bad hair" day and miss the barn door several times, and others you get the opposite effect and get a few low percentage pops on target. Such is life. Such are random number generators (which are not "random" but pseudo-random, if you want to be pedantic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Cheers
Andy

Re: New Arty Routine
 

It's a real shame that he over-reacts to when the AI does hit his unseen troops or that he thinks things were as the old SP was, because this game is much better than either.

One of the things I like to do is get an ammunition truck and park a couple of 75IG's and 150IG's beside it and fire away. I pick IG guns because I don't have to get them transport because they can move away if needed. It's none too infrequent that I've had the shelling go for 10 straight turns before getting any return bombardment. I guess the AI just thinks there's more important things to bombard, particularly the seen things, because there's certainly an unavoidable amount of smoke in a close area this way.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

BigJim: I see now that you have figured out your problem, and the remedy is all too apparent, but I would like to add just off the cuff that playing a map with the height of 200, adds a whole new dimension to the game that you may not have thought possible (I wouldn't recommmned going with the maximum width, however, unless you like a lot of turns of moving forward, which of course can be got around by adding extra turns to the game anyway). Imagine, you park an 88 in the middle of the map, and it cannot reach to either end. That's what height does, it allows for more successful flanking and more individual group strategies. Those fire brigades take a lot longer to get to the attacked area this way too. I like it so much I can't imagine playing on a narrower map. It makes the game start to approach the operational to some extent and therefore adds more strategy than possible before. The fact that we can adjust the visibility on the fly just makes this even more enjoyable. I generally play those sort of maps with between 110-130 units, and to say I'm vulnerable for at least a good portion of each game in no understatement. The use of every unit is very critical in this especially when you're fixing to be assaulted by an AI which may or may not be gathering en masse on something of a flank.

Re: New Arty Routine
 

I am late to this discussion. I searched all of BigJim's posts and can find nary a file attachment. When i was a noob, I learned quickly that it was unwise to place anything where I would fire turn 0 suppression fire if I was the enemy and got to go first. This gets a bit tricky with a 200 unit core. I always save some of my turn 0 suppression arty for counter-battery. My turn 0 arty fire is always to suppress the enemy's arty. (computer generated long campaigns)