So just to be clear...

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

I can see why there are clearly technical reasons why "quick maps" can no longer be auto generated. That factor does not really bother me because I have always preferred premade scenarios and maps with that "human touch".

I don't trust you.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by rune:

You can setup 5 different plans each plan can have 8 sets of units.

So, as a player, you still get to choose battle type, terrain type, and forces. The map is randomly picked by the terrain/type and if you play against the ai, a ai plan is selected.

This seems workable to me. I am pleasantly surprised to hear that the randomly selected maps feature is in, as it was tops on my wish list. When this idea was first discussed last year, IIRC Steve said it would be considered for a module but "not in the initial release". Maybe I missed the anouncement that it was in.

[Joe Shaw]

Originally posted by rune:

...{snipped} ...

Rune

PS For those not in the know the banter between Joebob and myself is a carryover from the Peng Challenge thread. Take conversation between the two of us with a grain of salt.

Oh please ... don't try to take the high road NOW! You could have explained yourself fully and, may I say, much more politely earlier but NOOOooooo ... you had to be cranky.

Mr Cranky Pants ... there, I've said it and I'm glad.

AND you haven't explained the contradiction inherent in your name either.

Joe

p.s. Mind you I appreciate the information even if we did have to drag it out of you like a rotten tooth from diseased gums.

[ChrisND]

I'm still unclear on the concept.

Can I get at least three Battlefront guys to explain hiw the new Quick Battles system works to me? Afterwards I'd like a confirmation from Charles. Chop chop!

As for the future:

Then I'll send Battlefront a letter explaining how QB in SF is going to suck because it isn't like CMx1. After I get the game and like it I'll pretend that I had faith in you guys all along.

[Panzer76]

Well.. a bit sceptical about this.

One thing was QB vs AI in CM, while it could not attack very well, it was ok on the defence, and I played MANY a QB vs the AI.

Also, if the game cannot randomly generate maps, it also means that we will be playing custom made maps in human vs human battles. I certaintly do not like that aspect. With random generated, its a fresh tactical challange everytime. Sure, the maps may not always be brilliant, but they ARE new.

Now, we will be playing pre made maps, and certaintly some of them many times over. Click "QB" with human opponent, map loads, and "oh, that map again..".

Sure, many more maps will be made for in the future, but we will never again get "fresh" genereated maps it seems.

[JOGR]

I'm with Panzer76 on this one. Hopefully the premade maps will be varied enough not to get repetitive. Still.. I have faith in BFs new QB-solution.

[JaguarUSF]

Would you consider, say, 27 maps to be enough variety to start with?

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by JaguarUSF:

Would you consider, say, 27 maps to be enough variety to start with?

How many of those are attack maps? Defend maps? ME maps? Ofcos, it also depends on how fast there will be new maps available, the quality of those and how easy they are to get. In the end, I think the auto gen maps will be missed no matter what, its just a question of how much they will be missed.

[kgsan]

Originally posted by Panzer76:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JaguarUSF:

Would you consider, say, 27 maps to be enough variety to start with?

How many of those are attack maps? Defend maps? ME maps? Ofcos, it also depends on how fast there will be new maps available, the quality of those and how easy they are to get. In the end, I think the auto gen maps will be missed no matter what, its just a question of how much they will be missed. </font>

[JaguarUSF]

I'd say about 1/3 are meeting engagements and 2/3 are attack/defense pairs, which sounds about right for the setting.

The scripting for AI in quick battles is set up here, attack here. It doesn't matter what type of unit it is, since the operational and tactical AI (which are not scripted by the designer) will adjust the orders for the specific unit. Scripting is really just nudging so the AI knows where the objectives are. The only difference between a quick battle and a scenario is the lack of units defined by the designer.

[Becket]

Originally posted by kgsan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Panzer76:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JaguarUSF:

Would you consider, say, 27 maps to be enough variety to start with?

