Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic
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Close Combat Series -> The Mess

#1: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: vobbnobb PostPosted: Tue Nov 22, 2016 9:01 pm
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John Anderson, Lead AI / Game System Designer for Atomic Games


The Close Combat series of games have always been very detailed in how they represent warfare during the 1940's in Europe. We have striven to maintain historical accuracy wherever possible as long as it doesn't adversely affect game play. The following are just a few of the interesting details that the AI and Game System in Close Combat III account for

*If a soldier goes berserk, he can cause other teammates to go berserk as well

*A panicked, inexperienced soldier will more likely damage his jammed weapon than fix it.

*Experienced tank drivers make the tank more difficult to disable, as they know how to best use terrain and the angle of the tank against an enemy.

*Experienced teams will employ advanced squad tactics when moving. For example, in some settings one or more soldiers ahead of the rest of the team will stop to provide cover from the enemy while the rest of the team runs by.

*HEAT (high explosive, anti-tank) rounds have reduced effectiveness if fired at a tank that has Schurzen (a metal skirt on the outside of the tank) or if the tank is behind some form of light cover that could pre-detonate the round.

*Soldiers in depressions such as foxholes and trenches cannot be overrun by a tank, and more experienced soldiers will actually try to move out of the way first.

*Prone soldiers are easier to hit if the shooter has a height advantage

*Soldiers with grenades have a small chance of immobilizing an enemy tank if they can get within a few meters of the tank and place a grenade on the engine or in the tracks.

#2: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: Pzt_CrackwiseLocation: Switzerland PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 3:45 am
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"Soldiers in depressions such as foxholes and trenches cannot be overrun by a tank, and more experienced soldiers will actually try to move out of the way first. "

So they mean that tanks can actually overrun inf in CC games? This has been a CC myth for so long, some claiming thy saw it, some saying that people are imagining things :)

I personally have not seen infantry being overrun in any CC game. Having read the thing above, I would guess that the developers originally had such a thing in the game but then removed it due to various reasons.

#3: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: TejszdLocation: Canada PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 6:43 am
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Yes a tank can run over infantry on the ground and kill them.

#4: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: Sequoia PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 7:23 am
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Hello:

Yes, tanks can overrun infantry. I see this type of attack two times, first in CC3 by a KV at Red Square map, the second by a T-34 in COI Romanian mod in Moscow2 map. I guess that's a rare ocurrence maybe for the combination of factors for a succesfull overun attack. The tank must be spot the inf but not fire with the armament and the infantry must be not try to use grenades/molotov/other close range weapons or surrender.

Bye

#5: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: mooxe PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 7:34 am
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Yeap, I have ran over many soldiers.

#6: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: southern_land PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 11:27 am
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Yep likewise, run a tank across a group of infantry and you can generally assume that one will become raspberry jam

#7: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: ke_mechial PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 5:47 pm
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Really nice post, thanks. CC always gives the feeling, it is rather a simulator than a game, which I like. Only missing thing from it through years that has not been developed were graphics and visual effects. Otherwise, no other WWII Game could compare to it.

Besides, I suppose there are even more AI rules, which are not mentioned here. For example, if your tank is not under fire or suppressed, crew also uses AA MG in addition to bow and co-axial.


And what about if  we run drive our tank over our own infantry?

#8: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: mooxe PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 6:08 pm
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Tanks will not drive over friendly infantry. They may say no clear path.

#9: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: vobbnobb PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 8:05 pm
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yes cool stuff. And this is only some stuff he mentions that go on in the cc series. A while ago I moved soldier into a house house via the move command, I could have swore,  I saw a light mg  gunner staying back in the brush while others moved and entered the house. Only when the last guy entered did he get up and enter himself. This pretty much confirms it.

#10: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: US_BrakeLocation: USA PostPosted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 11:13 am
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Informative details from John Anderson  Cool

#11: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: mooxe PostPosted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 9:51 pm
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"Soldiers in depressions such as foxholes and trenches cannot be overrun by a tank, and more experienced soldiers will actually try to move out of the way first. "

I'll see if I can make a video of this.


"If a soldier goes berserk, he can cause other teammates to go berserk as well"

Play the CC5 Berlin mod. Soldiers go berserk pretty often.

"Experienced teams will employ advanced squad tactics when moving. For example, in some settings one or more soldiers ahead of the rest of the team will stop to provide cover from the enemy while the rest of the team runs by."

I believe the manual may state this. Soldiers move tactically when under the "move" command. "Run Fast" is just an all out race.

