Game has 'Tarded AI and fuzzy economy/numbers...Uh.

[Blackruse]

So, I like build up my weaps and tech for'em and all that. Move a crapload of stuff into Panama and general region, planes/bombers in striking distance to thump South America.

I attack, big "shock and awe" hitting a bunch of targets, like ports, airbases, bridges.
We push our way into northern South America and he sends a couple of near-invincible (impervious to bombs? lol) troop transports to deploy troops behind the lines.

Okay let's stop right there.
Great AI that it would do that.
Problem: cheating bastiche AI.
I sent a dozen fighters, fighter-bombers, and bombers to hit that thing. They all hit it about 5 times, launched missiles, the works.
Barely dented the faukking thing.
Well, we repel the landing force (so fricken stupid), and continue.

His forces start pushing mine back due to supply shortage.
Let's stop again.
I had surplus fuel/energy, and was already practicing conserving/reducing domestic demand. Yet, my units all sit there saying "waiting fer supplies".
I had build a ton of supply vehicles that skulked about, but not ever effective.

Meanwhile, the puny South American military is chewing on Panama.
I go nuclear and nuke almost all his northern ports, airbases, about a dozen powerplants, factories, a few cities, and the strongest concentrations of his forces. They are pulverized.

But they keep coming and take over Panama and start pushing toward Central America.
I launch a massive nuke-attack on those advancing forces.
I hit his bulk force, ONE-HEX, with 4 nukes and again...barely dented.

Another problem...in a different game, I was able to fire nukes from the US all the way into the middle-east.
For some odd reason, a few of my silos, even those the furthest south, were not able to launch their nukes at South American cities such as Buenos Aires, San Pao, etc.

I eventually managed to get the stupid thing to take out Brasilia.

My alternative, nuke bombers - bugged bastiches.
I had 2 B-2s armed with nuke-bombs. I launch them from the carribbean to hit San Pao where they moved their capitol.

As the bombers are flying to their target, an enemy warship just so happens to be sitting off the coast in their way.
It can see them (wtf) and opens fire. It damages the bombers and they...turn back!
I adjust the settings so they ignore targets of opportunity, do no engage such targets, and to use stealth.
This kept happening. Reduced initiate to zero, then tried raising it up.

This has to be some of the dumbest stealth bomber pilots ever in a video game.
Also, nuke bombs don't seem to work, I had one earlier unload and a couple of enemy units, and a bridge...9 bombs...no effect.

Sorry, this is just totally retarded. Either the AI settings are too overlapping/conflicting (about 5 different screens to set up your unit AI), or it's just plain out bug, or plain ol' retarded.

I still can't believe I hit one enemy stack with 5 nukes and didn't kill a damn one of them. I've been able to repeat this easily by hitting the stacks around it and in other areas.
It's like a 25% chance the nuke will do maybe 25% dmg.

Retarded.

While this game has tons of potential, it totally humiliates the Hearts of Iron games (I never liked that much praised but rather stupid game engine they used for those games)--I think I'll wait for some mod that fixes it and go back to Superpower 2 (despite its own probs, still active user-community creates tweakes/realism to items).

The last thing, I obliterated South America with nukes, I hit them with maybe 50 (I stockpiled massively before going to war on these babies), took out maybe 50 million civies, and they still have a strong economy with like 200,000M surplus. Economic system is fubar.

[ainsworth74]

Great AI that it would do that.Problem: cheating bastiche AI.

The devs have stated that the AI will not cheat, so this is unlikely.

I sent a dozen fighters, fighter-bombers, and bombers to hit that thing. They all hit it about 5 times, launched missiles, the works. Barely dented the faukking thing. Well, we repel the landing force (so fricken stupid), and continue.

1. Are you completely sure that all the missles weren't intercepted by AA support?

2. You actulaly got the AI to send a troop transport!! I didn't think it did that!

His forces start pushing mine back due to supply shortage. Let's stop again. I had surplus fuel/energy, and was already practicing conserving/reducing domestic demand. Yet, my units all sit there saying "waiting fer supplies". I had build a ton of supply vehicles that skulked about, but not ever effective.

