Test moved to Rodes' division, Day 1 scenario 4.
Playing SoWGB reminds me of Captain Polenin of K19 during the drill at the beginning of the movie when the firing computer console has a malfunction and he explodes in rage against the navy commissioner spitting in his face he has to fight the incompetence of the assembly crew using wrong equipment. "That's what I have to fight before I can fight the war" he says.
Anyway... For this test I used a visibility restriction of 300yds plenty to see around but not unlimited. I also used the SIDE courier level, waiting for some more tweaks before I can resume to my fav playing fashion again.
I moved the whole division, including artillery to capture McPherson's farm and observed the following:
To begin with, O-Neal starts as detached. He ignores my orders of reattaching. This has to do with the thing I mentioned about scenario making. If O-Neal can't be given orders, I expect to read about this (and why so) in the scenario description and if he can be put under my command I would also like to know how (and why). Nevertheless, that's a minor issue.
A higher-degree issue is that, we have generals changing their strategic orders and overriding mine. I am supposed to be in charge of my DIV but of course the AI generals must also have some degree of initiative but I think they should at least have a reason to change my orders and I couldn't find one. It is especially important that a guy who's given an attack order doesn't switch to hold to the last like that. Perhaps he should switch to probe first, defend next and then hold to the last.
All troops tried to do what they were asked for. Since we are in DIV sized combat (and I'm the DIV leader) issuing strategic orders to the BDE generals WORKS for as long as the AI doesn't change them.
The only problem is that if a general decides to hold, there's no way to make him move and since they change their orders on their own accord, it's important to remember that in order to move a BDE (and especially the Arty) you must first give them a NONE strategic order. This compels the player to check over and over again all BDE commanders and their current strategic stance before moving orders can be issued.
The Union AI put up a good fight (remarkably good with infantry and I'm very impressed) and, as long as it had the ARTY advantage the objective could not be reached. When the 4 guns defending McPherson's farm were routed (at the costs on my infantry you can imagine), I could finally move the entire division on the objective to capture it.
Had I not quit to write this report, the score would have been much higher in my favor but I also let things evolve this way because my main concern in this test was the artillery.
I moved all my guns within 400yds from the targets (leaving the AI to pick targets and ammo) so that the Union was under constant barrage from the beginning to the end (you can read their scores in the attached SS).
http://www.norbsoftdev.com/media/kunena ... s_test.jpg[/img_size]
I don't think I need to mention that next time I will move to McPherson's farm with my artillery in front line so that it's not only the Union using cannister but me too especially considering the losses I took to rout the Union Artillery.
Reese's score comes from cannister because I was surprised on my left flank by a single Union RGT (which then surrendered when charged), the other guns in total achieved ONE kill during the battle which lasted about 30 minutes of game time.
30' -> 400yds -> 1 kill.
Now I really can't say anything anymore because I need to metabolize this disappointment. I am asking again if the new tweaks to the arty need to be inserted in scenario files or if the master files will affect scenarios. In other words, are the scenarios up to date with the artillery fixes?