How many of those are attack maps? Defend maps? ME maps? Ofcos, it also depends on how fast there will be new maps available, the quality of those and how easy they are to get. In the end, I think the auto gen maps will be missed no matter what, its just a question of how much they will be missed. </font>

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by Becket:

The idea that someone would go to the trouble of creating a really great map, but stop short and give up because they don't want to make AI plans, is absurd.

Why?

Originally posted by Becket:

At any rate, I see no reason why people who make maps will stop making maps because this time, instead of flags, they make plans.

So making an AI plan is as easy as plopping down a victory flag on map? You're sure about that?

An offical mini-preview/review of the map editer / maker utility and exactly how to create QBs, and possibly scenarios, step by step would be helpful at this point.

The heartburn I have with this is my understanding was, as I outlined earlier, QBs with user maps only, but with not notion that you'd also have to have AI scripting added. So if scripting the AI plans is a piece of cake, just like dropping a flag, than fine by me.

But I have to say Becket that your assertion that people that enjoy creating maps also enjoy scripting AI is well an absurd assumption on your part. It's as if artists that paint landscapes of rivers and farms also like to build build dams and plant crops. It comes off as a non sequiter.

[Becket]

If you want to tilt at windmills, go ahead, but nowhere has anyone said you have to script an AI.

EDIT: by "scripting an AI" I mean the inputting of actual scripts. We don't know that's how plans work. For all we know they are painted down, like flags.

[ July 05, 2007, 07:26 AM: Message edited by: Becket ]

[Dirtweasle]

Ah,OK, you don't know. So your opinion that the people who like to make maps also like to make AI plans is worth even less than I thought a few minutes ago.

[Becket]

We know a few things:

No random maps.

AI requires plans.

You can do a few things with this. You can complain about the lack of random maps. I understand this one.

You can also make a lot of positive or negative assumptions about what creating AI plans means.

My belief is that arguments that proceed from such assumptions are flawed. The comments I've read from the design team certain don't lend support to the negative assumptions that it will be overly complex.

Certainly I think you are right in that the system will require more work than just slapping down flags. But then again, so did CMx1.

[TheVulture]

People who want to make maps without plans can presumably do so. The CM community is easily large enough to contain a few nutters who will cheerfully take raw maps and design AI plans for them. It would be easy enough fot the scenario depot (or equivalent) to facilitate that, by differentiating between plan maps and unplanned maps, and allowing people to download unplanned and upload planned (assuming the in-game editor allows such a strategy).

But anyone who has designed a scenario for AI play in CMx1 (and there are plenty of them) has wished for some ability to indicate to the AI what the good routes of attack are, or which are the key objectives to attack or defend. Many managed to trick some kind of reasonable behaviour by playing with the flags, and tweaking things like friendly map edges to fine-tune the AIs behaviour as much as possible. Which is more work than you want for a QB obviously.

I don't know, but would imagine that a very simple plan (choice of attack here, here or here) with no real strategy would generate a battle with the AI behaving at least as well as in a CMx1 quick battle, and take all of a minute or so in the editor (I'm guessing, but the most minimal plan the the AI will actually do something with can surely be pretty simple).

Incidentally, the added benefit of plans and plan-free maps is that a good map will likely have several different people generate plans for it, trying to be cunning. So you could download 4 copies of the same map, and end up with 12 possible variations in how the AI choses to tackle it for each of attack, defense and ME.

Not to everyone's taste obviously, but some people find value in e.g. replaying an attack on the same terrain to try out different approaches and refine their strategy, and having even more than the 3 possible plans could give a much wider range of AI behaviour to cope with.

At any rate, someone who wants to design maps only can probably do so, and can certainly throw together the most haphazard minimalist AI plans in 30 seconds, which will probably serve the AI just as well as CMx1 QBs.

