Operation Design

[KG_Cloghaun]

I have completed historical research on a scenario I want to do, but I am still learning how to make scenarios.

I am leaning toward making an operation out of the project I am working on. The scenario will cover 3 battles over roughly a 24 hour period.

My question is this;

What is the time seperation for each battle in an operation? Are they meant to be one battle per day or is it left uninterpeted so I could write in the brief that one battle takes place in the early morning, the next in the afternoon and the last at dusk, all in one day?

Also,

What does "Opening battle time slot" mean?

Thankyou.

[flamingknives]

You can set the number of battles per day, and the opening time slot is in relation to this.

Thus, if you set night falls every 4th battles, the 1st will be dawn, the 2nd midday, 3rd dusk and the 4th will be night.

[Mark Gallear]

The time sepration is not modelled all that well,in some respects. Battlefront designed it to be a few minutes or hours sepration in the gaps between battles. So you could have a battle in the morning/ afternoon/ evening/ then night. The system factors in the difrent light conditions as time changes. This is done by when you set night turns which don't have to be played.

However weather can also change dramatically, the game could give cloudy and heavy rain by afternoon it could be sunny and dry. The players usually can move men about where they like in the pauses, which is not always realistic.

I have used the system to represent a day of combat per game. It is up to you how long you make each battle - you should generally make them shorter than a scenario 20-25 works well. So it is fairly flexible to do what ever you want.

[KG_Cloghaun]

Thankyou for the responses, they were very helpful.

Latest troubles;

In working with the map editor for creating an operation, I am doing test trials to see how things come out.

The test, which somewhat reflects the actual op I want to do, is 3 battles long, 25 turns per day. I've picked a few units for both sides for day one and reinforcement units and had a battle window for the 1st battle. I wanted to see everything pan out, such as how big I would have to make the battle window, whether my reinforcement would show up the way I wanted to, etc,..

My initial problem is that when I go to play the test against the AI(with me as the Germans), the Russian units appear only 10 meters away from the Germans. I am sure when I created the map, I placed the russians within a deployment zone that was over a 1000 meters away. I do not understand why they pop up right next to me.

Question#2

I realize you can set the battle window for the 1st battle, but what about the following battles? If I have 3 battles in my op, can I make 3 battle windows, or does the 2nd battle by default reveal the entire map, regardless of anything?

Thankyou.

[Keith]

Answer to Question #1: Check your setup zones. You configure the setup zones from the map editor (there is a button to go into this mode). Note the setup zones only apply for the first battle. For the following battles the AI determines the setup zones based on the type of operation, the no-mans-land setting, and the proximity of enemy units. The type of operation and no-mans-land setting are configured from the scenario parameters button.

Answer #2: Operations always use a single map. If you want to cover an extended area that must be captured, you can set the operation type to advance or assault and make a very long map. You can set the initial map window, which rolls as the attacker advances. Note for the advance operation the attacker must reach the map edge to win vs. the assault operation where the attacker must capture objective flags to win.

[flamingknives]

Flags only appear in static ops. Advance ops require you to reach the end of the map, assault ops don't.

The battle window determines the size of the map for each battle, and is the same throughout the op. As you capture or lose ground, the battle window 'slides' up and down the operation map, but it always starts at the attacker end.

[KG_Cloghaun]

Thankyou Kieth, I understand your answer to question#1

@flamingknives

I thought flags appear in assaults also?

Question#2

What I want to do is have only part of the map revealed for the start of the 1st battle. When battle#2 starts, I want the entire map revealed. I guess this is not possible. I understand the "rolling window" concept, but that will not do. I guess I will just have the whole map revealed from the beginning.

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by KG_Cloghaun:

Thankyou Kieth, I understand your answer to question#1

@flamingknives

I thought flags appear in assaults also?

Not the last time I checked

[KG_Cloghaun]

You are right, I checked.

But, even though this is a Russian attack, it doesnt mean I can't still have it static, right? I mean, I'm editing the units for both sides so the attacker has enough to get the job done. The point is that I want objectives for the attacker. The goal is to capture a town by the end of the op, so having VL's would seem required.

[flamingknives]

Arrgh, too many double negatives.

A static op still has an attacker and a defender.

If the town is at one end of the map, then it will be an objective in any of the choices, as assault and advance view the end of the map as the objective, the difference between the two is that in advance the attacker is expected to reach the end of the map, whereas in an assault, the attacker can still win without achieving the end of the map..

Using VLs in a static op is tricky as the ai will tend to abandon advanced positions to defend VLs located towards the rear, but will expend its forces recklessly to regain captured VLs further forward. Of course, if you're designing it for head-to-head, that isn't a problem.

[KG_Cloghaun]

lol, I just realized the double-negative.

I understand, thankyou for being so helpful.

[KG_Cloghaun]

I'm having a lot of difficulty figuring out the reinforcement part of the editor.

Here are the facts;

I know you can have a side reinforced at any point during a battle.

I also know that you can get reinforcements at the beginning of each new battle in an operation.

What I want to do is both. I want reinforcements in my operation to come during the middle of a battle as well as at the beginning of each new battle. (Tentatively, I have 3/25 turn battles in the operation.

My current problem is this;

I understand on the unit editor there is a drop-down reinforcement panel at the right of the page.

There is also a button at the bottom for battle arrival of units.

How I understand it is say you want reinforcements for battle #2. At the bottom, you set it for battle#2 and you pick your units. Now if I wanted more units to arrive during battle#2, say turn 5, I would go to reinforcement#5 and pick units, making sure the bottom button was on battle#2.