1. Did you have surplus military goods, if not you troops were waiting for shells.

2. Once you are out of supply, (newly taken territory) then your troops tend to eat through the supplies on these truck like nobodys business. So they have wait for local supply to recover.

But they keep coming and take over Panama and start pushing toward Central America. I launch a massive nuke-attack on those advancing forces. I hit his bulk force, ONE-HEX, with 4 nukes and again...barely dented.

Now I am with you on this one that nukes are underpowered against units, I've used 3mt missles on unit stacks before now with little effect, so I feel that this could have been altered. But most people don't use nukes because of DAR and MAR effects, basicaly your people hate you as does your military so they tend to defect on contact with the enemy

My alternative, nuke bombers, I had 2 B-2s armed with nuke-bombs. I launch them from the carribbean to hit San Pao where they moved their capitol.

As the bombers are flying to their target, an enemy warship just so happens to be sitting off the coast in their way.
It can see them (wtf) and opens fire. It damages the bombers and they...turn back!
I adjust the settings so they ignore targets of opportunity, do no engage such targets, and to use stealth.
This kept happening. Reduced initiate to zero, then tried raising it up.

This has to be some of the dumbest stealth bomber pilots ever in a video game. Also, nuke bombs don't seem to work, I had one earlier unload and a couple of enemy units, and a bridge...9 bombs...no effect.

There is a long thread somewhere stating that the B-2 and F-117 are not stealthy enough, and I would tend to agree, at least against a country like SA, is not reound for its world class radar production,

Either the AI settings are too overlapping/conflicting (about 5 different screens to set up your unit AI)

I find unit AI controls fine myself, there is room for improvment, but quite functionable.

I still can't believe I hit one enemy stack with 5 nukes and didn't kill a damn one of them. I've been able to repeat this easily by hitting the stacks around it and in other areas.

I agree it is a prob, but not many people use nukes

Retarded.

Be nice, there are only 4 main guys and so far they have done a great job.

I agree the game has flaws, but I find them for the most part acceptable, some AI things are annooying but compared to un patched SR the present form is a different animal.

But most of this is moot because the devs have stated that they are finished with this game, and have moved on...[/b][/quote]

[Eric Larsen]

< I had surplus fuel/energy, and was already practicing conserving/reducing domestic demand. Yet, my units all sit there saying "waiting fer supplies". >

Blackruse,
Having tons of supplies is only half the battle of keeping units supplied. How did you set your infrastructure investment for social spending? If you want to get all those tons of supplies to your troops while they're advancing you need to jack up your infrastucture investment very high. A really high infrastructure rating goes a long way to keeping those troops waiting for supply messages to a minimum. Also use your transport aircraft like C-130's and supply helicopters like the Chinook to fly supply to advanced units. Just like in real life. A bit of micromanagement but it works nicely.

As to the bombers flying back after getting shot at check your rules of engagement to make sure those bombers are set to not avoid combat. Sounds counterintuitive if you want the bombers to skip targets of opportunity but it keeps your bombers focused on getting to the target despite some small losses. If you're going after a "fortification" target turn off all the other target types so they don't attack units mistakenly. Also make sure to set the loss tolerance to high so the bombers are more willing to take casualties to get to the target.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen

[Legend]

One thing to check is your supply level - hotkey S. as you take land your supply level has to catch up... this prevents units from driving across a desert as they take the territory - non-stop. Also as Eric mentioned infastructure is a big factor in how much supply goes to a given hex.