[TheVulture]

In fact I've just looked back at how the AI planning tools were described, and the basic version for a ME could be as simple as drawing a target zone 1/3 of the way across the map and another one 2/3 of the way across (which would take a few seconds). Then define a plan of advance to zone A. Wait until turn 15. Advance to zone B. Maybe throw in a 2nd plan of launching from zone A at a different time. Maybe a 3rd plan of advancing down one side of the map only.

Not the greatest plan in the world, but would suffice to get the AI moving forward into combat. And could be done in a matter of minutes with anything like a sane editor design. Surely anyone taking the trouble to make a beautiful map could take a few minutes to throw something like that in for the QB fans.

[KAding]

Well, I'm a bit skeptical about this TBH, but I'll gladly be proven wrong.

I always got very annoyed when I had eagerly downloaded a TOAW scenario which ended up being 'PBEM only' and pretty much useless against the AI. Lets hope there will be enough scenario's made for AI play as well.

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by TheVulture:

...Not the greatest plan in the world, but would suffice to get the AI moving forward into combat. And could be done in a matter of minutes with anything like a sane editor design. Surely anyone taking the trouble to make a beautiful map could take a few minutes to throw something like that in for the QB fans.

Quite possibly you 're right if it's as simple as that.

[rune]

OK, be prepared to be proven wrong. I will later today start a new thread on how to create a scenario with an AI plan. This was done from my request by George, one of the beta testers while we were working on the game. I will have to do some stuff to get the screenshots to show, but look for the start of the article in the forum something this evening or tomorrow morning at the latest.

Rune

[SGT_56M]

And for those who don't know... I am Charles.

[Dirtweasle]

Thanks a bunch Rune, really appreciate it.

[Battlefront.com]

One thing you guys have to keep in mind when complaining about hwo things are is to realize that there was only one alternative... no QBs at all, PERIOD.

The coding time required to get decent random maps alone would be enough to kill off the old style QBs. The variety and complexity of terrain in CMx2 is exponentially larger than CMx1. We realized very early on that it would take months to make an acceptable random map generator. Not worth it to us, especially since that is the tip of the iceberg.

When we thought about making an AI for the new, much more complex game system we immediately ditched the idea of a CMx1 "adaptive" AI. It was pretty good in the more simplistic CMx1 game engine, but anybody that played against it knows that it has serious limitations. Couple this with the fact we wanted less generic feeling battles, where the AI could be counted on to behave the way the designer wanted, we had to go with at least a semi-scripted AI.

So... if you remove random map generation and on-the-fly AI, you can't have CMx1 style QBs now can you?

I don't worry about the map situation for QBs. There will be tons made available within a short period of time. Some will be better than others, for sure, but overall the quality will likely be better than what was made by CMx1's map generator. Oh, and certainly better than nothing!

Making blank AI Plans is VERY easy to do. The complexity comes when you have to tie them to specific units and make sure they behave according to the "story" you have for that particular scenario. Both of these issues go away when you're making a QB map because you aren't tying the Plans to units and you don't have a story to sculpt the scripts to. So it pretty much is just click and "paint" to get AI Plans into QB maps.

Steve

[kgsan]

Steve,

Thanks for the info. I'm still trying to get my brain around the new QB concept. One thing that still isn't clear to me is the degree of precision involved with the scripting.

I would have thought that scripting would pretty much limit a QB map to one type of engagement type and, as a practical matter, also limited to specific classes of forces for it to be playable against the AI.

However, some of the posters above seem to be saying that a map with scripting can be played with any engagement and force type the player chooses. Is that so, it seems a bit counter-intuitive, but one can always hope.

[ July 06, 2007, 12:02 AM: Message edited by: kgsan ]

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I don't worry about the map situation for QBs. There will be tons made available within a short period of time.

That was exactly what I thought when I saw the first screen of the new, detailed environments. CM:SF will be a map maker's dream. I'm sure we will see lots of high-quality maps in no time.

And as nice as the idea of CMx1's random map was, once I got used to play on detailed hand-crafted maps I rarely played on computer generated maps anymore.