Welcome to the LnLP Forums and Resource Area

We have updated our forums to the latest version. If you had an account you should be able to log in and use it as before. If not please create an account and we look forward to having you as a member.

Agressive high level HQ's

Bie

Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2017
Messages
350
Points
28
Age
41
Location
Belgium
During my gameplay trails of my Operation Perch scenario I noticed on multiple occasions that higher level HQ's recklessly go off by themselves and head deep into enemy territory or even put themselves straight into danger.

On one occasion I had the divisional HQ of the 7th Armoured go ahead and capture a far flung objective all by itself. It had been scouted by a recce troop though. But still it didn't take any divisional troops with it, nor any of its brigades or battalions. I've lowered the agression of the HQ unit a bit, but still notice that it sometimes goes off by itself.

Have you guys also notices this during your scenario creation? If so did any of you find a solution for this?
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
1,182
Points
63
Age
76
Location
Livonia, MI (Detroit-area suburb)
During my gameplay trails of my Operation Perch scenario I noticed on multiple occasions that higher level HQ's recklessly go off by themselves and head deep into enemy territory or even put themselves straight into danger.

On one occasion I had the divisional HQ of the 7th Armoured go ahead and capture a far flung objective all by itself. It had been scouted by a recce troop though. But still it didn't take any divisional troops with it, nor any of its brigades or battalions. I've lowered the agression of the HQ unit a bit, but still notice that it sometimes goes off by itself.

Have you guys also notices this during your scenario creation? If so did any of you find a solution for this?
The matter of overaggressive headquarters and artillery units has been discussed during the Beta testing of scenarios in the development forum. I don't recall now what solutions have been proposed for the game engine.

None of the discussion delved into addressing the issue during scenario design.

I'd be curious about your observations regarding aggression.

Does the lower aggression affect only the troops assigned to the HQ unit, or does it also dampen aggression for a task group the HQ leads as well?
 

Bie

Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2017
Messages
350
Points
28
Age
41
Location
Belgium
The matter of overaggressive headquarters and artillery units has been discussed during the Beta testing of scenarios in the development forum. I don't recall now what solutions have been proposed for the game engine.

None of the discussion delved into addressing the issue during scenario design.

I'd be curious about your observations regarding aggression.

Does the lower aggression affect only the troops assigned to the HQ unit, or does it also dampen aggression for a task group the HQ leads as well?

The only solution I'm thinking of at the moment is reducing the agression value to almost zero, as HQ units itself never really should be agressive.

Will this affect the agression of subordinate units? I'm not sure, but I don't imagine it would as I believe that value only governs the unit itself. Changing the agression value of the leader of the HQ unit on the other hand will affect the subordinate units. Again, I'm not completely sure. But that's how I believe it works.

I'll do some trial runs with drastically reduced agression values and see what happens.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
1,182
Points
63
Age
76
Location
Livonia, MI (Detroit-area suburb)
The only solution I'm thinking of at the moment is reducing the agression value to almost zero, as HQ units itself never really should be agressive.

Will this affect the agression of subordinate units? I'm not sure, but I don't imagine it would as I believe that value only governs the unit itself. Changing the agression value of the leader of the HQ unit on the other hand will affect the subordinate units. Again, I'm not completely sure. But that's how I believe it works.

I'll do some trial runs with drastically reduced agression values and see what happens.
I mix up commander attributes with unit attributes.

According to SceneMaker, you can set a unit's aggression separate from the commander's attributes. It's confusing because the setting of attributes is explained in SceneMaker but the effects of those settings are referenced in the Game Manual.

I think the distinction is in the nomenclature, with a unit's attributes called Aggro (which means aggression) and a Commander's attributes called Aggression.

Ten years into the game, and I'm still learning ;-).
 

Bie

Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2017
Messages
350
Points
28
Age
41
Location
Belgium
I've done some testing with the aggro value of the HQ units and things are a bit better. Division at 10, brigades at 15 or 20 and battalions at 25. They seem to be less inclined to charge ahead, so for the moment I'm ok with it.

