The Competition & Teaser Thread

[Strela]

Units will not ignore AOF unless they have definitively been spotted or have fired themselves and removed their concealed status.

Thanks for the answers so far, but I'm still wondering how a unit would detect it has been spotted, if that's no longer automatic.

Using your example: let's say the enemy recon unit used recon spotting and suddenly the units he's adjacent to would be revealed. However, based on what you wrote earlier, the hidden units wouldn't be aware of that because they don't automatically detect they've been spotted.

What would trigger the defending units to open fire?

You're now starting to see the depth of nuance this feature can have.

I'll try and answer your questions with an example and see how I go....

As you are highlighting the concept of being concealed, using reconnaissance and controlling fire with the Assign Opportunity Fire (AOF) values are all inter-related. One of the beauties of this interrelation is that players may not KNOW they have been spotted. If a player has successfully used his recon assets to see an enemy, how would the enemy necessarily know that they had been spotted?

Also importantly AOF is ONLY for the defensive fire phase of the opponents turn. AOF tells the AI when it should consider breaking its concealment. Once a units has fired using AOF it's concealment is broken and it uses the normal defensive fire AI for any subsequent shots. Actions by the phasing player may reveal both his units and potentially the enemies. Non phasing players units will reveal themselves only via the AOF table or being spotted.


I went back and tested the code and setup an example scenario.

The forces included were a small German recon group and two stacks of Soviet infantry & AT Guns. The Soviets are all set to never fire using AOF.

Here are the units in the various stacks. The two stacks of Soviets are identical;



Here are the three hexes the stacks are in. All are grass and considered to give sufficient cover for concealment;



Here are the forces setup before running the scenario;



Here is what the German player sees in his first turn. No enemy units are visible.



The armoured car unit using recon spotting reveals an AT gun. This is the only hex that could be revealed as the other Soviet stack is out of line of sight (LOS) of the armoured car. Note the Russian infantry unit that is in the same hex as the AT gun was not revealed;



At this point the armoured car, aware that there is an AT Gun in the hex choses to try and not expose itself. It retreats back, hoping that it is out of LOS of any other concealed Soviets. Leaving the motorcycle unit behind allows the German to keep the revealed AT gun in LOS , but at the same time does not reveal the motorcycle as it has not spent any movement points.



Ending the turn, the Soviets see no enemy units at the start of their turn. If the Russian player had not watched the replay he would be unaware that a recon unit had been present and he would be unaware that any of his units had been spotted. The view from the Soviet perspective is unchanged;



At the start of the next German turn, the AT gun is still revealed as it remained in the LOS of the motorcycle platoon. The Germans can call in artillery on the spotted AT gun hex at full effect. Its important to note that this artillery could have been called in on the first turn as the motorcycle unit had not moved;



Calling artillery fire actually shows men being killed, despite them not being revealed. This is due to the alternate artillery rule that potentially hits all units in the hex;



You can also blind fire on suspected enemy positions (at 1/4 effect) in any hex in LOS;

---

To test the revealed AT guns response to enemy units the motorcycle platoon moves. The AT gun did not fire on it;



The Soviet AT gun does fire once at the armoured car once it moves in its LOS for a number of hexes;



To test the infantry, the turn is run again and the AT gun finally fires when the infantry are adjacent;



Ending the turn this is the view from the Soviet side. Both German recons are revealed as they have moved and remained in LOS. It is not clear to the Soviet player which of his forces (if any) have been revealed, but there has been some effective shelling of one of his positions;


From the German perspective, they can still only see the AT gun unit. The infantry stacked with the AT gun has not expended any movement points and not revealed itself despite being shelled, while the adjacent hex of Soviets remains concealed and its actions controlled by AOF;



So what does this all mean?


Most of these rules only apply to the enemy turn. AOF controls when units will fire and reveal themselves. Units will only opportunity fire if an enemy unit in LOS expends movement points and they are at a range that satisfies the AOF rules. Please note that indirect fire units only require a spotting unit to have LOS.

There is an important point that I clarified with John Tiller. Once a unit is revealed it always defaults to normal defensive fire. This means that units like the AT gun in our example ignore AOF and immediately default to the normal routines. These routines may choose not to fire with the unit at all and this may not be an indicator to a player that his unit has broken concealment. The code is written this way because John wanted AOF to be paired with persistent concealment and not to impact any other AI routines. I didn't understand that point until I clarified it.


Do let me check I answered your questions.

1) There's a (stack of) Soviet hidden unit(s) in a hex.
2) A German recon unit of a target type the defending units won't fire at moves adjacent to the stack.
3) It uses recon spotting to spot the hidden units. Possibly, air recon is used instead of recon spotting, but the result is that the Soviet unit(s) is/are revealed.

