BUG: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

[unmerged(12007)]

Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

As we all know, poor infrastructure slows down movement, and can cause org and strength loss. This also occurs at sea. Sea zones have a default infra value of 0, which causes enormous org and strength losses (except for AI controlled units).

Now, the problem with infra causing org and strength losses is not really a problem for human players. Humans can work around it.

The AI, however, does not. While 1.02 featured a no str loss for AI fleets at sea, they still lose organization, rendering them practically worthless in combat. The AI does not return ships to port long enough to regain the org. Anyone who has done many run throughs with FOW off will see the AI moving ships to and fro to seemingly little purpose; a subsequent save load and view of the AI units at sea shows nearly all of them with zero org left.

As for the land effects, the AI is relatively good at avoiding str losses due to attrition. However, its not perfect. There always seem to be a few AI units that for one reason or another (perhaps the AI is asleep? ) decide to plop down and stay in a 9 or 0 infrastructure province. This unnecessarily drains manpower.

A recent run through and save load review of AI forces in 1942 showed nearly all the major combattants with zero manpower left, and I'm going to take a guess that a good portion of the manpower losses were due to attrition.

We should seriously consider refactoring the entire infrastructure concept, with the goal of making it easier for the AI to handle itself strategically. Here are my suggestions.

1. Change all ocean provinces to infra 34 so that neither human nor AI takes any str or org losses from simply enjoying the sea. Str and org losses will come from combat as the only source. Correspondingly, at sea there should be a hardcoded rule that no unit at sea can gain org. Org should only be gained (up to the maximum allowed for that country / unit) in a port.

2. On land, perhaps another approach is needed. I like the movement effect of low infrastructure. Clearly a unit should not be able to move through dense unroaded jungle at the same speed with which it moves through Russian Steppe. But, we need to get rid of the STR losses on land. These are draining manpower away from the AI-controlled nations because the AI is deploying units in low infra provinces when there is no real need to.

So, in essence here we are talking about :

1. Removing all STR losses from low infra.

2. Applying ORG losses from low infra only to LAND units. (edit note : Land units that are actually on land, that is, not in a boat )

This would "help" the AI play a better game, and indeed make a better game overall even for human players.

 

[unmerged(12283)]

Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Bolt
1. Change all ocean provinces to infra 34 so that neither human nor AI takes any str or org losses from simply enjoying the sea. Str and org losses will come from combat as the only source. Correspondingly, at sea there should be a hardcoded rule that no unit at sea can gain org. Org should only be gained (up to the maximum allowed for that country / unit) in a port.

I'll second your comments, but add to the one above: naval units out at sea that have exceeded their range limits should still receive penalties(which may include lose or org, or decreased speed), but prob. shouldn't include lose of str and the eventual loss of the unit(as it is now).

Bolt, this is easy enough for modders to code, and if you want a province.csv with ocean terrain set to 34 let me know, and i'll email you mine.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Re: Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Sharpei_Diem
I'll second your comments, but add to the one above: naval units out at sea that have exceeded their range limits should still receive penalties(which may include lose or org, or decreased speed), but prob. shouldn't include lose of str and the eventual loss of the unit(as it is now).

Bolt, this is easy enough for modders to code, and if you want a province.csv with ocean terrain set to 34 let me know, and i'll email you mine.

I know this is easy to do for naval units, you can do a mass find replace of ocean;;;0; to ocean;;;35; in province.csv

However, the AI already doesn't take str losses in 1.02, just org losses. Also, they do run out of fuel, but the AI doesn't slow movement. These are hardcoded cheats which are necessary due to other limitations.

 

[State Machine]

Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

This is an enhancement kind of thing, too. But since it is so specific let's keep it here.

I've linked this thread to the beta discussion.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Re: Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by State Machine
This is an enhancement kind of thing, too. But since it is so specific let's keep it here.

I've linked this thread to the beta discussion.

No intent to offend but . . .

Sometimes in the production of software you get a slight disconnect between the various teams that produce bits and pieces of the product.

What we have here is the infra STR/ORG losses is causing AI to lose way more manpower to attrition, and render their battlefleets totally ineffective, and this can be explained as a disconnect between design and implementation.

