Majestic12 Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 So I was thinking that certain selectable battlefield parameters would make QB more interesting for attackers and defenders. My idea for one of these parameters is the possibility of reinforcements appearing at a selectable certain point in the battle. It would be really fun to see a meeting engagement spiral into a cluster-f*** mayhem. Another thing that is would allow is a kind of hold the line battle against waves of enemies. What do y'all think? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grungar Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 Quote 13 hours ago, Majestic12 said: So I was thinking that certain selectable battlefield parameters would make QB more interesting for attackers and defenders. My idea for one of these parameters is the possibility of reinforcements appearing at a selectable certain point in the battle. It would be really fun to see a meeting engagement spiral into a cluster-f*** mayhem. Another thing that is would allow is a kind of hold the line battle against waves of enemies. What do y'all think? hmmmm….can of worms here. I would like a random map generator with a dynamic enemy force generator such as..instead of having one big enemy force deployed certain contacts can turn out out be nothing or something nasty This combined with other random features for both sides. say a ai die is rolled and walla you get a plt of tanks...or the enemy show up with a flank counter attack..sometimes the mission is easy sometimes to hard to push on without slaughtering everything. this implys a campaign system also. its a pipe dream I know but a nice one I think. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 The timing and location of where reinforcements show up can be a bit tricky to get right...even in a 'designed' scenario. I'm not all that familuar with how designing QB maps works but i fear it might even be more complicated to get right on these maps... But other then that i'm all for more options when it comes to reinforcements...both in regular scenarios as well as any future addition to the QB maps. The two primary reasons for me to stop playing QB battles as a single player though are these... 1. The usually completally 'awful' unit selection made by the AI...Picking forces that makes no sence what so ever... 2. The AIs very lacking understanding of how to deploy said forces. Where to place machineguns, where to place AT-guns, where to place short range weapons etc, etc... The AI is not very impresssive when it comes to these things... Granted...I have not played a QB vs the AI for quite some time...things might have improved slightely since i last gave it a go... I think that it was mentioned in some other thread a while back...A suggestion to allow the player to 'design' a number of preset TOEs to be saved and later loaded into the editor or QB-battle selection screens. This is a very good idea imo. As it is now with regards to the QBs the player more or less has to pick the forces for the AI in order to get any sort or realistic/ entertaining battle going. This obviously ruins all sence of FOW. Not good at all !!... If this designing, saving and loading of preset TOEs could be included into the QB selection screen to allow the player to select a number of these saved TOEs (maybe something like 8 or 16 as a maximum) and have the computer pick one of them randomly It would greately increase the uncertanty of the AI force composition imo. Allowing for a way more entertaining battle... My second point. The somewhat lacking deployment of its forces made by the AI is a trickier nut to crack i feel. Hopefully someone will come up with a clever solution one of these days. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Combatintman Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 I'm currently trying to master QB scenario design and from the little I've learned so far, ultimately it is always going to return less than optimal gaming experiences because of how the scripted AI works. I take my hat off to @MarkEzrafor persevering with his craft given the tools that he has to work with. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 QB AI orders are necessarily generic because the game doesn't know if you're going to be selecting supertanks, aircraft or conscript combatants. If you're feeling deployment & movement to be lacking on a QB map you can always bring it into the editor and have fun tinkering with the AI orders. Make sure the movement orders are utilizing terrain features and are being directed to take up defensible positions. A change could be as simple as moving the painted end destination just a couple terrain squares back to stay behind a crest. Messing about with someone else's AI orders is a good way to familiarize yourself with how the AI works and get in scenario design practice without doing the up-front labor. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 22 minutes ago, MikeyD said: Messing about with someone else's AI orders is a good way to familiarize yourself with how the AI works and get in scenario design practice without doing the up-front labor. This is very true... But atleast for me...i don't neccesarely think that it is the design of the setup zones that are to blame but rather the way the AI deploys its forces within these setup zones...to often i see things like HMGs being deployed deep inside wood and SMG/ short range weapons being deployed at the forward edge for example or to many units being clumped closely together at one part of the setup zone and other parts being left completally empty. When designing a scenario the designer can 'help' the AI by deploying its forces in what atleast to the designer seems like a clever way...doing this with a QB map seems to be a far more difficult task... Will the ai forces include any tanks ? Will it include support weapons ? Other AT weapons ? Tricky... