.com.unity Forums - Formations/Expanded Campaign

How flexible is the design of the picklist (both campaign and single battle)?

Also, is there an API of some sort that could be used to write to an external program or CSV, and import the data back from it?

I'd like to do the following:

1. Narrow down the range of years to 1980-89 in central Europe, with the countries being only those NATO and Warsaw Pact nations that would have had units committed in such a hypothetical World War 3. These 9 years are crucially important, because the technological balance shifts back and forth several times during this period, but the TOE's remain pretty consistent.

Narrowing down the range is for simplicities sake, as you will see from what I propose below.

2. Construct an external program which will essentially consist of a central europe map, with the ability to move units around, commit supplies, reinforcements and support, and make strategic choices not directly related to the land war.

For a reasonable example of the scales of what I am thinking of (although very different mechanics), look at the modern campaign series by John Tiller;
http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/product...uldaGap85.html
http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/product...P85/ngp85.html
http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/product...nubeFront.html

I want to be able to have several starting conditions on this expanded campaign map, and use correct (where available) historical data on initial areas of deployment and responsibility for the units involved. For example, the initial starting position of the 11th ACR would be at Fulda, Bad Hersefeld and Bad Kissingen facing the 8th Guards Army.

3. Modify the human picklist, so that rather than picking generic formations (eg. tank company, infantry platoon), one would select a historical formation from an exploding list based on the actual TO&E for that country. The purpose of it being an exploding list is so that one can scale the battle, from a company right up to a regimental/brigade sized battle.

For example, if I was to select the West German 363rd Panzer Battalion in 1988-89, I would take the field with 41 Leopard 2's, a headquarters detachment in 4 M577's, and a company of Panzer Grenadiers in 12 M113's (until losses have been taken, of course).

4. Have a simplified version of this for the AI, in that the player selects from the same sort of menu what formation/s belonging to the AI will be present in the battle based on the external map, but the human player does not see the strength of those formations.

5. Use a CSV to export formation data to after each battle in WinSPMBT. This would include losses, experience, morale, kills, etc. (basically everything that appears in the details at the end of a battle. Can't remember if remaining ammunition load is on there, but if not an equation can be worked out to an average based on kills multiplied by X).

6. When a new battle is fought using a formation that has been in a fight previously (or otherwise taken losses), when selecting the unit from the exploding list it will pull the data from the CSV to determine how many vehicles are able to fight, what experience the crews should have, etc.

7. This is external to WinSPMBT, but I'm also going to look at including a mechanism to calculate both repairs and also mechanical failures. For example, if a regiment has just made a 30km unopposed night march to get into position for an assault in the morning, there is a good chance that at least a handful of vehicles are going to break down or crash along the way, let alone the possibility of getting lost.

8. Not to get too ambitious, but I'd also like to give every hex a preset map generator terrain number, so that one could simply enter the terrain value in the SP map generator. Bear in mind that each hex wouldn't have to have a unique ID, but can share with all the many other hexes that share very similar terrain types.