Pocus

Hello, This might be unrelated, another app was also slowed down and a major cleaning fixed it. I'll keep you posted if it happens again. Thanks for the attention anyway.

Hi, My son is modding Brute Force scenario, he does a save as after a few modifications, and then test it. Then everything is super slow, map scrolling, AI (he has checked fast AI), animations, etc. Anything that rings a bell for you? Perhaps a scenario must be compiled before being saved?

Have you 'fixed' (I mean altered ) the Russian help script where they got 200 productions points per turn during 8 turns? This was just insane... Or only give that to the AI and for the player half of that.

Thanks Hubert and hi everybody, I concur with my fellow Frenchman, at the very least, the square where Vichy is should be Lyon (2nd city in size in France, if you count suburbs, third if you don't count them), and Vichy should be further West. For Western Europe at least, where a lot of players are from, I believe the map should be rather accurate and it should not be too difficult to find the biggest discrepancies.

Hi Hubert, Can you provide some detailed 1:1 screenshots of the map of Assault on Democracy please? More specifically Western Europe (I know the scale best in this area, wonder why ). How many people can the expansion accommodate in PBEM, we have some plans, some friends and I !

Before I start a PBEM, is the Patriotic War event (for 1939 scenario) reduced now in the patch, before it was 400 MPP a turn, 8 turns long. It goes without saying that 3200 MPP is a tad excessive

I did play several PBEM against an human with SC2 some time (years?) ago, but here we want a more relaxed game, plus one of the participant is my young son which is now well hooked into wargames thanks to Hubert and team (and you!) I think I'll also change Koenigsberg to major city, seeing a German army with supply level 2 in the Polish campaign sounds unrealistic, plus Pomerania deserves that.

We are about to restart a coop PBEM, us Axis vs AI Allies. The AI will get +100% MPP and +0.5 xp level. The Patriotic War Event is reduced to 400 mp for 2 turns though. If you have an updated version of your campaign, that would be much appreciated though

I came to this conclusion about giving a +.5 experience level, this help compensate low tech or bad supply, more than just adding MPP. As Brute Force is an official campaign, I believe Hubert is reading this thread. The AI tactical aggressiveness is really a problem, all countries when led by AI play 'human waves' styles of attacks with sometime abyssal losses. Perhaps a bug in the evaluation ratio, or just some variables to cranks up a bit.

Hi, I have some feedback about Brute Force and the game in general, based on a cooperative PBEM, us (3) against a +50% MPP AI. Overall Brute Force map and scripts are excellent. I just hope in the future that a map will be redone without the trick of splitting in half both hemispheres. My main remarks are about the AI attacks and some Russian scripts, I have to say this almost ruined our game. I - AI attacks, odds The AI attacks with not good enough odds. You really need to up slightly the ratio where it will attack. Among hundreds of examples, the latest one is a 7 strength Japanese army, in grey cohesion (so 50% or less morale), without tech upgrade, attacking a 10 strength, good condition, Chinese Army, entrenched in city, without tech upgrade. This was a Japanese slaughter. And this example repeat time and time again. I can understand that these attacks can be conducted, for that: a) the AI is conducting a war of attrition and losing more than the opponent is still viable. Quite often, this is not the case... The AI will launch a series of 4+ attacks against the same position so that in the end the last unit may have a chance to get the square. This can happen, if supported by planes, but this is super rare, as the AI is far too optimistic or aggressive. So in any case, reduce AI aggressiveness or tell me how to mod that, this has been very detrimental to the game. Often the AI bring to the front a strength 6 unit... Not to fill a gap, but just to try pushing too hard against the enemy... But no, this is short term thinking here, the AI must maintain a better status on his unit in general... Too many are kept at strength 6-7 and then sent to the front, even if the situation is stable. I'm not talking of desperate measures to be taken... The AI could afford to rest and repair much more his units. II - AI tech AI is really bad in teching. Remember our game was a +50% MPP game. The German attacked Russia with tech 0 tanks and finally upgraded to tech 1 in January 42!! And all this time they were producing hundreds of MPP, I'm not talking of Germany on the decline, mustering its last strength. same for the Japs. Can you believe that the Japs are fighting without any infantry upgrade in January 42? How it is hard to scrap 200 MPP and put them in Infantry upgrade asap? Not that hard. So, a significant shift of MPP usage should be done... While you are at that, I think you need to add safeguards, i.e AI scripts that give them a minimum level as time passes. i.e Germany AI should get for free Tank 1 in 1941, at the very least, Tank 2 in mid 42, and so on... This can only be good for the game. III - Scripts My problem is about a script that ruined our game. As the Russian, I got 3200 MPP because of the Patriotic war. This was plain insane. So I reimbursed 2400 MPP by throwing them to the sea, i.e buying US diplo chits and cancelling them. And even with that, the German are still to approach Kiev! So Patriotic War script should be a one time 400 MPP bonus, nothing more. You already give 5 armies, 2 HQ and others events, this is enough! Rest of scripts are a bit annoying but we can live with that, like Norway falling into German hands without fight, same for Greece, East Indies for the Japs. This feels cheating but I can understand, if to help the AI. That said, very enjoyable game. I could not convince myself to play on the tiny Europe map and Brute Force was the answer to this problem. IV - Bugs Artillery tech can never be researched, is it normal? The US can't station in UK controlled harbours (yes they are allies, they can pass Gibraltar or operate planes in Britain). This is a major bug believe me!