#12: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: vobbnobb PostPosted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 7:32 pm
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More


   The AI analyzes the player's past deployments for a particular map and adjusts its deployments to counter.

   The AI analyzes the player's past purchasing tendencies (tanks vs. guns vs. infantry) and adjusts its purchases to counter (guns vs. tanks, tanks vs. infantry, and infantry vs. guns).

   The computer AI will sometimes use an unbalanced setup when on attack in order to overrun the enemy's flanks.

#13: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: southern_land PostPosted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 11:33 pm
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vobbnobb wrote (View Post):
More


   The AI analyzes the player's past deployments for a particular map and adjusts its deployments to counter.

   The AI analyzes the player's past purchasing tendencies (tanks vs. guns vs. infantry) and adjusts its purchases to counter (guns vs. tanks, tanks vs. infantry, and infantry vs. guns).

   The computer AI will sometimes use an unbalanced setup when on attack in order to overrun the enemy's flanks.


I get the sense that this might have been the case in cc3 but I think they broke something transitioning into cc4

#14: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: mooxe PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:40 am
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Post the link or source vobb.

#15: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: vobbnobb PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2016 9:16 am
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southern_land wrote (View Post):
vobbnobb wrote (View Post):
More


   The AI analyzes the player's past deployments for a particular map and adjusts its deployments to counter.

   The AI analyzes the player's past purchasing tendencies (tanks vs. guns vs. infantry) and adjusts its purchases to counter (guns vs. tanks, tanks vs. infantry, and infantry vs. guns).

   The computer AI will sometimes use an unbalanced setup when on attack in order to overrun the enemy's flanks.


I get the sense that this might have been the case in cc3 but I think they broke something transitioning into cc4


Why would they take it out from cc3 after? No, I'm pretty sure cc4 and cc5 have it there as well with even added stuff, and even matrix built onto ai more or possibly differently.

@ Mooxe here is the source https://web.archive.org/web/20000817072148/http://www.microsoft.com/games/closecombat/design_notes.htm

#16: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: vobbnobb PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2016 9:41 am
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Also you will like

multiple pages of Keith Zabalaoui talking about strategic artificial intelligence and tactical artificial intelligence at gamespot

https://web.archive.org/web/20000817072153/http://www.gamespot.com/features/cc3_dd/012999/index.html

#17: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: Antony_nz PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:22 am
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Wasn't this guy a co founder of those really awesome book where you role play in a fantasy book?

The book comes with a page where you right down whats in your inventory. All you need is a pencil,rubber and dice.
You read the book then make the decisions effecting the story.  So for example, "If you want to enter the tavern turn to page 68" "If you want to continue down the road, turn to page 130".

It was really cool. Im positive the co founder went on to create Close Combat.

#18: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: mick_xe5 PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 4:48 pm
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vobbnobb wrote (View Post):
More
The AI analyzes the player's past deployments for a particular map and adjusts its deployments to counter.

   The AI analyzes the player's past purchasing tendencies (tanks vs. guns vs. infantry) and adjusts its purchases to counter (guns vs. tanks, tanks vs. infantry, and infantry vs. guns).
These features were intended for CC3 but never implemented. There are two files in the CCIII/Games/ directory, Map.hst and Player.hst, that were going to record map & player "histories".

IIRC, JA left Atomic and went to Microsoft in '98 after CC2 was published while  CC3 was being developed.

#19: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: mooxe PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:47 am
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Thanks mick... had to check, they are there, both files 0 bytes. I don't recall ever noticing those files before.

#20: Re: Cool AI Stuff by John Anderson, Lead AI for Atomic Author: mooxe PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 6:19 am
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"Soldiers in depressions such as foxholes and trenches cannot be overrun by a tank, and more experienced soldiers will actually try to move out of the way first."


This is kind of the lore of CC that we expect from it and seldom put any thought to it being programming. This particular feature we would also seldom use. Who wants to risk a tank by driving right over top of enemy infantry.

So... I just tested this on my back to back PCs. I setup three trenches with three teams in them. It works as stated in CC5. I used GJS, Buron map, stock battle. DD Sherman overrunning elite SS troops without any AT weapons. On my German monitor, as the tank got to within a couple meters the men started standing up, the tank ran overtop, then the men starting moving out of the trench. No casualties.

The second trench... The Germans started standing up and presumably moving out of the way. I killed two with the tank that I also assume wiggled there way out of the trench in search of safety.



Close Combat Series -> The Mess


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