Sandbox Objectives Unresponsive

[Ingles of the 57th]

Most of my games in SOWGB are played in Sandbox in my favourite "defend" mode.

I note though that the "occupied objective" symbol consistently fails to activate at the start of a game even though I sit in the yellow circle with my command around me ....... and with the enemy still half a map away.

It first activates only when the enemy occupies the position but finally activates for me only when I subsequently win it back. I'm sure this is not the intention ....it makes the scoring a nonsense .. but I don't recall having seen anyone else draw attention to this shortcoming. Can this be fixed, please, so the symbol activates immediately at game-start if the right conditions are met. ?

This doesn't worry me a great deal personally since I don't really care about points. I prefer to put myself where I feel I can do the most harm to the enemy .... choosing my own position based upon the usual criteria of terrain advantage, cover etc.

I really despise the inevitable inane opening order from above to move my command to the objective and occupy it. Half the army are usually already sitting on the objective and my additional presence there would be completely unproductive ...... in fact I would be in the way.

I prefer to park myself across, or hide alongside, one of the most likely approach roads and aim to stop the enemy getting anywhere near the objective in the first place. You don't have to sit right on top of an objective to best defend it.

You can fight fiercely in this game, save a dithering army's bacon, yet end up with a negative points score. In real war sacrificing a unit for the greater good is a perfectly sound strategy .... but SOWGB marks only your 'performance' and cannot encompass the bigger strategic picture.

The 'Newspaper' reports a major defeat if your Brigade or Division takes a hammering even if the Army overall is actually victorious. Talk about mis-information.

Geoff Laver Late of Her Britannic Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot.

[con20or]

Hi Ingles, this is an old feature.

Certain OBJ's can only be activated by one side or the other.

For instance, on a large map, if you could activate the OBJ that you spawned beside, you could win the battle before your enemy even got close...

Hover your mouse over that OBJ on the map and it will say who it can be activated by.

[Ingles of the 57th]

Thank you Con20or for the prompt reply.

I confirm what you say is correct although I still don't really see the logic of it. I am also aware this has been the case ever since the game first appeared. I still play TC2M Open Play on a regular basis and this does make the objective available to both sides from the start. You can see immediately if your troops have accidentally wandered off of the objective.

I play with game time and objective times of 240 minutes which really does give everybody time to reach the objective. Since I don't focus on points, I usually end the game well before the four hours are up .... once the enemy has been carved up to my satisfaction and shows no further inclination to storm the objective.

I note that, if I play out the full game time on 'defend', I get the full objective points even though at no time during the game was I actually shown as occupying it !

To carry out a test I set the objective and game time down to 10 minutes. The enemy failed to reach the objective in that time and I was awarded a Major Victory with Zero Points even though none of my troops had moved an inch from the start line !! If only real life worked like that.

Just a query. Is this arrangement hard-wired into Sandbox ? Or can I mod somewhere to open up the sandbox objectives to both sides ....... which I personally feel is more realistic. As Reb Bugler always preaches, I am actively trying to check this out for myself as well but advice would be welcome.

Geoff Laver Late of Her Britannic Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot

[RebBugler]

Hey Geoff

Saw you responded to the Lord of Pies :whistle: , that was quite generous, considering how he's turned off the community due to his lack of people skills, not to mention APPRECIATION.

Concerning Sandbox and your issues, I regret that presently I can't give advice or help out here. Since my interest lies in scenario and scenario designs I rarely partake in Sandbox play, so, I don't mod it. Frankly, I don't think it's very modifiable. I just checked the objectives sandbox file and it appears that it was randomly produced from the last time I fired one up. So, that tells me that at least that file, the one you're concerned about, is hard coded to be randomly produced upon each play. I'll check with Norb, or he may see this post, and possibly we can get a definitive here.

Also, other team members may know more about this. If this is not modifiable, maybe it can be introduced as a future feature. I know most anything's possible with Norb at the helm, it's just a matter of demand and backward compatibility with most cases.

Have a nice African sunset, and especially, sunrise, cause every new day is special for us old farts. Long as we're "of foot".

[Ingles of the 57th]

Hi Reb Bugler

Thanks for the Kind Words.

