OOB 066 Sweden [WIP]

[shahadi]

[quote=dmnt;828233]

Originally Posted by wulfir

In my experience the non-fighting platoons such as supply platoons add little to gaming experience if at all. Game mechanics (AI especially) seems to be working better when SPAA-units are not mingled among tank platoons but bought separately. AI does not understand what it is buying as well as a human does. In this game some realism is sacrificed for playability.

What I've played with, to simulate realism, is to coax the AI into attacking Supply units, etc, by dramatically increasing their cost value from say 20 for a truck to 520. Now with this cost premium the player must defend the non-fighting units because the AI will go after those targets.

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[scorpio_rocks]

Originally Posted by shahadi

What I've played with, to simulate realism, is to coax the AI into attacking Supply units, etc, by dramatically increasing their cost value from say 20 for a truck to 520. Now with this cost premium the player must defend the non-fighting units because the AI will go after those targets.

Does this actually work? Does the AI make targeting choices based on target cost? or will it target the unit that is more of a threat?, closer?, easiest to kill?, in its target priority (ie inf v inf, AT v Tank, etc)?

[Mobhack]

Points cost is nothing to do with AI targeting.

Relative importance is - so HQ, FOO, MRLs, SAMs, ATGMs, A/T guns, ammo units, engineers are all units that the AI will prefer given an array of choices to plot arty on.

See also the section on "AI interest" in the Game Guide release history section.

The priorities are different for direct fire plotting. Best target to shoot at differs for a sniper from an SP_ATGM. Planes prioritise FLAK.

But that sort of stuff is "duh" obvious. Splatting the battalion HQ if its spotted is a no-brainer. Liking ammo units is ditto - since only the human uses these to feed critical units and they tend therefore to be situated close by an important asset (SAM, ATGM, artillery). Engineers are good to kill, if its defending as that preserves field defences (and they tend to be deployed for a breach, or to be heading towards such).

[shahadi]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

Does this actually work? Does the AI make targeting choices based on target cost? or will it target the unit that is more of a threat?, closer?, easiest to kill?, in its target priority (ie inf v inf, AT v Tank, etc)?

Originally Posted by Mobhack

Points cost is nothing to do with AI targeting.

Relative importance is - so HQ, FOO, MRLs, SAMs, ATGMs, A/T guns, ammo units, engineers are all units that the AI will prefer given an array of choices to plot arty on.

See also the section on "AI interest" in the Game Guide release history section.

I got ahead of myself in my reply, no defense really; just was at my son's karate dujo - being a parent sometimes the multi-tasking thing does not always work. To proceed, I have dramatically increased the cost of a unit so that the player will use that unit in a realistic way. As I've done in the Red Line Syria series. For instance, not using the Osprey ferrying troops as a gunship, or buying a handful of trucks, rush them forward so that an ATGM will expend a shot on a cheap truck, and there are countless other examples.

Also, another unit that the AI will prioritize is the machine gun: light, medium, or heavy. And, I've talked about making separate formations of machine guns so that I can field individual units rather than sections, admittedly, primarily for maneuver and fire suppression concerns, rather than AI targeting (Although, if you have two MG targets, that's one more the AI has to target.)

"I Stand Accused," most notably by Issac Hayes, but some may remember the song of the same title by the immortal Jerry Butler.

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[Suhiir]

While point costs have zip to do with AI targeting it can still be very useful to alter the value of support units with the editor, make sure you mention this in the scenario notes so the player is aware these are high value targets they want to protect.

[shahadi]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

While point costs have zip to do with AI targeting it can still be very useful to alter the value of support units with the editor, make sure you mention this in the scenario notes so the player is aware these are high value targets they want to protect.

Yes, this is an important point to relay to the player of your scenario.

[Mobhack]

For the human in order to protect something - that is a perfectly valid approach, e.g. in a convoy mission to jack up the points of the trucks so he does not want to lose those. (You could go the other way, though I cant think of an example of reducing the cost).

But remember to tell him about it in the briefing!.

[Suhiir]

I have one experimental campaign scenario where I reduced the cost of armed enemy units to 0 (zero), since units can't have a negative cost I needed to use reverse Polish logic and you actually lose this scenario if you have a significant score at the end, and "win" by having the lowest possible score.

[wulfir]

- Gotland -

"We could not defend it at any cost, but we had to put a price on it"


For much of the cold war the land component of the Swedish forces deployed on Gotland showed some differences to those on the mainland. The most powerful formation located there was the 18th Brigade, aka the 'Gotland Brigade'. Initially established as an infantry brigade some intrepid officers managed to have older types of AFVs and APCs - which were being replaced in the mainland units - shipped to Gotland.

The idea was that an invader (the Russians) would come by air or sea and in the initial stages of an invasion older armour was better than no armour - especially true for the Tgb m/42 KP, considered a stop gap meassure in the 1960s yet it had to soldier on until after the cold war.




Older types of tanks and AFVs were also deployed to Gotland. Late cold war there were Centurion tanks but never any Strv 103.

After the Cold war Gotland units were supplied with more modern AFVs like the Leopard, Strf 9040 and Pbv 302 - but only for a short time until the island was almost entirely demilitarized following the demise of the so called 'invasion defence'.



I have been tinkering with my version of OOB066 and adding formations of the hybrid Gotland Brigade. Not sure where I should place them, maybe under MISC as they should only be used for scenarios involving Gotland. Anything placed on Gotland was considered to be unavailable for the mainland in case of war...

[Suhiir]

Maybe place them in the normal locations but give them formation names like "Obs ..." (obliterate) or "Got ..." (Gotland).
Or maybe what I did with US Navy aircraft/helos and add a "*" to the unit name if they're alternate units that can be used in standard formations.