FITE2 units movement (into enemy territory)

[Lobster]

Bias is broken? Mech unit now moves farther than infantry unit. Or does 150% movement bias mean terrain costs are 150% more, not 150% more movement given to the moving units? It could be like the recon level where many of us thought if you changed the value to the desired recon level it would be that level. When actually you had to add (+) or subtract (-) the desired amount from the existing value.

I'm thinking it may not be broken at all. Rather the value has been misinterpreted in how it works. So if this scenario designer wanted to give the Axis a reduced terrain cost the value should actually be 50% not 150%.

[Curtis Lemay]

Here are the movement adjustments I made to CFNA due to its scale:

Force Movement Bias: 153
Enemy Hex Conversion Cost: 29 (2.9% per hex instead of 10% per hex)
Supply Cost of Movement: 11 (0.11 per MP instead of 1 per MP)
Readiness Cost of Movement: 29 (0.29 per hex instead of 1 per hex)

Those changes were NOT made because CFNA was some sort of special situation. They were made because that specific hex scale (5km/hex and half-week turns) had been intentionally mucked up by ole Norm (for reasons only he knows). They were made to make the scale function the way the other scales that Norm considered "normal" worked (for example: 5km/hex and full-day turns).

[TPOO]

Also, while the scale chosen is 5km per hex the actual map is 6km per hex, meaning you have moved a further distance, instead of 85 km is probably closer to 100km

Bob, I am not sure Soren was aware of this issue with 5km hex scale and if it poses a problem or not for this scenario, as it has appeared that it is balanced the way it is. I will forward him this info in case he wants to update.

Thanks.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: gliz2

I will post pictures later on but generally I'm seeing quite the opposite. So instead of being able to cover up to 200 km per turn I can barely make 85 km in first turn. I have tried few thing but to no avail.
And a single combat results in even lower ranges. Same for the movements on the road.

When recon unit is moving in own territory the cost per highway/road hex is 1 but behind enemy line is 4 points. For infantry it goes from 1 to 3 points. Makes no sense to me [&:]

@Lobster
Mate I'm writing about movement and not advance. Movement is moving unit dfrom point A to B. Advance is getting through enemy lines. Get it out of your system Sir [;)]

Unless you're feeling particularly suicidal, movement in enemy territory isn't a nice Sunday drive back home. You're moving about 1 vehicle in 4 at a time leapfrogging from one overwatch spot to the next while dismounts beat the bush looking for holdouts and stay behinds just waiting to launch an ambush into your flank/rear.

[docgaun]

Hmm. I agree that is a problem. We will look into it. A bit of testing seems, that enemy hex conversion cost set to 50% might work? Does this seem like a good solution? Any other ideas?
Thanks for the input. Appriciate it very much.

The there will be a new update out shortly

[gliz2]

Dan
In military you have stances for movement. And although I generally agree that it might be suicidal on some occasions it's a must to push hard. Come to think of it the whole idea of paratroopers is suicidal. Guys flew in unarmoured pkanes into enemy territory, jumping out of them with very limited means in hope the main force will arive before they get annihilated

But back to FITE2. I do understand the point presented by you. So is it different for Infantry then? How come infantry regiment on foot, in the exactly same game circumstances, move further than a Panzer Regiment. Am I missing something here? We are talking about tactical movements not on operational scale (moving dividions or Corps). I read one study about the Barbarossa campaign and I have the below figures in mind (they might be a bit off of course):
Infantry Div marching speed was 25-30 km per day (2-3km/h)
Motorised Div marching speed was 70-80 km per day (6-10 km/h).
Panzer Div marching speed was 110-120 km per day (8-15 km/h).
The values had been much different for advancing movements but if I recall not by more than 30-40% (Pz Div indeed were the slowest).
But when you talk tactical movements like rushing with a Kampfgruppe or recon elements or even with foot infantry the story was different. Even in Napoleonic wars the whole Infantry Corp could move 35 km per day into enemy territory (effectively marching 3.5-4 km/h).

During War in the East on many occasions armoured/mechanized elements were used for rushing into enemy territory (the whole Blitzkrieg was based on it).

And my final gripe. If I move the division' elements first goes recon which does it's job of reconnaissance for the others. Why then this "clearing the road ahead" effect is not represented in the game? You can still get ambushed (not really with this game engine) but the movement would have been much quicker than if Tanks were on the spearhead.