Money or motivation can do great things... We all know the story of this US CV (Enterprise, Lexington, Saratoga? My memory is hazy sorry) which was repaired ('fixed' would be a better word, I guess the repair was not top notch) in 3 days and not the expected 2 months because it was direly needed. I would vote for this option anyway

Oops I missed your reply, thanks for the details. The artilleries are modded yes (as all units, this is my custom scenario, available at the download server ). They should fire at Unit+5 range, but this don't seem the case from the screenshot. I also had infantries (unit range only) fight each other much farther that their circle, and even across body of water!

so, nobody knows?

Oh ok, I did not knew that. All my newbiness is now revealed to the whole world! Thanks for the update.

Hello, In which unit of measure is expressed the range of units? Is it in pixel? For example these Russian artilleries are supposed to have Unit+5 range, does it means they can fire 5 pixels away from their unit circle? It seems that their range circle (in green if not mistaken) is much bigger than that. Just wanted to be sure, I need to refine the ranges in the editor I believe, because right now I get my rear served on a plate by them, damn Russian arties!! edit: While I'm on unit range ... what is the difference between a range of 'Unit' and 'At target' ? And also, there is also an entry for 'Prone', is it the range to use when the unit is prone, or when firing at prone (the former I believe?)

I have a save where 2 tanks in city can't activate their 'wait until repaired' order if you want.

still not sure why it is not repairing...

Hi, What are the conditions to repair a ship in harbor? I have this BB which is in an harbor with shipyard, but the 'sentry until repair' button don't want to be activated?

That's a bit unfair (no offense meant to Jarhead!) also to say EoS is a modernized version of Empire Enhanced, as I believe the author of the former (Brit) has done the code from zero. This would be like saying it is not normal to pay full price for a WW2 game by 2B3 because Paradox did also a WW2 game (or Hubert Cater to name a dev from Battlefront). The guy (Brit) surely put several thousands of hours into his code, so (as a dev myself) I particularly understand why the game is charged full price. Beside... it is really old ugly Empire on steroids: nice graphics, slick interface, WEGO system, LAN/internet play and ladder, Tech tree, one hundred units, modding... just to name a few features. It deserves the full price. And 45$ is not that much Euros! (tease on you, American friends )

One turn sentry please!

Suggestion: add the possibility to put labels on map, in the editor. For example 'Maginot Line' nearby a fortress in France, El Alamein in Egypt (the location does not warrant a city), etc. Would add flavor to scenarios.

You can edit (done in a matter of one mn) the official rule set (make a copy of it) and set that Cities actually produce food, or that barracks allow up to 6 units to garrison for free, you have several possibilities here. Save, and play all your maps with that... -- Cyberstratege & Vae Victis Reviewer

The idea is NOT to script the tactical AI moves Jon, but to let her (him, it?) recognize in which situation he is (forces distribution only), the tactical AI making the effective moves. Making a good AI is feasible, but it asks time. Now should this time be invested in new features for MP for example? I dont think so, because you have to remember that MP players (and I belong to MP players) are by essence the more voicy, and the vast majority (SP players) are silencious (well its less true for a online distributed game, but still true). For me your rules are ok Edwin, for the counter Sealion 'posture'. (well there is loopoholes to consider, if for example a German player pay attention to not increase its fleet each turn above the % threshold). Now you have to solve how postures are prioritized between each other. for example the 'Egypt threathened' script is also valid. What the AI should do? Split his forces between the resolution of the 2 scripts, the problem could be that there is not enough forces to achieve correctly any one of the script. Or give absolute priority to a script, according to a hard-coded (well "script-coded", but absolute) value. Defend against Sea Lion having highest priority compared to Defend Egypt? The problem could be that a German player can try to "freeze" some of the English units (because they are devoted to Defend against Sealion) just so that he is free to act in Egypt. There is also something to consider. We took an example of 2 scripts pertaining to differing physical locations (England & Egypt). I suppose it would be far more difficult to identify several scripts for the Eastern Front which is in essence a continuous line of units, and then "blend" them so that some forces be allocated to each script... as some scripts can "overlap" between each other (support)?: Defend Stalingrad & Defend Caucasus. Hubert is taking the "hierarchical AI" approach, which is by far the most common scheme used. It has several advantages (the ability to split the problem into smaller parts, thus reducing computing time) and the big drawback of having the AI loose the 'Grand view'. What I dont know is if he has splited its AI by agent: offensive, defensive, garrison, air, naval (or amphibious, naval superiority, ...). Thats would be interesting to know

good definition, now if you look at what it asks for scripting, then you see that there is much work to do in the code: 1. increase in naval vessels. To be generalized with an algorithm that can give you the total number of units of several types. Memorize this variable within the script (so the script should allow the declaration of variable). Then each turn check the % increase between the new computing and the preceding variable. If above a thresold then give x points to the response: yes there is sealion at hand. 2. axis land unit not (significatively) engaged somewhere. Again should have a function that return you the number of unengaged enemies of a given nation, compared to the total they have. 4. destruction of the UK fleet. Compared to what? Do you mean compared to an absolute ideal count (that can be very variable depending of many factors) or a big % loss between 2 turns? and so on. Can be done, but it asks for much more than one month of developer works just to program the new functions. And I suppose that if you want to script enough operations to be precise, you have to code dozen of new utilities functions so that the script can deduce correctly what is happening. Its feasible. Thats would be a very interesting part in developing a strategy game whats more. I wonder how Paradox coded its AI...

I dont think the difficulty is to define what a minimal Libya defense is, or what a "Garrison the Italy heel" is eg, the difficulty is too choose which set of script should apply to a given situation, as some are antagonists, or just very difficult to understand (what are the sign telling an England AI that Sealion can happen for example?).