Would like to see?

[snake]

I love the game but the battle choices seem very limited compared to everything else.
You can assault, advance, meet, delay and defend. Plus, your 'choice' always 'forces' a choice on the defender.

First, I suggest adding a few other choices if possible.
1. Add the 'breakthrough' where the real VP's in a scenario are garnered by reaching exit hexes where the attacking units try to leave the map.
2. Add the 'breakout' where you are 'surrounded' by the enemy and need to reach some objectives through enemy lines or just hold onto some central objective with/without a relief force. (Not the always I'm on one side - you on the other set-up.)
3. The infamous city fight (like an advance or assault)where you struggle building by building to objectives much like Stalingrad but include some multi-hex, multi-story buildings.
4. A rear guard action (like a delay) but where the defender exits off the map for points.
5. A 'search and destroy' (like a meeting engagement) where both sides have some immobile high value free units deployed by the computer that you have to defend as well as try to get the other guys high value targets. VP's on both extreme sides of the map (perhaps with a few low value VP's in the middle).

Also, you could vary the options by not tying the defender to the same 'opposite' choice ( i.e. assault always meets defend).
An assault map and mission choice doesn't guarantee the defender will have a 'defend' choice.
The attacker might be met by a defend (50%) but it might also meet a delay (25%), a rearguard (10%), an advance force (10%) or even an assault force (both sides think they are anyway and choose forces based on what the mission says you are doing (5%).

The AI could handle this by simply putting percentages on possible 'opposing side' missions as above and using some creative VP placement on map generation to allow for other mission types like breakthrough.

Just an idea and I'm sure others have more. I would just like to get away from the few hard-wired missions in the game when everything else like the OOB's are so full of choices. I guess I'm aiming at the campaigns here and generated battles against the AI.

[Charles22]

1. You may be able to achieve that basically by placing the victory objectives on either the extreme edge of the enemy side, or the hexes next to that. I'm not sure what that would do to the AI though. I too would like to see a bypass sort of game, but if moving the objectives work it's real good because you can then combine that with the basic mission you already get. In the campaign I believe with each battle you can alter the objectives to whatever you want and then the AI will deploy to cover those (let's hope). If nothing else it does show how moving the objectives can change this game in a fairly major way and should spring up other ideas.

[serg3d]

I also would like "hard/hardest battle option" where you can double amount of AI points, and get promotion for it.

[Charles22]

There was a time where I did that with SPWW2 or SPWAW, but I can't remember how it turned out. The most obvious way I can think of is to change preferences.

For example, you type in your campaign force size, let's say 3000pts and then type in the enemies, if double, then 6000pts. Now if you run into a battle that gives an enemy attacking you normally 3X your points, I do not know if it will work off that 6000pt number or not, but my guess is it will (which would make the enemy then with a 6X advantage).

BTW, I'm imagining that the only way you can make sure your force stays at 3000 (or whatever) and the enemy double that, is to look there everytime between battles. It may never change, I don't know, but I recall I've had trouble with my core amount changing before but I think it was only when I was starting a different campaign. IOW, I think it always keeps your core number from battle to battle, but once you jump to something else, instead of keeping that number as it was, it goes to the default. Whether that's an indication that the enemy's double force will stay that way or not is a guess, but I'll guess just for the purposes of one campaign battle after another, it will keep the 6000.

[serg3d]

Charles22 said:
For example, you type in your campaign force size, let's say 3000pts and then type in the enemies, if double, then 6000pts.

It wouoldn't work. In the campain alocation for second player is ignored. Force value of first player used instead as a base. Check "Points allocation" thread. For now the only way to make AI use more points is to increase cost of all units in the OOB.

[Sgt_Walrus]

Hi Snake

It is possible to get many of the battles you mentioned by playing PBEM.
Even a "normal" PBEM battle is a far more intense challenge than playing against the AI.
Negotiation can lead to many different battle scenarios.

As well as normal Meeting Engagement, Defend/Assault and Delay/Advance PBEMs, I have played with no flags, hunt the ammo trucks, push through a convoy, sniper war (25 per side, no flags), armour only, long battles, short ones, super realistic (from factual OOBs and historical situations), crazy "what if?" and civil wars...just to name a few.

I will play anything as long as each player has a chance for a win. Your limit is your imagination.