Its not really a software bug, but it might not be a WAD either.

I hope that the discussion here can stay focussed on the fact that the STR ORG losses do have an impact on the effectiveness of the AI which is NOT what was intended either in Design or coding. Therefore, it should be rectified.

I think the suggestions I gave above, dispensing with STR losses altogether and applying org losses only to land units on land, would go a long way towards rectifying AI performance as it is impacted by these phenomenae. I could be wrong, and others should jump in and prove it.

 

[State Machine]

Don't worry, your observations are very seriously considered in the beta discussion.

 

[unmerged(8622)]

Bolt, do you think a quick fix would then be to cheat even more in favour of the AI's 'inadequacy' and give them zero losses in Org and STR?
-SS

 

[Vulture]

Marked as a bug

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by Shadow Soldier
Bolt, do you think a quick fix would then be to cheat even more in favour of the AI's 'inadequacy' and give them zero losses in Org and STR?
-SS

No, I am proposing that the reduction in infra effects be applied to human players as well. However, the dev team may consider the reduction only for the AI. Its up to them.

 

[Mithel]

I think we could help more if we knew more precisely how the game engine works. What is the strength loss (per day?) of a 9 infra province vs a 20 infra province?

As a "quick fix" I'm inclined toward making all provinces a minimum of 34 infrastructure. A better fix would be to the actual game design. I'm not convinced completely that their shouldn't be some strength loss (along with the org loss) from low infrastructure provinces. But this is potentially a huge problem for the AI (and troublesome for the novice player, maybe even the advanced player!).

There should be a difference between land and naval units. Land units should take some strength attrition from being in a jungle or desert (but these should be rare places on the map - the one next to Stalingrad makes no sense to me). Naval units basically need to return to port for supplies and fuel (unless we can model having transport ships meet them at sea). While they still have supplies and fuel they should have full combat effectiveness.

The game hints that it does these things but we lack enough real information to judge it well and the AI is always likely to struggle with such additional burdens such as figuring out when it's supplies or fuel are running low.

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12604)]

Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Bolt
The AI, however, does not. While 1.02 featured a no str loss for AI fleets at sea, they still lose organization, rendering them practically worthless in combat. The AI does not return ships to port long enough to regain the org. Anyone who has done many run throughs with FOW off will see the AI moving ships to and fro to seemingly little purpose; a subsequent save load and view of the AI units at sea shows nearly all of them with zero org left.

1. Removing all STR losses from low infra.

2. Applying ORG losses from low infra only to LAND units. (edit note : Land units that are actually on land, that is, not in a boat )

This would "help" the AI play a better game, and indeed make a better game overall even for human players.

Bolt,
I disagree completely that there should be no org loss for ships at sea. That represents wear and tear from sailing around and needs to be modeled. Maybe it needs to be toned down a little, but not much. Otherwise eleiminating it would allow players, human and AI alike to steam around unrealistically like they all have nuclear reactors and perfect maintenance.

I also disagree that about removing STR losses from low infra areas as this also represents wear and tear. It also gives players an incentive to stay in good infra provinces or suffer the consequnces. Once again eliminating this feature merely allows for unrealistic gameplay!

I do agree that the AI is too busy with it's naval units. I'm playing as the USA with FOW on and I've had an unbelievable number of naval battles. Almost always the AI is sending out units with zero org and getting whupped. And I see the same culprits, er I mean victims, time after time right after they've gotten whipped and sail out of the sea zone and then they're right back. It looks like they go into port and then a few hours later come back out for more punishment. The AI needs to leave fleets in port until they reach some certain minimum org before going back out. They also should do better at reparing ships after they sustain a certain level of damage. That would slow down the AI and improve it's gameplay far better than your suggestions!
Eric Larsen

 

[unmerged(11746)]

They'd have to stay in port until reaching their maximum ORG.

Reason:

If you set the AI to wait until 50% of max ORG then they will "always" come back out with 50% org... rendering that nations entire fleet (when at war) at half-org. Which handicaps them severely and negates half of any naval research into doctrinal org advancements.