On a couple occasions though I still noticed that they still want to try and sneak through the enemy lines, but only if they think it is completely safe to do so. So, for example, if a unit has just scouted out the path it is going to take.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
1,182
Points
63
Age
76
Location
Livonia, MI (Detroit-area suburb)
I've done some testing with the aggro value of the HQ units and things are a bit better. Division at 10, brigades at 15 or 20 and battalions at 25. They seem to be less inclined to charge ahead, so for the moment I'm ok with it.

On a couple occasions though I still noticed that they still want to try and sneak through the enemy lines, but only if they think it is completely safe to do so. So, for example, if a unit has just scouted out the path it is going to take.
Thanks for the information and evaluation.

The stratification makes sense, as division (or corps) units are less likely to venture toward a front during the height of battle, and the echelons below those are more likely to move because of their smaller command range (Game Manual Pg 149) over their deployed force.

Would you recommend that something like these become default settings for the unit types at various echelons for Estab and Scenario creation?
 

Bie

Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2017
Messages
350
Points
28
Age
41
Location
Belgium
Would you recommend that something like these become default settings for the unit types at various echelons for Estab and Scenario creation?

For me it would make sense that this would somehow be "hard-coded". Definitely for divisional HQ's and up.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
1,182
Points
63
Age
76
Location
Livonia, MI (Detroit-area suburb)
For me it would make sense that this would somehow be "hard-coded". Definitely for divisional HQ's and up.
I used "default" because there should be some room for variance.

When I worked on my Japanese vs. Marines scenario, one of the issues was the "banzai" charge for the Japanese forces -- a fanatical final thrust when all else failed (In American descriptions of the battle, it was reported the Bushido philosophy of the Japanese forces encouraged dying in battle as a more honorable action than surrender).

Historically, it included the Army HQ personnel and the remaining cadres of forces still within its control, and conscripted civilians. It was significant to the battle because it hit at a weak point in the Marine lines, held only by artillery units screening the pathway toward a critical port for the invading forces.

Hard coding Aggro which prohibited changing from the default would make it difficult to replicate that portion of the original battle's history, and if I understand the history correctly, alter some of the early Russian Eastern Front combat tactics ordered by Stalin.
 

john connor

Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Messages
2,488
Points
63
Age
60
Location
Brussels
It's a 'bug', Bie, or a 'design gap', shall we say. There's not much you can do about it. You're in the beta team, now, right? So in the beta forum you can see many discussions about HQs (and other 'support' units) leading the advance. They're not being 'aggressive' so I would be surprised if changing their aggro stats affects anything. As far as I recall (he can correct me if I'm wrong), Dave has said that 2 things might be going on - firstly a bug with HQ pathing which leads to these units sometimes picking weird routes, secondly, there is no coding, at present, to make sure that HQs and support units (arty, mortars, AT guns etc) stay safely behind line units when using any command other than Attack. For Attacks you should not now see HQs leading. But on Move orders, for example, you may well see Hqs out front (looking aggressive). The problem is compounded when the HQ units (or the mortar or AT unit) is wheeled and the rest of the Bn are not. Then they can move even faster out front. As a player you can mitigate these issues by making sure you don't give very long distance Move orders which leave it up to the AI to pick a route. Instead keep short distance movement through known terrain, and assume that your support units might go ahead. What you can't stop is what the enemy AI is doing, and hence you may run into the occassional on-map boss (or arty unit) looking like they're leading an attack. They won't be attacking, they'll be moving out front of an AI Move order, most likely, and will hence be very vulnerable. Nothing can be done about it. Dave is aware. I think - if the Gods smile - he will eventually get round to looking at re-coding the Move routines to stop this. I hope so. But apparently that's a very big job. Meanwhile, you don't run into the issue too often, I think. It hasn't stopped me playing the game yet, anyway....
 
Top