I ran tests where I have reinforcements arriving for the begining of each battle and that worked fine.

What doesnt work for me is trying to have units arrive on a particular turn in a battle.

I have for battle#2, reinforcements arriving for each slot, representing turns. But when I get to battle#2, all the reinforcements arrive at the beginning of the battle and not on the turns I want them to.

Is it possible in an operation to have units arrive on a particular turn in a particular battle with using the "scheduled" format and the "reserve" format?

[Sergei]

In operations reinforcements ALWAYS and ONLY come at the beginning of the battle, and they ALWAYS arrive to the friendly deployment zone. No exceptions. If you wanted to delay it a few turns, you could probably make them to start "fatigued" and "routed", it would take some time for them to recover enough to join the battle.

[KG_Cloghaun]

Thankyou sir!

I do agree with you but I am puzzled;

Why are there reinforcement drop down markers for operations? I mean, it gives you the option to put them on reinforcement #1,2,3,4,5, etc,.. but they all end up on the 1st day of each battle regardless when you go to play it.

Why not have that part of editor lock out when your editing an operation? It would've saved a lot of confusion.

Perhaps just an oversight by the game designer?

[ January 12, 2004, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: KG_Cloghaun ]

[Sergei]

Hmm, I don't quite follow you here..? If you mean slots, no, they're not about turns. They're just slots, different reinforcements. For instance, in an ordinary battle you could have two reinforcements arrive at the same time but in different parts of the map:

#1 Arrives on turn X

#2 Arrives on turn X

Or you could make them a bit different:

#1 Arrives on turn X at 100 % probability

#2 Arrives on turn X at 5 % probability

It works the same with operations, just the "turn" gets replaced by "battle".

[flamingknives]

Plus in ops you have three other choices to play with. (four if you count the default)

You can have a scheduled reinfocement, who has a certain percentage chance of arriving, starting from a given battle, or you can have battalion, regimental and divisional reserves.

These three call in reinforcements depending on relative strengths (battalion first, then regimental then divisional) i.e. divisional reserves only appear if you're in serious trouble. These are good for keeping a longer Op balanced.

[KG_Cloghaun]

I am amazed that anyone can get their head around all the variables that are offered in making a scenario, let alone an operation. The manual gives you the tools, but it certainly didn't come with the instructions laid out, lol.

You guys have been very helpful and I really appreciate it.

Back to my laboratory, lol.

[von Lucke]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Hmm, I don't quite follow you here..? If you mean slots, no, they're not about turns. They're just slots, different reinforcements. For instance, in an ordinary battle you could have two reinforcements arrive at the same time but in different parts of the map:

#1 Arrives on turn X

#2 Arrives on turn X

Or you could make them a bit different:

#1 Arrives on turn X at 100 % probability

#2 Arrives on turn X at 5 % probability

It works the same with operations, just the "turn" gets replaced by "battle".

This is, IMHO, the biggest flaw with Operations. You can't fine tune the arrival of reinforcements like you can in a stand-alone scenario: All Op reinforcements arrive on Turn 1, in one place, in one mob. A bit annoying, actually.

[von Lucke]

Oh, and one question: What's "Attacker Casualty Point Factor" (only seen in Static Ops) do?

[Sergei]

Originally posted by von Lucke:

This is, IMHO, the biggest flaw with Operations. You can't fine tune the arrival of reinforcements like you can in a stand-alone scenario: All Op reinforcements arrive on Turn 1, in one place, in one mob. A bit annoying, actually.

Yes, although understandable as well in some operations. It would be odd if there is time between battles to totally regroup your forces but somehow the reinforcements won't make it into the battle until it has started already.

You can actually make them arrive as several mobs if you put them into separate reinforcement groups. When there's lots of different units, that helps to sort them out at least a bit.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by von Lucke:

Oh, and one question: What's "Attacker Casualty Point Factor" (only seen in Static Ops) do?

I think it means that you can define that the attacker losses are counted as less than defender losses, or vice versa if you want. It's like it used to be in CMBO when there wasn't static op's with flags but rather the only objective was to destroy as many enemy troops as you could. A tool for balancing.

[Pz. Gen. Guderian]

Well while we are on the subject of Operation design. I have my own question. How exactly does no man's land work? Say I set it to 0m. Does that mean that units that are not within 0m of one another can redeploy anywhere during the next battle? I am somewhat confused on this, the manual isnt very clear. Thanks

[KG_Cloghaun]

There is a function called setting the size of "no man's land". This is to prevent the next battle from starting with the 2 opposing forces facing each other only a few meters apart.

My question is what if I have defending units dug into fortified positions just beyond the battle window(say 20 meters), waiting for the next battle and the attacker reaches the very end of the battle window in the previous battle. The "no man's land" is set for bigger than 20 meters. When the next battle starts what happens? Are the defenders pushed out of their positions or are the attackers deployed further back from where they advanced in the previous battle? Neither possibility seems fair. The defender could lose it's beautifully fortified defense or the attacker could lose an objective he paid dearly for and now has to retake it.

[Sergei]

In either case it would seem a bit illogical that there was a manned position just 20 m away from the map edge but the attacker could advance there as if coast was clear. But in my experience, the map is moved further along and the defenders are dislodged.

[flamingknives]

Certainly in Advance, the defenders are more likely to be displaced if bypassed.

Assault ops give a chance of being locked in place, depending on how many troops the attacker has forward. A large breakthrough is more likely to force the defending position to fall back.