[Il Duce]

Another remark about supply....
You can never have enough. When the opportunity for a speedy advance presents itself, keep the realities in mind. I believe that one of the historically fastest tank advances in WW2 was somthing like 25 miles per day. Doesn't sound like a lot, but I suppose Von Mannstein wished he had a few more tanker trucks and a few less tanks - and a lot of traffic control. In recent times, airlift and better logistics supports considerably faster runs, but caution is advised when you have long-tailed spearheads. There are times (fast moving tanks with lots of arty support in a running pursuit) when I find that I may have a supply unit embedded in almost every stack (like a one-to-five ratio), and helos running in and out almost hourly. Supply has to be delivered to the hex that the out of supply unit is in. Not near - in. And the out of supply unit is incapable of moving to a supply source as it really is out of gas. Move 'em out before this happens, whenever possible. Lots of convoys. Keep some supply units with the stack (to act as buffers), and cycle others back to in-supply areas to get refreshed. Setting up the supply logistics is an integral part to setting up the offensive - pretty much like reality.

Infrastructure - build lots of bridges, roads, and supply depots behind you or you won't hold your gains- plan your supply routes well before you cross a border - most often, your existing borders are already at the outer reach of your supply lines to begin with. All of this needs to happen while you are wiping out all infrstructure in front of you in hopes of weakening the enemy's ability to persist. Part of the reason people build so many engineer units is not that they fight well, but they bridge and build well.

The supply overlay on the screen can be misleading. It may indicate sufficient supply for domestic operations (like the supply might support a factory), but it may not be sufficient or reach far enough or flow fast enough to support fast moving fronts.

Micromanagement - Discipline is a key factor here. In general, when you first produce a unit - before you pop it fom the reserves - if it needs to have a setting other than the general/default ROE, set it then. This is especially true for missile units. I find that I rarely have to manage them thereafter. If you are setting out on an unusual operation (combined ops, special targets, unique situations), typically the number of units involved is small, and it isn't too difficult to set them up at the same time. A large percentage of player set unit initiative and operations inititative to zero, as well as disabling opportunity firing. For some of us it's because the ops minister has no clue what we're trying to do, but mostly it's just keep units from using supply in gratuitous and unnecessary skirmishes.

BTW - ALL live missile units can be inspected and configured from the operation-missiles panel, where it shows the units that are available to load a class of missile. You can scroll through all of them there. Yes, it can be a bit tedious, but this is, after all, a micromanagement game. One benefit to this process is that you can also review the location of each unit, and I often find that doing this kind of detailed review often reminds me of things I had overlooked. It takes a bit of patience, but after a while you find the rhythm of the thing.

As far as nukes go - I have never used them. I have heard, like your own comments, that they aren't very effective. And this is pretty consistent with real world doctrine regarding tac-nukes. It will cost you more to use them than you can ever gain - so whether they blow away one or two or six hexes, it doesn't matter. You will have basically declared yourself a ruler with no finesse. It's a matter of style I suppose. I do find that selling off any nukes that are included in the initial stockpile of a region often has a very beneficial effect - probably more than using them.

Stealth. How are your recon skills? Are you overflying with an expendable recon plane before you send in the capital assets? Why not? Are you pathing evasively out of range of visible pickets? Yes, it's a pain, but worthwhile. Don't rely on unit pathing options to do this for you - especially with missile and standoff units. It's not hard to validate ranges. just click on the hex your opponent occupies and then scan the cursor out until the range indicator in the terrain attributes sidebar shows you where you can safely stand off. Not using the sidebar? maybe you should. Altough there has been some discussion of implementing some kind of range overlay on the screen (won't happen in this game), it's not as if this information is obsured - it just takes a bit of effort to work it out.

SR2010 is a complex game, and you just can't rush it. But hey, you will get a lot of hours out of it.

[George Geczy]

I would also point out that the use of nuclear weapons as a general strategy is not really an intended style of play, as there is an assumption that your civilian population would not support such an approach. So large-scale nuclear consequences are not modelled in detail.

However, that being said, it should also be noted that small to mid sized nuclear weapons do not have as devestating an effect (in real life) on protected units as one would suspect. Or at least, they are not expected to (since there hasn't really been extensive testing of this...) Outside of "ground zero" the amount of damage falls greatly. A 100 kT nuclear weapon would not destroy NBC (Nuclear/Biological/Chemical) protected units less than 2km from ground zero; hexes in SR2010 are 10-20 km wide on average. Even a much larger, 1 megaton weapon would not destroy NBC protected units at less than 4 km.

