Blitzkrieg Tips

[Loric]

I guess we all know this one. (but ill say it anyway)

If you have a lot of guns to capture, but don’t want to waste infantry, split up your platoon and select individual solders to capture each gun.
If you capture guns with the group in normal formation it will sent two, three, or even four soldiers.

[LouisXIV]

If you allow a sniper to keep firing, he increases his chance of being detected. If instead, however, you allow him to take only 2-3 shots and then move him - even a short distance - then another 2-3 shots and move him again, etc., his chances of being detected are considerably lowered.

[LouisXIV]

I had a map that just wouldn't play. I tried all sorts of things. Then I decided to check the length of the roads.

If the roads on your map extend too far off the edge of the map, it may cause abortions and other strange happenings.

However, in this case the roads were all right. So just in case, I checked the rivers, too. One of them was sticking out well past the edge of the map. I moved it in, and strangely enough the mission started working.

I thought it was only the roads that did that. I believe I've had rivers sticking out like that before and not had a problem.

[bb]

Rivers, roads and script areas extend too far off the edge of the map will cause an abortion.

[LouisXIV]

When I am placing units on a map, instead of clicking on the (say) Allied button, I tick the filter box instead and move it to Allied Tanks (or artillery or whatever.) That way I don't have to hunt through a bunch of other stuff to find what I am looking for. In original BK most of the one type of item (Allied Tanks) are shown in a single display - much easier to pick from.

You can create your own filters as well. For example, Squads button gets you a pretty big selection to page through. Wouldn't it be easier to have filters for British infantry, German infantry, etc.?

[LouisXIV]

When you call a reconn plane, it will do figure-eights over the spot you designated. Some of you may know that, if you hold down the shift key when you left-click to indicate it's target location when you call it, you can left-click in several different locations. Then the reconn plane will go from one location to the next and, when it reaches the last, will go back to the first. It will keep cycling through the points until shot down or it is time to leave.

You can have it fly along a defensive line, or back and forth over a large town, or check two different villages one after the other.

Did you know, you can do the same thing with ground attack aircraft?

Of course, I'm not really sure if it works. GA aircraft tend to wander around where they like anyway. They often do not even attack the initial point you designated.

[Ocelo]

Feb 21, 2011 15:12:00 GMT 1 LouisXIV said:

When you call a reconn plane, it will do figure-eights over the spot you designated. Some of you may know that, if you hold down the shift key when you left-click to indicate it's target location when you call it, you can left-click in several different locations. Then the reconn plane will go from one location to the next and, when it reaches the last, will go back to the first. It will keep cycling through the points until shot down or it is time to leave.

You can have it fly along a defensive line, or back and forth over a large town, or check two different villages one after the other.

Did you know, you can do the same thing with ground attack aircraft?

Of course, I'm not really sure if it works. GA aircraft tend to wander around where they like anyway. They often do not even attack the initial point you designated.

WOW I HAD NO CLUE!!!

Will try this out ASAP!

I always wondered how the AI recon planes got to scout the entire map in 1 flight, while mine just hung over one area...



Edit: apparently, this is true. Wonder if this is possible for paradropers with >1 squad count....

Fighter planes? Heavy bombers with bombs for >1 run?

[LouisXIV]

Did you know about Artillery Positions?

There is a little icon on the small icon toolbar at the top of the Map Editor (MapEd) that toggles artillery positions on and off. (It has a tool tip that says “Toggle (ON or OFF) editing artillery positions”.) If you can’t locate that, check in MapEd under Units. The bottom selection is Artillery Positions.

If you toggle Artillery Positions on (down,) then click on an artillery gun, click on its gun tractor, then click on a position you want it to move to, it will do the following: The gun will start hooked up when the mission starts. When enemy artillery fire from a position within range of the designated position, the artillery will move to the artillery position, unlimber, fire a single round at the enemy gun position, then limber up and move back to its original position.

For self propelled guns you can skip the step of clicking on their artillery tractor ... because they don’t have one.