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEzra Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 19 hours ago, Majestic12 said: So I was thinking that certain selectable battlefield parameters would make QB more interesting for attackers and defenders. My idea for one of these parameters is the possibility of reinforcements appearing at a selectable certain point in the battle. It would be really fun to see a meeting engagement spiral into a cluster-f*** mayhem. Another thing that is would allow is a kind of hold the line battle against waves of enemies. What do y'all think? Each QB Defender has 2 sets of orders for a VP Objective. One AI Group is ordered to defend on or near the objective. Another AI Group is set in ambush elsewhere on the map with a variable timed movement order to advance to the objective. Your ideas are based on triggers that ARE available to scenario designers, but not for QB Maps. Sad but true. I can assure you that QB Map makers are vocal in their support of improving this part of the game. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majestic12 Posted March 31, 2019 Author Share Posted March 31, 2019 That is good to hear about the map maker community improving QBs. I just hope it manifest itself into better gameplay eventually. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grungar Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 fixing the outlandish formations the ai chooses will go a long way to helping QB. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerKommissar Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 2 hours ago, grungar said: fixing the outlandish formations the ai chooses will go a long way to helping QB. Yeah, this series would benefit from a proper AI. If we're all around the wishing well, about now... It'd be cool if you could purchase delayed reinforcements for cheaper, in QB. It would be a tactical decision, how you want to schedule your units. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 On 4/1/2019 at 7:57 PM, grungar said: fixing the outlandish formations the ai chooses will go a long way to helping QB. Yepp A nice new feature for the QBs could perhaps be to include a function that would allow one player to pick and deploy the forces of the AI side and then 'save' the game...upload it to a special thread/location on these forums ( or elsewhere ) to allow other player to download this save and load it into the QB interface as the AI side...pick his own forces...click go ! And the QB battle would start with the AI commanding the forces picked by the first guy... This way we could help eachother to build up a 'pool' of QB battles picked and deployed by a human but playable as singleplayer vs the AI... Hopefully a decent pool of such scenarios could soon be avaliable...they would be doable with a very limited effort on the part of the picker i think... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin2k Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 On 4/2/2019 at 9:27 PM, RepsolCBR said: Yepp A nice new feature for the QBs could perhaps be to include a function that would allow one player to pick and deploy the forces of the AI side and then 'save' the game...upload it to a special thread/location on these forums ( or elsewhere ) to allow other player to download this save and load it into the QB interface as the AI side...pick his own forces...click go ! And the QB battle would start with the AI commanding the forces picked by the first guy... This way we could help eachother to build up a 'pool' of QB battles picked and deployed by a human but playable as singleplayer vs the AI... Hopefully a decent pool of such scenarios could soon be avaliable...they would be doable with a very limited effort on the part of the picker i think... To put that the other way around, one could add a "Pick your own force for a preset amount of points" to the normal single battles. Though at this point I cannot say what complications may arise because of this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 26 minutes ago, Kevin2k said: To put that the other way around, one could add a "Pick your own force for a preset amount of points" to the normal single battles. Though at this point I cannot say what complications may arise because of this. Intresting suggestion...but i don't think that this will be a good idea. Regular scenarios have been designed and playtested with the specific player-forces that the designer has given you... Change any of this and the AI force might become very inapropiate for the new situation and the AI plans might work badly with a totally different enemy to face... Or...are your suggestion that these scenarios should be designed with no player forced selected to start with ? The designer would still need to add AI plans to these scenarios...it will be kind of the same thing as designing the current QB maps i think... I belive that my suggestion with a save feature for the QB battle set-ups will be a far simpler solution...only requring the selection and deployment of the AI side to 'design' a scenario... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin2k Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 11 minutes ago, RepsolCBR said: Intresting suggestion...but i don't think that this will be a good idea. Regular scenarios have been designed and playtested with the specific player-forces that the designer has given you... Change any of this and the AI force might become very inapropiate for the new situation and the AI plans might work badly with a totally different enemy to face... Or...are your suggestion that these scenarios should be designed with no player forced selected to start with ? The designer would still need to add AI plans to these scenarios...it will be kind of the same thing as designing the current QB maps i think... I belive that my suggestion with a save feature for the QB battle set-ups will be a far simpler solution...only requring the selection and deployment of the AI side to 'design' a scenario... It should not be that strange. Like a Red side (AI) has occupied an area and has put up a defence for different possible Blue attacks. Now the Blue side can still decide on what forces to use for an attack or use a preset force selected by the designer. Of course one can pick a force manually and that will influence the challenge of the task, but that is what games/simulations are about anyways. Timed blue reinforcements will complicate this so maybe it is better to skip that for such a scenario. Technically this works out the same as the way you suggested, but I figure my variant is just a tad easier to implement in the current game structure. