Returning --- Question about SP + QB?

[benpark]

A few QB suggestions from someone that has now made a bunch of QB maps that you see in FR and FB:Downfall-

-If the QB map is Huge/Large, select mechanized/armor forces only - infantry can't traverse the map in time and be fit enough for any AI plan where that branch is concerned. Large force sizes will work best with these maps

-Medium sized maps can be used with all forces, but the infantry can struggle sometimes with any AI plan in terms of lagging where the plan is set for.

-Small and Tiny QB's are for all force types, and I think will give the best challenge for single-player. Don't over-stuff them with more forces than are appropriate for the map-size, though.

When making AI plans for QB's-

-The AI plans weight heavily to Groups 1-3. Group 4 may never be used, or assigned to a very small, ineffective group in Small/Medium sized force selections. I concentrate on these 3 plans, and will only add 4rth or 5th AI plans for Huge maps, as there may be a far larger force used.

-If AI plans use these 3 AI groups primarily, they seem to distribute each AI group to a higher HQ. If the AI force has 3 Platoons, each one seems to always be assigned to a different AI group.

-PAY ATTENTION TO THE TERRAIN when making the AI plans. Don't just make a blob in a location, and hope for the best. Use the available cover, and the height toggle to judge good positions for the task. This takes some extra time, but it pays off in better simulating at least half a brain for the AI side. Look at the AI plans from Downfall to see examples of this, if you have it. A lot of work went into these QB plans in FR and Downfall.

-Use the appropriate movement state for a wide-range of forces. Quick works for unobserved areas, but Fast will tire out any infantry beyond use. Know that the AI plan could be either infantry or mechanized, so it needs to suit either.

-I use Assault/Maximum Assault and Aware for areas where contact is likely. It gives the AI a chance to fire back and be more active, and not just keep charging towards the player, doing the crawl of death. It won't avoid it completely, but this gives the AI more of a fighting chance.

-Let the AI set the artillery targets. It can do a decent job of calling in support, when available - and this is actually reactive to the battle that is happening. If choosing manual force-selection, give them an observer or two if they have artillery.

-Keep the AI orders to a large enough area that most force-sizes can utilize. But pay attention to the underlying terrain, and don't leave unit areas in open areas when they are near cover.

-Embrace odd AI plan shapes when necessary, based upon the underlying terrain and heights

Other Single-Player QB Suggestions:

-Start a QB. Make manual force selections and manual map selections. Start the game, and save it. Name it something helpful, like the size of forces and map. Forget about it for a while. Make a bunch of these. Return to them later, after you forget what the manual force selection was. That method adds some randomization to the experience. Trade these with other people.

-Trade mid-game save-games with people, or use the above method for your own. It should be a save from once the opposing forces are coming into early contact. This simulates being dropped into command, mid-battle.

Edited February 14 by benpark

[A Canadian Cat]

First off nice overview of how to make a QB map.

1 hour ago, benpark said:

-If AI plans use these 3 AI plans primarily, they seem to distribute each AI plan to a higher HQ. If the AI force has 3 Platoons, each one seems to always be assigned to a different AI plan.

Did you mean AI group here instead of plan? If there are three platoons I would think they would be assigned to different groups.

[benpark]

Correct, Ian! Thanks for catching that. It is the distribution to groups.

[CarlXII]

It's been quite a while since i played a Vs Ai QB and things might have improved somewhat since then but from reading posts on this forum i belive that they are still seriously lacking.
My experience back then was that force selection and initial deployment on the part of the AI was very lacking and honestly close to an insult towards the player...By that i mean... if a player decides to commit some decent time to do a QB battle and takes care to chose a nice map...Develop a plan and spend quite some time to pick a sutable force to then find after having played maybe 10 turns that the AI have picked a force simular to that what Vascillator described above...Thats would be quite frustrating !

This can be improved in many ways i'm sure but one fairly simple way to help the AI pick a more sutable force might be to assign each individual unit in the editor sort of a prefix and a strenth value that would devide them into a number of distinctive groups.
Something like:

1. Infantry.
2. Anti infantry support weapons.
3. Anti armour support weapons.
4. Light vehicles.
5. Tanks.
6. Assultguns/ Tankdestroyers.
7. artillery/ Mortars.

