1914 ADF is rediculous

[jonnymacbrown]

I've played about 60 campaign turns by now and so I've watched a lot of replays and seen lots of ADF. I remember the design notes saying something about not wanting MG sections to be like death rays but that's just they way the behave in ADF: It is really frustrating to set up a strong point armed with arty and MG and watch them fire at everything else up to 4000 yards away except the 2000 men in the next hex. This lends itself to cheating too. Most of us play it straight but who doesn't soften up a hex with an arty bombardment. Would any arty commander elevate his guns to engage in long-range counter-battery fire with 2000 enemy infantry a few hundred yards away? It's not just counter-battery fire either: If I want to assault a strong point all I have to do is trot some cavalry and/or command units within the line of sight of the defending hex and watch the arty fire away oblivious to the extreme threat in the adjacent hex. I just watched one where my 75mm battery was silent to the assault that knocked out half its guns but could very well fire at some inconsequential movement 4 hexes away just before they got blasted. MG sections do the same thing, blissfully popping away, left and right like laser cannons on the battlestar galactica, at any movement or fire within range except the power packed hex right next to them. I also can't believe I'm the only fellow who sees this. What would it take to program the ADF to fire first only at adjacent hexes? jonny :conf:

[Volcano Man]

Is this your second attempt to get ADF changed? Sorry, but ADF has functioned this way since Smolensk '41 (and MG units don't fire out to 4km, but I guess you are talking about field guns). Anyway, it happens in PzC and can equally cause headaches with armored cars dancing around drawing AT gun fire before the tanks move in. There isn't much that can be done about that, not to mention, who says it is isn't realistic to have a unit draw some fire? I don't consider it a cheat, but to each his own I guess.

My suggestion is the same suggestion given for any of these games where you don't think ADF functions in the way they want it to: turn on Manual Defense Fire and play it as phased play. If enough people complained about it at Tillercon then I suppose John could consider adding in some function to PzC, MC and FWWC to where you can tell some units to hold their long range fire, but until something like that happen, I don't think there will be any major changes in the engine here.

[jonnymacbrown]

"If enough people complained about it at Tillercon then I suppose John could consider adding in some function to PzC, MC and FWWC to where you can tell some units to hold their long range fire, but until something like that happen, I don't think there will be any major changes in the engine here."

OK, I understand. However, I remember about 10 years ago when it was still possible for people to contact Tiller by email, myself and some others pointed out some major problems in the Civil War ADF. Tiller fixed it and in a few days an update was out solving the problem. I guess the problem is more pronounced in 1914 where field guns and MG sections are a big part of the French Army's firepower, or it might be said, the only part of that Army that has any firepower. In PzC direct fire field guns are of no account, the big guns are all indirect fire, and the AFVs pack so much punch you don't mind seeing them take a 2 hex shot at some movement. 1914 is lots of fun but with the ADF the way it is, the German Army is a bit like The Borg, and who has the time to double the turns with MDF? I would venture to guess that with MDF, the German Army's offensive wouldn't get very far. jonny

[jonnymacbrown]

"Tiller fixed it and in a few days an update was out solving the problem."

BTW, this was back in the BG days and the immediate fix came on his website. So he can fix problems like this lickity split if he wants to. jonny

[Volcano Man]

True, anyone can email HPS a comment or a "problem" and who knows what will come of it. Try it, who knows what will happen. I am not saying that I am against an improvement here -- I only mentioned Tillercon, because it is an opportunity to have group discussions about old issues. It is kind of hard when something has been this way for over 10 years to just come out of the blue and say "this is ridiculous and must be fixed NOW", well, you can get in line behind many other people who have their own pet peeves with these games. ;) This is especially worse when the only perfect solution is right there in front of you: turn on the MDF optional rule.

But seriously, who knows, maybe an improvement will be made here in future games in the series. But this leads us back to Tillercon. It is by far the best setting to discuss these age old issues (and meet some good people). Sadly though, it seems that not many people are able to attend them.

[Mr Grumpy]

You both make good points, this issue has been around since the start of the PzC series and is no worse in F14 apart from the greater amount of ranged weapons may make it seem worse. I think we have all grown to accept that the ADF will not always do what you want it to and i think because we have got used to "god like" total control over our forces (which no commander really had) we tend to get frustrated at anything that is variable, it is just our human nature.