Similarly the AI needs to learn how to group diferent naval types of differing ORGs:

Currently it throughs subs in with "anything" and this can lead to severe problems due to the different ORG-attrition rates. You can sink entire AI fleets whilst the subs in those fleets retain high enough ORG not to have the AI fleet retreat. (eg sank 37 out of 43 ships off Guam in one engagement - 6 survivors were the subs that caused the problems)

The issue there was that the AI grouped its entire zero-ORG capital ships with 6 full-org subs, result is a dead surface fleet before the subs lost enough ORG to retreat.

This issue is a gameplay one as:

The USA, having lost its "entire" pacific fleet, is now chasing to re-establish its AI-builld levels of naval vessels. Whilst there is some "realism" to this, and also some gameplay sense - the sheer severity of the loss is questionable (in that wwe know how it will effectively snafu the AI for that country for the rest of that game).

Dramatic losses for the AI, in any area, are not coped with atm... and i have to deliberately avoid massive success in any area of conflict so as not to render the AI useless for the rest of the game - that obviously isnt very good.

- - -

Seperate note on str/org loss:

Whatever he outcome can we PLEASE have an alert to when units start loosing str/org to attrition rather than when they are dead and gone from it - the former is useful the latter is rather useless.

EG: I have a british army in france under my british control (not an EF). The "supply rules" are such that this being supplied by the French AI.. and the supply overlay shows all allied country provinces as being "in supply".

But my units start loosing org and strength. Infrastructure is 60+, overlay shows "In supply". Unit details show "in supply". But the units loose org, str and then die.

Reason: French Country AI is not producing enough supplies to feed its own army and those of allied units on its lands. "proof" (not sure it is proof mind you) - Supply the french with 500 supplies by convoy - my troops start regaining org.

So it seems that despite being in a high infra province and "in supply" (according to the game) you cans till loose org/str as you are out of supply - but the game cant recognise this in the supply-rules.

A "early waring" would at lest let the player know something is up - even though it may appear otherwise.

 

[Soapy Frog]

The problem is more that 0 org ships can magically disengage from battle.

There has to be a better system...

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Re: Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Eric Larsen

Originally posted by Bolt
The AI, however, does not. While 1.02 featured a no str loss for AI fleets at sea, they still lose organization, rendering them practically worthless in combat. The AI does not return ships to port long enough to regain the org. Anyone who has done many run throughs with FOW off will see the AI moving ships to and fro to seemingly little purpose; a subsequent save load and view of the AI units at sea shows nearly all of them with zero org left.

1. Removing all STR losses from low infra.

2. Applying ORG losses from low infra only to LAND units. (edit note : Land units that are actually on land, that is, not in a boat )

This would "help" the AI play a better game, and indeed make a better game overall even for human players.

Bolt,
I disagree completely that there should be no org loss for ships at sea. That represents wear and tear from sailing around and needs to be modeled. Maybe it needs to be toned down a little, but not much. Otherwise eleiminating it would allow players, human and AI alike to steam around unrealistically like they all have nuclear reactors and perfect maintenance.

I also disagree that about removing STR losses from low infra areas as this also represents wear and tear. It also gives players an incentive to stay in good infra provinces or suffer the consequnces. Once again eliminating this feature merely allows for unrealistic gameplay!

I do agree that the AI is too busy with it's naval units. I'm playing as the USA with FOW on and I've had an unbelievable number of naval battles. Almost always the AI is sending out units with zero org and getting whupped. And I see the same culprits, er I mean victims, time after time right after they've gotten whipped and sail out of the sea zone and then they're right back. It looks like they go into port and then a few hours later come back out for more punishment. The AI needs to leave fleets in port until they reach some certain minimum org before going back out. They also should do better at reparing ships after they sustain a certain level of damage. That would slow down the AI and improve it's gameplay far better than your suggestions!
Eric Larsen

Eric, if I had my druthers, I'druther that org and str losses were applied in varying degrees due to low infra. My bias would be in favor of viewing org losses as the primary deleterious effect, because in my view a modern unit with very little supplies is able to keep all of its equipment and men unless they take combat losses, but those that exist in this condition would not be in "fighting shape" as the game text says.