What’s the point? The point is, if the enemy artillery turns and fires back, they won’t be there.

I believe that, once the artillery has retired to its original start position, if they enemy artillery is still firing, it will cycle through its firing routine again.
It also fires against enemy infantry or tanks attacking in an AI defence position.

With Artillery Positions toggled on in MapEd any existing artillery positions are indicated with pink circles and lines.

To delete an artillery position, have Artillery Positions toggled on, click on the unit, and press the delete button.

With Artillery Positions toggled on you won’t be able to do any other editing or deleting of units.

Mortars, machine guns and the Soviet railway gun can’t use artillery positions. Mortars and machine guns because they cease to exist as script entities when they move and thus lose all ScriptIDs, Start Commands and other orders. The railway gun because of its complicated relationship with the other parts of it (although I have to wonder if it would do it if you designate the 'trucks' as its gun tractors. Something for someone to experiment with.)

[LouisXIV]

Infinite Aircraft: When setting up aircraft for a mission, you put in numbers for the formation size and count. If you put zero in for the count, you will have an infinite number of aircraft available.

I also had the chance to try giving transport aircraft two different destinations when they were going out to drop 2 squads each of paratroopers (see above.) They dropped all strings at the first point and ignored the second one completely.

[Ocelo]

Thanks for the artillery positions too. I knew about them, but your detailed instructions help a lot. Will try to implement it right now for a few Wespes.

[LouisXIV]

I described it, but I never use it. It's much better for SP artillery than towed artillery, but I still don't see the point of it. Why should the artillery spend all that time moving around for a single shot? It does make them harder to take out, but it also makes them rather ineffective. One shot and then they have to move? That's not what I call artillery support.

[Ocelo]

@louis: I tried it, and it works well; I'm not so sure that its only one shot; they were hammering me for a while. Maybe its more of a timed thing, where the SP guns simply have the time to fire more rounds. Anyways, its OK, and its not the AI's principal artillery on my map anyways. But for towed artillery I agree, its not so useful. I doubt it'll work for rocket launchers either.

I'm curious as to whether this is for the AI sides only, or whether the player's units can do it too.



Another question I have is how to set up an AI player in SP maps that's on the side of the player, but is not controlled by him. I've seen this on a few maps (most prominently on one in the Shtrafbat mod, where a tank is supporting the player's infantry, but cannot be controlled/selected.

I've tried adding more parties and allocating them, but they just turn up as neutral on the map; I don't even get their field of vision.

[Major Pain]

Ocelo...

If you wish to add additonal AI Players, you can set the diplomacy for each.

Example:

Set diplomacy for Player 3 to Allied to Side 0: Player 0 (Human). You gain their LOS but you cannot control them.


Set diplomacy for Player 4 to AI Side 1: Player 1 (AI).


The default setting for Player 2 is neutral to both Player 0 & 1.

All AI players will attack/defend within their LOS, but you must provide a script for anything more.

TIP:

I sometimes use Player 2 when I "Landreinforcments". Once they spawn I can use Move Command to move them to where I want them to go.

This is helpful when you want them to report to your command unit, but will not know where it may be located when the trigger fires and provides the new unit.

Once the new unit moves into LOS of the Command unit, it changes to player 0.

In this instance, the new unit does not show you its LOS. Since it is not yet in your control, you are only informed of Reinforcements once it changes players.

This is a good way to mask what event or location might trigger the event... and since it may appear from any direction behind your lines, you really don't know where it spawns. The old switch-o-rooo...

[Ocelo]

@mp: I have tried diplomacy earlier with no success. Will try again soon.

Also, I never use script unit commands, just start commands. Never had the time/need to learn a new dictionary, but perhaps I am wrong. I would love a simple list of functions as opposed to having sift through a more complicated encyclopedia. My thanks in advance.

[Major Pain]

Get a copy of:

Blitzkrieg Guide to Programming Lua Functions

By Calvin.