If you want to play a large scenario PBEM in a reasonable amount of time then ADF can be a downside, i believe it could be improved but will always be a variable that we cannot control. ;)

Ed is correct that a TillerCon discussion group is the place to really thrash these issues out face to face, it is a pity that the US is such a vast country and getting a reasonable amount of people to one spot is difficult.

[Marquo]

[/quote]

Ed is correct that a TillerCon discussion group is the place to really thrash these issues out face to face, it is a pity that the US is such a vast country and getting a reasonable amount of people to one spot is difficult.
[/quote]

So maybe John could make himself available for a webinar or online chat. With current available cheap or free PC technologies it is much more efficient and expeditious to communicate in this manner; I went to the first Tillercon and talked with JT about the AT guns - and soon after they no longer had ZOC...so he can/will do things when a logical, cogent arguemnt is made for change. Frankly, it is not inexpensive but it was great meeting the HPS gang, Rick, Marty, etc.

Marquo

[Al]

Ed is correct that a TillerCon discussion group is the place to really thrash these issues out face to face, it is a pity that the US is such a vast country and getting a reasonable amount of people to one spot is difficult.

Now that it seems as if the convention will be held in the same location and the same time (Don't hold me to that!) hopefully more can attend. It's really a great time.

FWIW, many of the concerns that were brought up here on the message board did get discussed at TillerCon.

[jonnymacbrown]

"It is kind of hard when something has been this way for over 10 years to just come out of the blue and say "this is ridiculous and must be fixed NOW", well, you can get in line behind many other people who have their own pet peeves with these games. ;) This is especially worse when the only perfect solution is right there in front of you: turn on the MDF optional rule."

Who is coming out of the blue? I brought the issue up and got no response so I ratcheted things up, called it "ridiculous" and finally got a reply. And from reading the comments these issues have been around for quite some time. MDF is not a prefect solution. It's quite a struggle to play these 150 turn campaign games. MDF would make it 300 turns and nobody wants to go back to that. The solution is an easy one, but first the problem must be recognized; it is completely unrealistic for a WWI MG section of 30 men to be firing first at enemy movement 1000 yards away to starboard, then switch fields of fire to shoot at enemy movement 1000 yards away to port and not fire at all upon an enemy massed right in front of them. Ditto with artillery: There is no artillery commander ever who will raise the elevation of his guns to engage in long range counter-battery fire when enemy infantry is engaged in a mass assault upon his position. These issues don't matter in PzC because AT guns and other ranged guns are almost less than useless. In WWI campaigns these guns are the basis of the French Army's fire power.
Jonny

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"You both make good points, this issue has been around since the start of the PzC series and is no worse in F14 apart from the greater amount of ranged weapons may make it [i]seem worse. I think we have all grown to accept that the ADF will not always do what you want it to and i think because we have got used to "god like" total control over our forces (which no commander really had) we tend to get frustrated at anything that is variable, it is just our human nature."[/i]

I have to disagree with you Commander. It doesn't seem worse in WWI campaigns, it is worse. As I've said, ranged guns in PzC are most of the time completely useless except to hold a protected hex until destroyed. In WWI they are the basis of the French Army's firepower and without them the French Army can't do anything except retreat. I'm not asking for godlike control but I know what you mean. This isn't that but rather asking for just a semblance of realism. You must have seen artillery batteries fire away at command units 4 hexes distant while withholding fire against an over-stacked adjacent enemy controlled hex. Why should MG sections, 30 men with 2 guns, fire at enemy activity in every direction except where it matters; right in front of them? What was passable in PzC is absurd in F-14.

If you want to play a large scenario PBEM in a reasonable amount of time then ADF can be a downside, i believe it could be improved but will always be a variable that we cannot control. ;)

From my experience these ADF problems are easy to deal with once there is a consensus there is a problem. I personally witnessed John Tiller make an apparently complicated fix in a matter of days. I'm not against variables, they are an important element in any game system. But watching units behave in an impossibly ahistorical manner must be disturbing to anyone. Fixing a program so that units in ADF withhold fire when the adjacent hex is occupied by the enemy can't be that big a deal. jonny

[Volcano Man]

Who is coming out of the blue? I brought the issue up and got no response so I ratcheted things up, called it "ridiculous" and finally got a reply.