As well, most battalions will cover territory in a relatively spread-out formation, so it would be difficult to hit the 'dead center' of a battalion to take it out entirely. For the purposes of nuclear damage calculations, we assume that the unit is relatively spread out in the hex - so for example, in a 20km wide hex, approx 400 sq km in area, a 100kt nuclear weapon would take out units in a 2km radius - less than 15 sq km in area, about 1/25th of the total hex.

So, it is realistically accurate to not have a nuclear weapon destroy a unit stack, especially if the units are NBC protected. As in most parts of SR2010, these results are also consistent - there is no real 'random factor' involved, either with battle results or elements of the AI. The AI never cheats, as pointed out above there are situations that you have to learn to handle to gain advantage over the AI in areas where they seem difficult to dislodge.

-- George.

[Lightbringer]

I have come to use a supply unit with literally every stack. This isn't so hard to do if you can get your hands on amphibious supply units. I even go so far as supply divisions that travel close behind larger army groups and the same goes for a stack of heavy and at least one stack of medium/light supply helos. This is all "best case scenario". Sometimes conditions get snafu but I prefer my troops full of caffiene, my vehicles full of gas and ammo, and my enemies full of lead.

[Il Duce]

Your troops get caffeine?

[ainsworth74]

It's his secret weapon!

All his troops are addicted to caffine, its how he controls them!!

All fear Lights crazed troopers!!

[Lightbringer]

Oh, I thought if you brought a second supply truck unit up to a stack it would have big coffee urns in back....

[BigStone]

supply truck unit up to a stack it would have big coffee urns in back....

Well... during my conscript period that was my favourite unit.....

[Il Duce]

...I could be wrong, but I believe the British navy still allocates a daily ration of rum. I sure hope they didn't discontinue that.

[Noble713]

As well, most battalions will cover territory in a relatively spread-out formation, so it would be difficult to hit the 'dead center' of a battalion to take it out entirely. For the purposes of nuclear damage calculations, we assume that the unit is relatively spread out in the hex - so for example, in a 20km wide hex, approx 400 sq km in area, a 100kt nuclear weapon would take out units in a 2km radius - less than 15 sq km in area, about 1/25th of the total hex.

The only problem is that a battalion, deployed for conventional high-intensity warfare, would almost never be spread across such a huge distance. Using the HEAVY OPFOR Tactics Handbook(1) as a general guide, a motorized rifle battalion deployed for an attack would have a formation no more than 4km deep and 3km wide. (2) A nuke blast 4km wide would envelop the entire battalion. I think annihilating a single battalion, with the others sustaining minor casualties, would be a better approach. I've never used nukes, but I assume that they currently fire at hexes, not individual units? Having them target individual units and completely destroy anything in the game would work.





(1) TRADOC Pamphlet 350-16. US Army Training and Doctrine Command. 1994.
(2) Figure 5-8. Battalion battle formations (reinforced MRB)

[George Geczy]

a motorized rifle battalion deployed for an attack would have a formation no more than 4km deep and 3km wide.

Yes, that's pretty much what I meant by 'spread out', I didn't mean to suggest that they would be filling the entire hex. However, as you point out, you have to hit close to the center to score a full kill; a hit on one edge of the 4km front would generally kill only half an NBC protected battalion, and hitting 4 km away from the edge would result in almost no casualties.

I think annihilating a single battalion, with the others sustaining minor casualties, would be a better approach. I've never used nukes, but I assume that they currently fire at hexes, not individual units? Having them target individual units and completely destroy anything in the game would work.

This is a good point. At present, a nuke blast does not 'target' any particular unit, unlike artillery fire, which has a 'target' that gets twice as much damage as all the other units in a hex. Since the nuke has no 'direct target', the result is all units suffer some damage, but no units suffer overwhelming damage. This may not be the best approach.

On the other hand, long range nuclear weapons (multi-stage, and inter-continental types) are not known for their pinpoint accuracy. Though Tactical nukes would have a very high accuracy level.

-- George.