When the AI picks its force for a QB it will have a starting strenth-pool for each of these categories dependant on the battle size. These starting values will then be moddified by a number of things...

- player force selection
- map type
- weather
- battletype (defend, attack, meeting)

The AI will 'cheat' and see what force the player decides to buy...If the player opts to spend a high portion of his points on armour then the AI strenth-pool for things like Anti armour support weapons, tanks and tankdestroyers will be increased somewhat. Light vehicles and
infantry will be reduced somewhat. If the player on the other hand decides to pick a primarely infantry based force these AI strenth-pools will be adjusted in a simular way. Infantry and anti infantry support weapons might be increased at the cost of armour.
Simularely maptype and weather should also tweak the various strenth-pools somewhat. If the map is heavely forrested or urban for example then armour and anti armour support weapons pools might be reduced somewhat to benefit more infantry and artillery. If weather reduces LOS
that might also result in some tweaks to the various strenth-pools as would the type of battle being played do.

Preferably these various groups could also be used when painting setup zones and AI groups/ programing. Each setup zone painted on the map should have 'checkboxes' for each weapon type group that could be ticked on or off to allow units of that type to be deployed in that set-up zone. Ai groups could have simular
checkboxes to limit what type of units could be assigned to the various AI group.

 

[Lieutenant Ash]

 Good ideas, I've often thought there should be some mechanism built in that assigned appropriate units to the various AI plans, for example if the plan is just set up and ambush without further movement orders then units like AT guns, heavy m/c guns on screen mortars etc are assigned to it (along with foxholes. trenches. mines and bunkers -hopefully manned- etc). Meanwhile AI plans which contain movement orders would receive the tanks, halftracks, APC's etc. infantry would assigned to both.

[landser]

Bring back Combined Arms. Done.

[Kevin2k]

6 hours ago, benpark said:

-PAY ATTENTION TO THE TERRAIN when making the AI plans. Don't just make a blob in a location, and hope for the best. Use the available cover, and the height toggle to judge good positions for the task. This takes some extra time, but it pays off in better simulating at least half a brain for the AI side. Look at the AI plans from Downfall to see examples of this, if you have it. A lot of work went into these QB plans in FR and Downfall.

Thanks for the tips!

I worked on a few QB map conversions. And I did have a contradiction for these deployment 'orders'. Like selecting the tiles for order no.1 no.2 no.3. etc. :

For infantry one would want different tiles then for armor. Infantry likes the cover of buildings and forests, but vehicles just get obstructed there. When in game I sometimes see this nondiscrimination of unit types play out in a bad way, mainly when vehicles are trying navigate and deploy in areas with lots of buildings.

WW2 Vehicles may prefer overwatch positions, but I suppose it depends on whether or not their armor is good enough to risk that. Infantry often does not have the firing range to utilize such an overwatch position.

 

[benpark]

I had suggested different QB categories of orders based on foot/wheeled/tracked categories at some point. However, that's 3 x more AI orders! That's a lot to keep track of. I keep track of what the AI plan is via a Photoshop template (I made a post about that somewhere - I call it the P.A.I.N. system), but even with that, it would be a lot of information to juggle.

Edited February 14 by benpark

[Kevin2k]

38 minutes ago, benpark said:

I had suggested different QB categories of orders based on foot/wheeled/tracked categories at some point. However, that's 3 x more however many other AI orders there are! That's a lot to keep track of. I keep track of what the AI plan is via a Photoshop template (I made a post about that somewhere - I call it the P.A.I.N. system), but even with that, it would be a lot of information to juggle.

Yeah. Good to know I was not the only one with these thoughts.

I remember thinking: Well, I cannot put the zone in between those buildings, for vehicles will go mad. I cannot put it in front of the buildings, for the units will have no cover at all. So then I put the zone at the back of the buildings, then hopefully some of the infantry will take some acceptable positions, but the vehicles will just be idle in the back, unable to see anything...

Maybe on the software side it can anticipate a little? Like automatically do this or that, or avoid this or that, when the order-zone has lots of buildings or forest.