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Quick Battle Forces Calculation Spreadsheet


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For those of you who are into doing a fair number of Quick Battle scenarios, I have built an Excel Spreadsheet to calculate force parameter values. What this spreadsheet does is build in some random values by using modifiers calculated from a random number generator, which are applied to the parameters:  Experience, Motivation, Fitness, Leadership and Head Count. What you can do from this is build a force (human selected - both sides) meeting certain criteria according to what you want out of your forces. It will restrict you from building a "king-kong" type force so you'll have to make selections based on the modifiers that were generated. You may have some tough decisions to make about some of the parameters, depending on the latest "dice roll".

Where this has come from is I like to build quick battles which are tiny (by my definition - Coy size for an attacking force is pretty much my maximum), which means that BF's definition of tiny is too large for me. As such, I select the forces myself (if I just select my size and let the AI do it's thing for the other side, they will vastly outnumber me in most cases). So to give me some structure and randomness with the quality of my forces, I will use this spreadsheet to set my parameters with, at the size of force that I want. If I want a very experienced force (let's say, "Crack"), then I may have to give up something somewhere else, such as Leadership values, head count, etc. Also, at the bottom, there is a force ratio calculator for the various types of battles. So if you want an Attack battle, and you want your forces to be between 2 and 3 to 1 in size (points), then you plug the number of points you chose for your forces, plus the multipliers you want to have as an advantage (2 and 3), and the number of points for the other side will be calculated for you. Once you've filled out your force, you can then go in and fill out your opponent's forces using the guide. 

The requirements will be you'll have to have MS Excel and the most advanced function you'll have to do in it is know how to copy & paste special - values (it tells you how to do that in the sheet). Other than that there are only a few fields to fill in and the rest is done for you. 

This sheet is really mainly for people who play QB's against the AI, but if you're doing a PBEM or H2H of any kind and want to generate original battles for that, this will enable you to add some randomness to your forces. I will be testing the sheet over the next day or two, so if anyone is interested, I'd be happy to make it available. If anyone would like to play test it, I'd be most appreciative of any feedback. There are no macros in this so viruses will not be an issue.

Ok, I hope that makes some semblance of sense. I've been at this since early this morning and my brain is a little 🤯 as I write this, so if you have questions, fire away below. Thanks for your time :) .

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Hi Glenn,

I love tiny battles as well. They are easier to write for scenarios and less taxing on my brain for playing.  AND I have an interest to squeeze more out of the QB part of CM. So this interests me.

Question: The OOB you select for the enemy AI, how do you best purchase it for the AI to best assign the AI groups? Do you look at the AI plans first for the target QB map?

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Actually, I have yet to play a QB where I do all this :D . I'll let you know how I figure this out by the end of this week though. So far I've built the scenarios, thus the AI, and the AI fits the units (but then I'm selecting the units, so it's a Catch 22 thing). I'll have more info tomorrow though, if all goes well :) .

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1 hour ago, Canuck21 said:

This sheet is really mainly for people who play QB's against the AI, but if you're doing a PBEM or H2H of any kind and want to generate original battles for that, this will enable you to add some randomness to your forces. I will be testing the sheet over the next day or two, so if anyone is interested, I'd be happy to make it available. If anyone would like to play test it, I'd be most appreciative of any feedback. There are no macros in this so viruses will not be an issue.

I'd be interested in it and I'm sure some others would be too.  Please make it available.

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So I'm doing some play testing now and for the most part, things seem to be working pretty well. However, this looks like (at this point) it's only going to work for QB's that are played player vs. the AI. This is because there is no Save Game option after picking the first force. This means you can't get your force selected and then hand it off to your PBEM opponent to choose his force. I've asked for a change to this in the Engine 5 Wishlist, but who knows. Anyway, I also noticed there is no Head Count option in QB's. As this spreadsheet is for those who wish to build their own scenarios to play as well as QB's, I may need to add a "switch" that turns on/off the Head Count modifier as it does affect the overall max points. So I'll work on that today, but this may not take too long. So far though, the play testing went really well. I've made a number of changes to it that have enhanced it nicely so we're really close. OH, and I need to finish writing up the Instructions for it (that could take weeks... <-- J/K :D )

Back in a bit :) .

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It would be a great thing if it helps make the QB AI opponent better matched to the AI plan in the QB.

ANYBODY PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG OR OUTDATED: The stock QB's seem to only have A1, A2 and maybe A3 as AI groups. You can't get a LOT of offensive tactical finesse with just A1 and A2. Sometimes they seem to manage a marginal defensive performance with just A1 and A2.

This effort of yours kind of reminds me of an old excel spreadsheet Jack O's campaign tool or something like that. It worked with CMX1 and was cool to track maturing of your forces. A unit would survive and you'd go back and enter the kills and he would gain experience. If he finally got waxed/gefallen it was a sad pixel truppen graveside digital ceremony...deleted from the spreadsheet.

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The spreadsheet is ready for your inspection/use. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to post here or PM me. As always, it's use is entirely at your discretion and there is no implied warranty of any kind ;) . The system requirements are that you have Excel and know a couple of basic functions like entering numbers and be able to do a Copy and a Paste Special > Value (there is an explanation on the sheet of how to do the latter). The zip file contains the spreadsheet and a PDF of instructions, although it's pretty easy to use once you've done it a couple of times. If you find you can only select certain boxes, those are the boxes that require your input. Otherwise, all the other cells have been locked and the sheet protected. That is done for ease of use, and to keep grandma, the kids, the wife and/or the dog from making "unwarranted" changes :) . I hope it helps and you find it useful. You can get it at the link below but also I'll have a link up on my website either later today or sometime over the weekend. Enjoy :) .

Forces Quality Calculator for QB's and Self-Designed Scenarios

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A link to this spreadsheet is now up on my site. Please go to My Scenarios to access the link and download the file. I want to reiterate, there are no macros in this file so it should be completely free of viruses (the program was designed in Excel 365 For Mac).

Thanks for your interest. I hope the program helps you out.

EDIT:  Or not. I made a boo-boo in the graphic that could offend a number of people. I've removed the link and it will go back up tomorrow. Sorry about that folks (been one of those days 🙄)

Edited by Canuck21
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