Do I suck at leading?

[Celery]

This has troubled me from the OFP days and is one of the reasons why I prefer missions where you never get to lead. When I'm commanding a squad, my AI teammates are as useless as the pope's balls. They rarely engage enemies themselves, but the moment I leave my earthly dwelling, they put their act together and shoot commendably until there is no enemy left. Is there a trick to this or what? If I give "engage at will" at the start of the mission it makes no difference.

[MehMan]

Also, they seem to be incredibly blind and you have to report every soldier even if he is in plain sight of most of members.

[as-33]

You need to report enemies you see (long right-click, kind of awkward in ArmA compared to OFP), that makes a huge difference.

Edit: Yes, they are really blind. Even if I tell them to scan horizon they don't discover anything until it stands in front of their nose.

[Celery]

You need to report enemies you see (long right-click, kind of awkward in ArmA compared to OFP), that makes a huge difference.

I have noticed that, but why do they become so spontaneous right after I die?

[MehMan]

Maybe the leaders have autoreport on?

Also, maybe it depends on that behaviour of the troops. But the only thing I've noticed different with changing of the behaviour is that they leapfrog and such.

[Baddo]

Well I think it really pays off to practice commanding an AI team.

You must give them plenty of orders, or they won't be effective. What I do when I'm a leader of an AI team is that I always try to put them into a formation which I think is most effective in the specific situation. When moving a longer distance the formation is more spread-out. When engaging an enemy team directly in an open field I put the AI soldiers into line formation, as that gives in my opinion the maximum firepower. I usually use at least "danger" and often "stealth" modes for the AI as those make them more likely to stay alive. If the 'starting moment' of the battle is still in my control, I have the AI soldiers on "hold fire" most likely. I wait that the AI team mates get into good positions (in formation or I specifically give them a good spot). Then I give them targets, sometimes the same target for many of my soldiers (like 2 LAW soldiers target one enemy tank at the same time to ensure a kill, same goes when targeting infantry if you have enough men). Then I pick a target for myself too, and give the AI's the order to get shooting.

Doing all that takes time and that is the reason why I think many people won't bother commanding an AI team. But I find it great when I am able to command an AI team so that all of them are alive in the end of the mission. Often missions go so that I'm not getting much, or any, kills myself, as I have just been busy commanding my men to do the job for me. That doesn't bother me as it is a team at work and not an individual. You can guess from this that I prefer to play cooperative multiplayer missions instead of the other mission types.

You can use an AI team very effectively against an enemy AI team positioned stationary in an open field. You just choose line formation, order your men to hold fire, then walk closer, put them to prone position, crawl to maybe 300 meters from the enemy team, give all your team members a target, tell them to open fire, and you'll quite likely see that all of the enemy team gets wiped out without being able to respond (if you had enough men compared to the enemy team, so your team could target every individual enemy soldier). All this takes time and effort but you can keep your team alive doing so, and it helps when the missions advance further and maybe becomes more difficult towards the end.

As I said it's a slow way of working but it gives good results. Take your time to prepare your attacks, don't just rush ahead.

It would certainly be more convenient if the AI soldiers could 'sense' what I want them to do next but as long as that is not possible then I just have to give them explicit orders. The AI team leaders are much faster in giving orders than we are, that's why the AI team speeds up when you are not in the lead anymore.

[sander]

Hi,

The number of commands the AI is able to give other AI would be hard to match by a player, the input very much being limited by the speed of typing. Therefore any squadmates seem to improve significantly in behaviour once the killed player is replaced as squad commander by an AI.

The aggressiveness of the AI depends to some extent on their awareness of their surroundings and to some extent on the config settings of their weaponry (MG's for example defined to let AI engage at longer ranges than rifles). If you act as a spotter for AI machinegunners and snipers, they perform admirably and pick off targets at long range.

Regards,

Sander

[ck-claw]

Maybe then Celery just stick to pumping out them excellent maps

[Stewy]

For some reason (and I can't back it up with evidence) troops seem to perform better with scoped weaps.

My guys seem to be fine - I've lost count of the times that one of my 5-man team has picked off a guy that I didn't see (at both 20m and 200m) and was about to give me a 5.45mm, steel jacketed-lead welcoming card!

Sliding the AI scale to "expert" helps too!

Stew

[dmitri]

Play conservatively. The AI is better at ambushing than assaulting. Reveal as many targets as you can. Order them to hold fire, get them into defensive positions, once enough are calling "ready to fire", give the order. Or keep them in a defensive line and scout ahead on your own. When things get hairy, you can always pull back to the AI's position. A lot of fun running back to a hilltop with your AI providing cover fire.

Retreating spares AI lives, the AI are simply better at hanging back in a defensive formation, lying in wait.

Column Compact helps when moving through urban environs. CQB pathfinding is atrocious. My own missions that feature AI team mates usually take place in the countryside.