However, the AI simply cannot handle the relationship between infra, org and str losses, and "the machine breaks down" here. Therefore these proposals are directed at providing greater AI capability, not "realism" per se. It is not realistic for an army to move across or remain in terrain that causes strength losses to the extent that the AI does this. In a word, the AI acts stupidly in this respect and depletes its own manpower pool simply because it doesn't take into account the effects of low infra. This is an unrealistic use of force, one that I think these proposals would lessen.

The overall effect, then, would be somewhat greater realism on the strategic level, and somewhat less realism on the tactical level.

 

[unmerged(12283)]

Originally posted by Mithel
I think we could help more if we knew more precisely how the game engine works. What is the strength loss (per day?) of a 9 infra province vs a 20 infra province?

As a "quick fix" I'm inclined toward making all provinces a minimum of 34 infrastructure. A better fix would be to the actual game design. I'm not convinced completely that their shouldn't be some strength loss (along with the org loss) from low infrastructure provinces. But this is potentially a huge problem for the AI (and troublesome for the novice player, maybe even the advanced player!).

There should be a difference between land and naval units. Land units should take some strength attrition from being in a jungle or desert (but these should be rare places on the map - the one next to Stalingrad makes no sense to me). Naval units basically need to return to port for supplies and fuel (unless we can model having transport ships meet them at sea). While they still have supplies and fuel they should have full combat effectiveness.

The game hints that it does these things but we lack enough real information to judge it well and the AI is always likely to struggle with such additional burdens such as figuring out when it's supplies or fuel are running low.

- Mithel

There seems to be some kind of problem occuring in games(others have noticed it too), where the ai suffers no org loss in low infrastructure provinces. I banged up against a SU tank division that was holed up for 6 months in what should have been an out of supply, low infrastructure area(20), only to find it's org was 89(su current armour max). However, it is unquestionable that the AI suffers attrition - I'm thinking that there have been a programming loophole, or that ai was meant to take less org loss than the human player(maybe starts at 20 not 34).

I don't think a game at this level needs a micromanagement element like manually controlled naval-resupply vessels. IMO a better solution is to assume that these things happen with modern navies (I hardly see Roosevelt being woken up at night "Sir, the Yorktown and Lexington ran out of fuel! We need you to send the tankers out so we don't lose them!"). In a historical sense, how many modern armies were destroyed by terrain, or navies lost because they ran out of fuel? True, the japanese suffered signifcant losses due to disease in the jungles of SE asia, but this seems a techological problem as the us did not suffer on a similar scale.

If i had my druthers(lol), i'd make weather more deadly and remove the impact of low infrastructure. Certainly, in the case of ships storms cause damage, and everyone recalls what winter on the steppes can do...

 

[unmerged(12283)]

Re: Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Eric Larsen
Bolt,
I disagree completely that there should be no org loss for ships at sea. That represents wear and tear from sailing around and needs to be modeled. Maybe it needs to be toned down a little, but not much. Otherwise eleiminating it would allow players, human and AI alike to steam around unrealistically like they all have nuclear reactors and perfect maintenance.

I also disagree that about removing STR losses from low infra areas as this also represents wear and tear. It also gives players an incentive to stay in good infra provinces or suffer the consequnces. Once again eliminating this feature merely allows for unrealistic gameplay!

Ships still suffer losses(at least human-controlled ones) when they travel beyond their range without stopping in port. Are you suggesting that a carrier leaving port is more combat effective, then when it arrives in the forward battle area a month later? Likely the opposite is true, crews in a known 'safe' area are probably less ready for combat than when they're approaching the battle...

How does an armour unit loosing org in a 10 inf province, while right beside it in a 40 org province, a similar armour unit isn't, properly represents wear and tear? Certainly it would impact them if they were fighting a battle, or in the speed with which they received supply or reinforcements, but if they were just sitting in a defensive formation?

Imagine a scenario: there's an area with heavily wooded, hilly terrain. Since it has few roads and is pretty inaccessible, it has a low infrastructure. You park a mech inf division there for defence. Will it get supply? of course! Would it's effectiveness be diminished for the post? No, probably the opposite: they'd establish ambush points, set artillery missions and prepare for the poor bastards that are going to have to come at them.