I'm just trying to figure the mechanics behind it. It's a game and has little to do with real warefare. So sometimes it's counterintuitive

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: docgaun

Hmm. I agree that is a problem. We will look into it. A bit of testing seems, that enemy hex conversion cost set to 50% might work? Does this seem like a good solution? Any other ideas?
Thanks for the input. Appriciate it very much.

The there will be a new update out shortly

The Force Movement Bias should be scaled down by 5/6. So, it would be about 127 or 128.

The costs, however, are adjusted for the turn interval only. So, they should stay the same as in CFNA.

[Gandalf]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Here are the movement adjustments I made to CFNA due to its scale:

Force Movement Bias: 153
Enemy Hex Conversion Cost: 29 (2.9% per hex instead of 10% per hex)
Supply Cost of Movement: 11 (0.11 per MP instead of 1 per MP)
Readiness Cost of Movement: 29 (0.29 per hex instead of 1 per hex)

Those changes were NOT made because CFNA was some sort of special situation. They were made because that specific hex scale (5km/hex and half-week turns) had been intentionally mucked up by ole Norm (for reasons only he knows). They were made to make the scale function the way the other scales that Norm considered "normal" worked (for example: 5km/hex and full-day turns).

I decided to make these changes and see the effect. Problem is the TOAW IV Scenario Editor is still not ready for prime time usage yet.

I get as far as saving the game scenario in (.xml) format, editing the changes suggested above including both enemy force biases, and the three other variables, save it, reload it with XML Notepad 2007 to ensure the changes took, then go back to the Scenario Editor which then proceeds to LOCK UP reloading the edited game (XML) file. (and yes, I even let it auto name the xml file with the extension .gam, then I tried manually extension naming it .xml) NADDA. Nothing worked.

I would hope in the supposed upcoming TOAW IV patch that someone might actually patch the scenario editor so that it actually works without these frustrating issues. I have several ideas for scenarios that I have given up on due to the current flaws of the scenario editor.

[sPzAbt653]

Problem is you went outside the TOAW IV Scenario Editor and tried to use xml, which has always been shakey at best, and usually ruins what you are doing, although some use it and claim it is good. There is no reason to take the extra time and steps to do that. Those four changes can be made in two minutes using the Editor in TOAW.

[Gandalf]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Problem is you went outside the TOAW IV Scenario Editor and tried to use xml, which has always been shakey at best, and usually ruins what you are doing, although some use it and claim it is good. There is no reason to take the extra time and steps to do that. Those four changes can be made in two minutes using the Editor in TOAW.

edit> I first tried it directly with the editor itself, but I could not find where to directly edit these variables. The editor for me is extremely hard to use (without tooltips) since I have to basically disable tooltips to prevent black boxes from covering everything up as I mouse over the work area (another dumb flaw of the NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME TOAW IV Scenario Editor. I'm using a regular Microsoft hardware mouse... not a software mouse.

I thought possibly about going back and purchasing TOAW III to utilize it's editor (thinking FITE was first produced for TOAW III, but on further thought, the mouse problem might have existed in that editor also and just got ported over to TOAW IV's editor. No sense putting more money into an unknown.

I also retried it using WordPad to edit it as a text file (which in reality is all an xml file is (a formatted text file). That didn't work either. This points to the Scenario Editor itself being flawed in its import/export of XML files. Also, I've never had an issue editing xml files before with other games, but those games use the xml file itself and don't require a flawed editor to retranslate the xml file into a game file.

edit> I was finally able to get the changes entered via the Scenario Editor Menu... I had to go back again to Bob Cross's Scenario Editor tutorial sticky for explanations on using the Editor. (The TOAW IV manual was not cutting the mustard). I was looking for the variable changes on the Force Editor popup box itself, not realizing it was implemented by changing the menu items from above AFTER the Force Editor was opened. (very non-intuitive). Yes, this was easy to do as an editing of an existing scenario. However, the clumsiness of using this editor defined by the black boxes (necessitating disabling tooltips), and poor implementation of import/export of xml files precludes any enjoyment I might find in designing my own scenarios from the ground up.

And another minor annoying but stupid behavior of the editor is that it hammers you with the pounding music over and over again even though it's disabled in the game, necessitating sound muting or going into any game scenario before exiting and starting the editor. Why in the name of you know who doesn't the editor take the settings from the game into account?

[sPzAbt653]

It takes some getting used to, but so does any other game with an editor. They are all different and have their un-intuitive areas. If you don't want to peruse the manual for a possible answer or watch a video, just ask here. And don't use xml [:)]