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Essentially what you seem to be asking for is free-form scenarios, rather than QBs in the conventional sense.....As I utterly hate writing briefings and this would vastly reduce the amount I'd need to write (compared to my usual, somewhat complex, scenarios), I could be persuaded to give it a shot. Any nominations for maps? The more buildings it has the longer this would take as I'm dead fussy about buildings (so if you want full urban, you'll be off to Mosul).....Are the points costs of the various units available as .pdf or similar? They are not shown in in the main editor, so balancing may be tricky to begin with. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin2k Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 7 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said: Essentially what you seem to be asking for is free-form scenarios, rather than QBs in the conventional sense.....As I utterly hate writing briefings and this would vastly reduce the amount I'd need to write (compared to my usual, somewhat complex, scenarios), I could be persuaded to give it a shot. Any nominations for maps? The more buildings it has the longer this would take as I'm dead fussy about buildings (so if you want full urban, you'll be off to Mosul).....Are the points costs of the various units available as .pdf or similar? They are not shown in in the main editor, so balancing may be tricky to begin with. Are you saying there is already an option in the scenario editor for a pre-battle user's force selection, instead of a pre-selected force? I would not know. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 No, what I'm saying is that it may be possible to build a scenario with a predetermined opfor as described above (fortified village, enemy base, urban HQ etc.) and then save it as a QB Map so that you could select your own choice of forces to attempt the challenge.....I'm assuming there's a way to disable automatic selection of the opfor in a QB (so that the only opfor forces will be those already placed on the map), TBH I've not looked at QB maps much. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said: No, what I'm saying is that it may be possible to build a scenario with a predetermined opfor as described above (fortified village, enemy base, urban HQ etc.) and then save it as a QB Map so that you could select your own choice of forces to attempt the challenge.....I'm assuming there's a way to disable automatic selection of the opfor in a QB (so that the only opfor forces will be those already placed on the map) Could this work ? That would be kind of neat... IIRC you can chose to have the AI side picked by the computer or you could select to do it manually (picking them yourself). If you select the manual option and don't pick any forces at all for the AI...will the forces previously selected for the AI while designing the map (or using one of the already finished QB maps) remain...as the AI side...or will they be deleted ones that QB map is selected in the QB battle set up ? If they remain as the AI side this could actually work... One problem i can see with this though...how does the AI forces get devided into the various AI groups ? It could turn into a real mess if the various AI groups are scattered all over the map and not deployed tohether... I guess the easiest way to test if this works at all will be to load a finished QB map into the editor (as a regular scenario) and then deploy a small force to represent the AI side. Save the map (scenario) ones again and place it into the QB map folder...select the map as the active one while starting a new QB...not selecting any forces for the AI side...starting the battle...hitting cease fire... are those troops deployed on the map ? If they are i guess this is working ... The number one question then...will the computer be able to devide them up into reasonable AI groups ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 22 minutes ago, RepsolCBR said: 1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said: No, what I'm saying is that it may be possible to build a scenario with a predetermined opfor as described above (fortified village, enemy base, urban HQ etc.) and then save it as a QB Map so that you could select your own choice of forces to attempt the challenge.....I'm assuming there's a way to disable automatic selection of the opfor in a QB (so that the only opfor forces will be those already placed on the map) Could this work ? No it cannot. The QB system strips out any forces that might be left. Only forces you choose from the QB system will be available and they will be setup as per the AI plan. 22 minutes ago, RepsolCBR said: That would be kind of neat... Sure but also highly unlikely to ever be coded. What you can do though is create a scenario with no friendly forces but a full AI controlled force and save that and then edit it yourself to create an attacking force of your choosing and then play it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 29 minutes ago, IanL said: What you can do though is create a scenario with no friendly forces but a full AI controlled force and save that and then edit it yourself to create an attacking force of your choosing and then play it. Yes...I guess this is the best option avaliable at the moment... It is actually not that much work to do but i doubt that we will see a great number of such scenarios ( a decent pool) being made. It is still a 'little aquard' and a 'little aquard' might be enough to prevent this from being a thing for the masses... Thanks for clearing this up ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 Yep. On the subject of quick battles and some of the cool things you can do I'll plug a really old post: Which included instructions on how to create really big QB battles. Those same instructions could be used for this exact scenario: http://www.lesliesoftware.com/forforumposts/2012/Force Selection Instructions.pdf 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 41 minutes ago, IanL said: No it cannot. Oh well.....At least I learned something new. Does that apply to fortifications too BTW? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 2 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said: Does that apply to fortifications too BTW? Yes. They are units - cost points - and therefore stripped out as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 (edited) Shame.....As I recall the AI's not great at fortification placement. Edited April 23, 2019 by Sgt.Squarehead 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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