defending footprint

[*budd*]

I've noticed this before, troops not deploying to the frontage and depth you order.

i didn't specify, but shouldn't they at least be in the box?

i've given this order twice to try to get them to spread out a bit and keep the enemy from from intruding into the VP zone. They were more bunched on the first defend order, they moved a little with the second order.

I'm trying to fine tune the defending deployment by moving this unit to the location indicated. I've tried this before and units have refused to move, this unit hasn't started to move and its been about 2 hours.

Maybe i'm just not using the right orders, what do you think. forgot to add this is the newest build.

 

[Kurt]

Totally agree , I end up individually moving each unit to the desired spot then give a 'DEFEND IN-SITU' to them all together, allowing the AI to allocate the appropriate HQ.

 

[Daz]

If you want them to defend, where you want them, and not where the AI wants them to defend, then the best way is to do what Kurt just said.

For short moves (not sure on the exact distance, but its about 300m), when the unit has Dug in, you have to use the move order.
I think this was put in to prevent the unit from moving out of its good defensive position, and losing its dug-in, or entrenchment bonus when the player places a new defend order on the map. When ordering it to defend, after a move or attack for example.
This stops you having to make sure you place the new order directly on top of the old one, as anywhere close will do the job.

If the unit has just arrived, and not had time to dig in, it should still move short distances with a defend order placed close by, but to be sure it's best to use a move order.

In your second screenshot Bud, you need to specify a formation not just frontage and depth, to get them to reform. Even then if the AI thinks it has a better position than the one you are ordering it may still leave a few of the dug in units on position.
The best thing to do is experiment. You'll find that after a while you can get fairly good at predicting where they will go to defend.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

The reason this occurs is that we try to leave the units where they are if they are deployed or better and in a good spot. When we didn't do this everyone complained that they were upping stumps and moving into harms way. See as a developer you can never please everyone. Perhaps a future feature could be an option on the order which forces the units to redeploy. What do you think?

 

[Daz]

There is never anything wrong with more options in my eyes Dave.
I hate the trend we have nowadays where all the big Companies are dumbing down their games and turning them into one minute wonders.
Silent Hunter 5 was a good example of that and it lost a lot of its hard core players because of it. What they should have done was gone for more realism, not arcade action. Luckily the game has some very dedicated moders.

I think in the niche market like this, the player base seems to be more mature and are not afraid of a few extra dialogues as long as they default to something reasonable, or become sticky, so as not to have to change things for every order.

Having said that, where I have learnt how to handle the situation, for me at least its not realy needed. I much perfer to get them into the area then position any that are not in the right place with individual orders.

What would be more beneficial for me, would be the ability to set individual facings for units attached to a HQ and retake position checkbox for individual units still attached to a HQ with Insitu.

 

[Kurt]

I agree with Daz , the more options the better.

 

[Rob]

I agree with Daz , the more options the better.

I couldn't agree more........

Rob.

 

[*budd*]

Thx for the replies. You know for some damn reason i've never tried the move order to reposition my units...duh, i've always used defend. I'll try the move order and specifying a formation see if that works out for me. On the top picture though shouldn't the units at least be in the box? i thought when you didn't specify the leader would pick the formation to defend in for you, isn't the default "all around defense" i seem to remember reading that somewhere.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Thx for the replies. You know for some damn reason i've never tried the move order to reposition my units...duh, i've always used defend. I'll try the move order and specifying a formation see if that works out for me. On the top picture though shouldn't the units at least be in the box? i thought when you didn't specify the leader would pick the formation to defend in for you, isn't the default "all around defense" i seem to remember reading that somewhere.

No, because the code will call a function that gets the safest nearby defensive loc and provided this is within a certain distance allows it to step outside the designated deployment area. We originally had a very tight reign on the distance but found that this invariably would see the units moving out of good defensive terrain. Maybe we need to tweak this back a little. But my preference would be to have a user option so you can override this behaviour.

 

[*budd*]

sounds good, the fine tuning using the move command seemed to work out well.

 

[Daz]

In the top picture they are in all round defence Bud.
Even all round defence has a preferred direction, which will be one of the sides of the triangle.
This will put two units forward and one to the rear.
The Engineers have been placed in the rear with two Coys facing south.
They have been orientated towards Lommesweiler, probably because of the two spotted units there.

The yellow box is just a guide when you leave everything to the AI to decide the formation.
Its still just a guide when you set a formation and frontage as well to be honest, but it is a bit more accurate to what you will get.
The HQ will position itself at the marker, then position its units around itself depending on the formation and facing set.

Try experimenting with the different formations.
One of my favourites is left or right echelon, with as shallow a depth as possible.
With this formation you know that the HQ with one of the line units and the support behind it is going to be on one side and the rest distributed to the other side.
By twisting the facing over good defensive terrain you can get them pretty much where you want them.