Point taken, some might call your actions to illicit a response as a mild form of trolling, maybe I should not have taken the bait. I will keep that in mind in the future.

Anyway, I am not going to debate the issue with you; I said there is room for improvement here, but I play this game every day with others myself and while ADF can improve, it is far from ridiculous. Actually, debating aside, maybe I should make a few more comments to clarify some things:

These issues don't matter in PzC because AT guns and other ranged guns are almost less than useless.

I am not even sure what "almost less than useless" means in regards to painting it as a prettier picture for PzC, but your argument that the same ADF "issues" are less severe (or, as you said "passable") in PzC is totally invalid. Let's forget about the obvious: the 88mm FLAK gun firing at 4km at a zig zagging armored car before tanks and infantry move in for the kill, this isn't even the most prevalent case. The more prevalent issue is in the case of EVERY single unit, regardless of range, in that someone can sap fire by recognizing that say, the defensive fire unit is less effective against targets of a certain classification (hard / soft). AT gun and tank units can have their defensive fire sapped away by infantry from the latter making all sorts of "noise" and "distractions" to get the unit to fire, then tanks can move in for the kill or combined arms assault. So, ranged fire of > 1 hex is irrelevant, the same issue is just as important with range of 1: the fact that units in ADF *will* fire at things you don't want them to, because, in the example here, they should be saving their hard attack fire for tanks.

A perfect example of this (in stock and _Alt scenarios, it does not matter) is practically any PzC late war German tank which is very effective at hard attack. You want to kill them, so, to do that you need to hit them with tanks. You therefore draw their fire with infantry until they have fired three times, THEN you hit them with your tanks. The same is especially true in MC series with all units. In that series, ATGM units immediately come to mind: draw their fire off with infantry, which is much less severe, then hit them with something else and then assault them with combined arms or move by them easily with tanks. Or, draw their fire with those unimportant hard target recon units, then move in for the kill or bypass with the tanks. Now, flip the whole issue on its head; in MC and PzC, lets say you want to destroy those pesky late war infantry that have a hard attack range of 1. So, you bring in some heavy, high defense hard target units to sap all their fire which will most likely be ineffective, then bring in infantry to do some serious damage to them after they have expended all their MPs. How is any of this any less important than what you describe in F14? It is less important to you, because it does not help your argument given that the behavior that you seem to be totally intolerant of has existed for over 10 years -- you want change NOW, so you have to say that the issue is more prevalent in F14 but, no, it is not.

Furthermore, the reason we, the gaming community (at least I like to consider myself as part of the community), have come to live with the idiosyncrasies of ADF is because who says that it is not an unrealistic tactic to "draw fire" with some units? At least that was a viable tactic when I was in the military (the phrase that we often said: "move out and draw fire" comes to mind), as in, sometimes you had to draw fire for other units. Reconnaissance by fire, tactical diversions, and actions to draw fire so that a unit can be flanked all come to mind. This is at least how I have justified it all in my mind since playing Smolensk back in the late 90s. On the one hand, someone might rightly say that you need to protect these units a little better, because the real damage you do is on YOUR turn, not the enemy's turn, so if the enemy can plan and execute certain movement and actions to negate your effectiveness by sapping their fire, then move in to deal with you on better terms, what is wrong with that? You can do the exact same thing on your turn. If you are relying on defensive fire to do your effective deadly work then you are already in the wrong to begin with. To me the current behavior takes even more unrealistic direct control from the commander and leaves it up the units who, during this time period, made plenty of mistakes. The FWWC series goes out of its way to take unrealistic levels of control away from the commander and induce error as was the case during this period of warfare (ie. fratricide with plotted fire, or, in this case, local level AI units firing at things you don't want them to shoot at). I am perfectly fine with the current ADF behavior for that fact alone.

But that is just it really: we all have our own opinion on what is important and what needs to be addressed -- this is very low on my own personal list of things that need to be improved. If you are totally intolerant of how ADF currently behaves, then you have three choices:

1) Play with MDF on (I didn't say MDF was a "perfect solution" in the sense that it makes it easy or practical to play PBEM games, I am saying that it is the ONLY perfect solution if you want complete control over defensive fire)
2) Email HPS about it with some "solutions" or suggestions on how to improve it in all series
3) Attend Tillercon and bring it up

Option #3 is the best way to get results of changing the system. What more needs to be said?

*edited: typos & clarification*