First question: what happens to the opportunity fire preference of the Soviet unit(s), assuming they don't detect they've been spotted like you posted earlier?

I was wrong. Once a unit loses concealment due to spotting (even if not obvious to the owning player) it ignores the opportunity fire preference and moves to the normal defensive fire routines. This does not mean it will fire, It may be like our example and only fire when units are close.

4) Another German attacking unit is within visual range, but outside the opportunity fire preference range of the Soviet unit(s).

Second question: are the hidden units now also visible to this unit?

Yes. It can be direct fired on by any unit in LOS or have indirect fire called in by units that have not expended movement points and have LOS.

5) In case the answer to that question is "yes", the German player now calls in artillery fire.

Third question: what happens to the Soviet opportunity fire preferences now?

As the unit has already been revealed, it ignores the AOF values. If it subsequently recovers persistent concealment then the AOF values determines when it will next fire.

6) In case the answer to question 2 was yes, the German player selects the second unit (the one in visual range, but outside opportunity fire preference range) and fires with direct fire at the defending Soviet unit(s).

Fourth question: what happens to the Soviet opportunity fire preferences now?

Same as the answer to your third question.


All in all, I am probably confusing more than I'm clarifying! These are routines that many of the testers didn't use and weren't aware existed. The players that did use AOF found they could do some clever things, but it was hard to be consistent with them. Where I think they will work particularly well is in HTH games where a couple of experienced players use the surprise value of persistent concealment. Only playing the game and trying these routines will show what they can be used for.

David

---

Some additional questions, sorry to give you such a headache David.

-What happens when a vehicle with passengers drives into a minefield, do both units (AFV+passengers) take losses "normally" even though the infantry isn't walking and thus less vulnerable to anti-personnel mines?

-What happens when a vehicle with passengers is fired at by an attacker without a soft attack value for that range (by a weapon with a greater hard attack range than soft attack range for example)? Can the passengers ever take losses from such an attack (possibly simulating tanks exploding after the ammo was hit or brewing up)?

-What happens if a vehicle is destroyed, and the unit of vehicles is no longer capable of carrying all of the passengers? Do the passengers automatically dismount the moment after the carrying capacity is exceeded or will the vehicle unit become "encumbered" (as they'd say in D&D) and would it not be able to move until the passengers are removed (like in PzC where the arrival of reinforcements or regaining strength can cause a stack to go over the stacking limit), with the passengers still staying on top of the vehicle until the player manually removes them on his next turn?

-What happens when a unit with passengers is merged into a bigger unit with platoons without passengers, if this is possible?

-Where do the passengers go when that unit is split-up again, provided the combining could take place?

-What happens when, as strengths are averaged out when broken down, when the multiple platoon/company unit is broken down none of its components would have enough vehicles to be able to carry the passengers, provided the combining could take place with passengers so they're still around?

-Are the opportunity fire preferences rounded up or down in terms of hexes? Say a unit is set to S with a maximum range of 4, does that mean it will fire at targets up to 2 hexes away or just the adjacent hex? Based on your description, I assume there's no way to have long range weapons only fire at targets adjacent to it or possibly up to 2 hexes. For example: the range 16 Tiger in the example would when set to S fire at targets at 5 or 6 hexes away, so still more than 1 kilometre away. The opportunity fire preference mechanism might as such give better results for shorter ranged units, because it's easier to set up an actual ambush with them.

I need some time to test your questions in detail.

Here is the write-up I have in the FAQ.

Vehicles can carry foot infantry even if they are not transport units. These external riders are limited to 5 men per vehicle. Riding a tank into battle is extremely risky and this has been taken into account. There is a defense value in the parameter data file, called ‘Exterior Defense’ that sets the defense value of riders to 4 (vs. the normal 16). External riders can be fired on by soft attack values even when the transporting vehicle is hard. External riders will be eliminated when the vehicle they are on is in an assault, no matter whether they are attacking or defending in the assault. Finally, External riders are 4 times more vulnerable to minefield attacks.

David

---

A little questions about converters, they are included in PzB 01??? if they are included, is possible convert maps from PzC??? if they are not included, i dont know if you try the converter with small maps from PzC but works good enough to release teaser mods??? i think in release a test mod with lets see a west scenario, a desert scenario and a east scenario (in other time period like 1941 or 44) all them from PzC titles and small to medium scenarios as a way to explore players preferences.

The converters are only for the designers.

You will get a tool where you can create sub-maps from any of the maps included with the game. This is the same as the tool currently available in Panzer Campaigns.

David