Sunsets are a bit rare here at the moment as the rainy season is now upon us. Storms of Sandy proportions but luckily only lasting a few minutes ..... and I am at the top of the hill not the bottom.

I came to the same conclusion as your goodself regarding sandbox operation. I know what would need amending in the game scenario but this scenario is generated afresh for each game during the 'sandbox initiation' phase using the input parameters. Then of course it can't be "got at".

I am not fussed over this. I now start in "Hunt Them Down Mode". If I get there first, then I am defending with the objective symbol activated .... which is what I want. If the enemy gets there first, or we collide on the way, then I exit, have a cup of tea and try again.

Always more than one way to skin a cat.

We mustn't knock poor old Pielord ...... we were all young once.

Best regards,

Geoff Laver Late of Her Britannic Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot.

[Davinci]

Hmm, not that this has anything to do with the topic here, but I never play with the objectives. My goal is to run into the enemy army at an unspecified place on the map, and to try to destroy it.

I will note that I have never achieved this, as it seems that it is impossible to destroy the army without destroying your own army in the process.

I wish that future installs will allow for the enemy army to divide it's forces, do a little demonstrating, set up to attack but then postpone it.

Any type of random action would be appreciated, as of now, it's just march, meet, fight, maneuver, fight some more, but mostly in the same vicinity that the first contact took place.

davinci

[Little Powell]

but mostly in the same vicinity that the first contact took place.

davinci

I beg to differ on this sir.

I don't get to play Sandbox very often, but I was recently testing a map. I met (what appeared to be) the full enemy force somewhere in the middle of the map. I had left a brigade in reserve on the northwest corner of the map where I started. Sure enough about halfway through my game, that brigade was ripped apart by a superior cavalry force that came out of nowhere...

The AI will never commit all forces in one area. Just setup a Sandbox game and turn on Alpha Omega. You can see they will assign orders destinations and movements to the Objectives, leave some reserve, and also send forces to a random area (simulating a recon force). Some of it has to do with the map and the road network. If you have a map where the roads generally meet in one area like Gettysburg, chances are all or most forces will end up there eventually. A map where the roads go every which way like the Chancellorsville maps, you could have the AI appear from nowhere...

[Blaugrana]

Last night eight or nine of us played a co-op game vs the AI playing HITS & Couriers. After the battle we chewed it over on Teamspeak and watched the replay, with the benefit of infinite movement and height. The enemy divided its force, so we spent about 45 minutes doing quite well against just three brigades, while the larger part of his corps sailed off down the road. As things were looking rosy, hordes of Rebs came onto the field and began to turn the tables. From what I've seen, the AI nearly always holds back a reserve and is often happy not to engage some of its force.

Some feints, demonstrations etc would be good, as you say, Davinci. I guess there is a risk in adding randomness to the AI's behaviour, though.

We fought on one of Garnier's random maps, which was very nice. We'd love to have place-names on it, Garnier, if you ever get a chance...

Jeff

[Marching Thru Georgia]

I play sandbox almost exclusively and rarely do I encounter the entire enemy force in one location. In corps sized games, the AI does a very good job in sending its divisions to different locations. Quite often I end up with two separate battles. I too agree with Davinci that additional tactical strategies for the AI would be very welcome. That's Norb's strength, so I'm sure it would result in an even more challenging AI.

[Davinci]

I’m not really saying anything negative about the game, I’ve been playing and modding this game going as far back as CWBR. That is quite a lot of hours that have been devoted to this game.

I also use two extremely large corps when playing the game, and yes I’m aware that the enemy will divide its forces using different roads.

But, even with the forces divided if you run into the enemy at location A, and location B, that is usually where all of the action will take place.

Basically, the player will never have to worry about the enemy units dividing its corps and trying a flanking maneuver, or setting up a delayed action, or breaking contact to reinforce its other corps. They never seem to work together, or even know where their comrades are fighting.

A few random actions on the part of the AI would be well received considering that this would cause the player to hold back a part of its army until they can ascertain exactly what the AI is doing.

That level of mystery is what’s missing while fighting these battles, you absolutely know that the enemy is not going to perform such actions, other than the occasional single brigade flanking maneuver.

davinci