The game has many variables and is able to be edited in many ways. The more you experiment with different ideas, and post the results here, the better it gets for all of us

At the same time, Don and Andy have massaged this game and it's very old-school code a long way from it's roots. Some things are just impossible to make happen without changing many other things in the game/coding as well...and not for the better. So a lot of work needs to happen for a change to be made.
The great thing about this game and these designers is...at least you get to ask ...and get a response!!

Cheers

[snake]

Walrus, Charles,
Yes, real people are the best cannon fodder but I also like playing the AI and would like to see more mission variety. If that can be achieved by just moving VP hexes, then certainly a little computer assisted 'moving' is possible. After all, If I move/set the VP's all the time then I always know.
In my blitz or rear guard examples, the exit hexes would be hidden from the opponent so you couldn't just sit at the exits. It would also add true fog of war as some battles would involve less contact and more hunting or blissfully blitzing along a road until......(hey that's what the scouts are paid to do) In fact, it would be neat if some of my victory hexes were hidden from the enemy until I take them and vice versa. OMG! They are behind me!

[Charles22]

I'm not sure what you're talking about snake. The fact of the matter is the objectives are 'always' on the map, even when deployment starts. Unless the AI has already set it's forces before you set yours, which I don't think it does (assuming you're playing player one), it will adjust to you moving them. There's nothing to explore, the objectives are always visible as I say (I'm not sure if they are during 'purchasing' but at that stage it doesn't matter) and the only way to eliminate them is if the game will let you toggle them off (if it does). Of ocurse toggling them off would be quite silly, unless the AI is blind to them also when you toggle them off. I have my doubts that the AI is blind to them at any time.

I don't think you accomplish anything having them off, other than to clear the hex so you can more readily see the terrain underneath.

[snake]

Charles,
Exactly, the VP's are always on the map and visible even during deployment.
That's what would be cool - if some or all VP's based on mission type were chosen by the computer but were not visible on the map during deployment or play.
In other words, neither side knows where the random VP hexes are until a unit enters the hex then the flag appears owned by the side entering the hex.
Or, for my blitz mission example, I can see my exit hexes VP flags on the map where I must exit units to earn points but you, my opponent, can't see those flags. You know I'm blitzing and I have one or two exit hexes somewhere on your side of the map but you don't know exactly where (real life FOW). So you have to protect your side without knowing exactly where I will strike. I need to blitz through to my hexes before you figure out where they probably are based on my movements (watch out, could be an end around fake...).
A meeting example. We both deploy on a map without any visible VP hexes - they could be anywhere. We both maneuver and 'wham!' I enter a computer generated hex and the flag pops up in my country colors. You suddenly see it too and it's behind you! Imagine the possibilities compared to a map where we both see hugh clusters of VP's from the start.
That's my idea. Similar to scenarios where the creators pick hexes to generate when certain conditions are met.

[Charles22]

Well I'm glad to see that you actually meant what you were saying as opposed to just mis-speaking. Yeah, a game like that might be pretty interesting, but if it's the lack of knowing where he will strike syndrome that you're looking at, that can largely be accomplished through things as they are. The scatter-shot VP's make knowing the angle of attack not easy to figure out. To top that all off you can place those VP's anywhere you want, if for instance you wish to achieve such a spread where he can't possibly defend them all very well.

One last factor weighing against your idea is the historical factor. While it's true the enemy won't know in most cases where the attacker will strike, the attacker has a point where he himself knows where he will. Now you might say, well, yeah, the attacker would know this when he deploys, but he deploys when he knows what he wants. This is rather complicated by the fact that I don't know who the VP's are for really. I mean, does the attacker consider them important or the defender? Whoever it is, the problem is you don't fight that way. You don't say let's randomly defend or attack this area because all this land is equally worthless. You have at least some sort of tactical advantage you're trying to leverage, if not an operational or strategic one as well.

Thinking about it that way shows it's somewhat nonsensical going the whole route that way. What I would suggest is a variation off that theme. Instead of everything being unknown, only a small portion of them would change. IOW position 03,05 might change to 03,10 at sometime in the game. In that sort of situation you could simulate something like a stealthy partisan band that is moving from one place to the other destroying something, and you keeping of that keep them from doing further damage. You wouldn't lose points for their damaging some imaginary something, but you would get the VP's as usual.

You know, that's a pretty hyp idea. Say for instance that you're 20 turns deep into your assault and suddenly one or more of the hexes you might comtrol (which you took from the enemy) shift to way behind your lines? This not only would make it more realistic in that you couldn't throw everything into the attack, but it would allow for something of the unknown factor that you're driving at.