 

[Mithel]

Sharpei_Diem, that's a very interesting idea to reduce the effects of infrastructure and increase the effects of weather.

Bolt, I just watched a game (hands off while I fiddled with Mexico) and did some testing with the Mexican navy. Sailing out to sea the Mexican navy lost roughly 15 org per month. That seems reasonable (except that navies with low starting org can barely sail before they are worthless). And I saw no strength loss until they'd sailed beyond range. So at the moment I'm not very concerned with the naval infrastructure "problem".

The "rapid" org loss is going to look different to a player depending on if they are on extremely fast speed or on slow speed. At "extremely fast" it's just seconds before a navy has lost org, but that same effect on slow speed would be more like an HOUR of playing time.

It WOULD be nice to have some form of an indicator to let us know our units are losing org or strength due to lack of supply without having to manually monitor each unit.

More concerning (but off the topic of this thread) is the fact that the AI seems to have NO concept of garrison forces. The UK pulled it's units out of Suez and Gibraltar, Germany didn't even bother putting a unit on the coast even though the UK repeatedly invaded (and nearly reached Berlin each time before being driven back) and worst of all Italy suicided against Yugoslavia - they were persuing a war against Greece and when they won it their army was poised in the Balkans to attack Yugoslavia, BUT they forgot to have ANY ground units in Italy proper. So Italy declares war on Yugoslavia, Yugo forces drive south through Italy against NO resistance and soon Italy is wiped out!

- Mithel

 

[unmerged(12604)]

Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Sharpei_Diem
Ships still suffer losses(at least human-controlled ones) when they travel beyond their range without stopping in port. Are you suggesting that a carrier leaving port is more combat effective, then when it arrives in the forward battle area a month later? Likely the opposite is true, crews in a known 'safe' area are probably less ready for combat than when they're approaching the battle...

How does an armour unit loosing org in a 10 inf province, while right beside it in a 40 org province, a similar armour unit isn't, properly represents wear and tear? Certainly it would impact them if they were fighting a battle, or in the speed with which they received supply or reinforcements, but if they were just sitting in a defensive formation?

Sharpei-Diem,
I take it you guys haven't played Matrix's Uncommon Valor. You obviously aren't considering that just sailing around causes wear and tear on ship's systems, and that's what the org loss represents. Yes ships coming out of port are more combat-capable than ships a month at sea, maybe they're more ready for combat in a forward area but that doesn't count for much when something is broken. Consider the case of the US battleship that lost electrical power to the main gun turrets in one of the sea battles around Gaudalcanal just before it was to enter combat! It took them a little bit to fix and the ship was able to join the battle late but this is the kind of stuff that happens when ships sail around, things break!

Your example about the armor unit is perfect. Why should an armor unit in a low infrastructure province have the same staying power as one in a high infrastruture province? The high infra province is going to get better replacements because it's got a better transportation system and the low infra province is not a place to hang out with tanks. It's just plain stupid to think that tanks can operate just as well in a mountainous region as in the plains. Besides if they stay there they start to dig in and that digging in represents the setting up of ambush points and all those good defensive benefits. Having a higher org drop in low infra provinces is only proper modeling of modern combat.

Besides I don't see much detrimental effect in the game. I am playing the USA in my first HOI game and after Japan DOW'd me I ran across the Pacific and was able to land in Shanghai a year after Japan started the war with me. I was able to conquer almost all of China and Korea in about two months, in the dead of winter. I was traveling across the dog gone Himalayas with Patton leading an armor corps and I saw no real deleterious effects. Oh I ran out of gas for a few days while Patton was near Tibet but that cleared up quickly enough. I found that it was too easy and there was not enough org loss to my units that were almost constantly moving and fighting for two months straight!

Eric Larsen

 

[unmerged(12604)]

Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Bolt
Eric, if I had my druthers, I'druther that org and str losses were applied in varying degrees due to low infra. My bias would be in favor of viewing org losses as the primary deleterious effect, because in my view a modern unit with very little supplies is able to keep all of its equipment and men unless they take combat losses, but those that exist in this condition would not be in "fighting shape" as the game text says.

