13-F

[Archus]

As an ex-military type, I know a few things about artillery. A few things because I was in the business of artillery. I know the game has to be 'balanced' and all that, but there are a few things here that just... GET to me.

The scouts being number one. The scouts are absolutely lost in the sauce. They can't call for fire, they can't adust fire, they can't call in different sheafs, and they have this thing where (while the enemy's can) they just can't see past that little line of trees in front of them while enemy scouts can see through entire cities despite being at a diagonal angle from the roads and on the other side of the damn thing. I checked the entire area with helos and ground scouts after dealing with them. Considering that the AI doesn't move a scout once its in position until it's ROUTING, I know there weren't any around. I'm not asking for much, but let me say this: Artillery does NOT fly everywhere at random. If there's a scout there that's trained in calling for fire, he can easily request that a sheaf be smaller radius, larger radius, in a line. Hell, he could call in an 'S' pattern if he was skilled enough. My point is that if I want to bombard an entire town, I can, but if I want to bombard... say... a small, 50~100 meter radius area, that should also be an option. Artillery as it is in here and in AirLand battle is simply wasteful beyond all reason because it just sucks up so much FOB resource as a result of its insane level of inaccuracy and the fact that scouts have little to do with performance.

The second thing is helos. Helos are supposedly GREAT for K.O.ing infantry. Yet a small squad can easily take them down with RIFLES because they've got all the maneuvering capability of a watermellon attached to some cardboard wings. Sure, you can use dumbfire rockets, but all they seem to do is waste massive amounts of FOB resource. Yes, I understand that helo's are relatively thin-skinned. A single hit to a rotor can mess them up pretty bad, and even bring them down. But why is EVERY squad's FIRST reaction to shoot at it instead of take cover? That's insane and kind of broken considering that there's a rout system in place.

Which brings me to my final point. Routing. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. Not because I don't think it should be there, but because it's broken as all get out. I've had tanks routing AFTER killing all the enemies in the area, only to get killed because I can't get control of them and bring them in for repair. They almost ALWAYS seem to rout RIGHT into the enemy, instead of trying to get back to friendly forces. When people run away, they don't typically run INTO enemies that aren't shooting at them if a pile of friendlies are nearby who are not engaged! Normally I don't have issues with routing, but when it does happen, it's usually because of something stupid, like a ZSU pounding a single tank in a four tank group. And its usually en-mass. I understand it's scary to get whomped on by a ZSU's guns, but you don't drive TOWARDS it if you're running away, only to get ambushed by the BMP with the ATGM attached that's sitting right freaking next to it. You run to a nearby friendly base or hide in a village or something. Typically though, you also don't IGNORE your commander if your tank only has a few paint scratches either.

Other than that, the game's a lot of fun. Unfair sometimes, but still a lot of fun. It would be a lot MORE fun if such issues were fixed. I know a few were in AirLand... like the silliness of helos being little more than annoyances to infantry without AA rockets, and I'm hoping more will be fixed in Red Dragon. But holy crap... did they even ASK a military guy for any input, or did they just not beta-test this stuff very well?