However, the AI simply cannot handle the relationship between infra, org and str losses, and "the machine breaks down" here. Therefore these proposals are directed at providing greater AI capability, not "realism" per se. It is not realistic for an army to move across or remain in terrain that causes strength losses to the extent that the AI does this. In a word, the AI acts stupidly in this respect and depletes its own manpower pool simply because it doesn't take into account the effects of low infra. This is an unrealistic use of force, one that I think these proposals would lessen.

The overall effect, then, would be somewhat greater realism on the strategic level, and somewhat less realism on the tactical level.

Bolt,
Try telling that to the Panzer truppen of the 48th Panzer Corps just as the Soviets unleashed Operation Uranus. Here they were in a back area of the front all safe and snug and when they jumped into their tanks what did they discover? Yeah they couldn't get their tanks started because mice had eaten away the electrical wiring. No, sitting around never causes material equipment losses does it Bolt?

I agree the AI plays dumb, but then AI has always stood for "Artificial Ignorance" in my book. If they gave the AI only no org loss for being in bad terrain I could overlook the historical inaccuracy for gaining a better computer opponent. But I would not want this crutch to be allowed for human players. I don't mind if the programmers give the AI some cheats to last longer, I just don't want to see this game dumbed down to make it easier for some of us humans to play.
Eric Larsen

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Re: Re: Time to Reconsider the Entire Infra Causing Org / Str loss thing (even at sea)

Originally posted by Eric Larsen

Bolt,
Try telling that to the Panzer truppen of the 48th Panzer Corps just as the Soviets unleashed Operation Uranus. Here they were in a back area of the front all safe and snug and when they jumped into their tanks what did they discover? Yeah they couldn't get their tanks started because mice had eaten away the electrical wiring. No, sitting around never causes material equipment losses does it Bolt?

[/B]

Well, that's just a tad personally insulting as it assumes I don't know of the insulation eating rats in Kalach-na-Donu, or the basic logical concept of things like rust. I do. Why were the rats there in the first place? Because the Germans started their engines every once in a while to keep the oil from freezing solid and seizing up the engines. This meant that the engine compartment was insulated from the wind, and also warm. It attracted little critters who wanted to stay warm. Little critters like to chew. However, I assure you that only 15-25% of the tanks were unable to move, and not all due to the critters. The fact is there were hundreds of Soviet tanks bearing down on them, and even at full strength 48 Pz did not have enough to stop them.

Did you know that one reason the German offensive against Moscow in November 1941 broke down was because of a lack of a special goo? Yes, a special goo that was put on the tank optics so that they wouldn't frost over. Like everything else designed to winterize the German Army that year, this too was not available, and the German tank gunners couldn't hit squat unless they first rubbed the frost off the lenses. Kinda difficult to do that in combat, especially for the external lens.

I said the *primary* deleterious effect would be loss of org. Not the sole effect. For very low infra, in a perfect game, STR losses would slowly apply in particularly low areas. So should things like really bad weather.

However, I think the basic game assumption is that all things being equal, units can maintain themselves in fighting order if they are not engaged. There is assumed to be a stream of supplies and so forth running to the units, a normal maintenance routine, etc.

I personally hate, and I don't think anyone really wants, a dumbed down game. I want the best AI we can get. Right now, STR and ORG losses are rendering a large part of the AI forces totally useless. How often have you seen an air unit or some other unit deployed in a low infra province by the AI for long periods of time? I'm sick of seeing UK divisions march from Victoria falls to Alexandria, arriving at zero org and probably close to zero strength. I'm sick of seeing the Japanese fleet in the Kurile Islands Sea for the entire war, at zero org no doubt, while the JPN AI engine says to itself, gee I'd like to go attack the Americans, but I have no fleets that can do anything . . . what should I do . . . I know, I'll rest the fleet in the Kurile Islands Sea . . . rinse, repeat, etc.

Erik : propose some solutions that balance what we all want in terms of realism, playability, and the known strengths/weaknesses of AI use of force.

And, BTW, I have played Uncommon Valor and personally think that game is one of the best wargames on the market. I contributed massively to those forums as well, and if I told you my handle there, you would recognize it