The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns

[Battlefront.com]

Good point Webwing. Sometimes going back doesn't wind up being any better than going forward

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

Thanks for the reminder, I wanted to ask about that. So far, every time I've reverted to the save point at the begiining of the new mission in a campaign, the AI always uses the same attack plan. (For testing guys ) There are a few missions in my campaign that have two or more AI plans, and when I loaded them back up, I always got the same AI plan. Perhaps I've just been unlucky? Or has the AI already chosen it's plan when the save box comes up?

[Webwing]

AFIK if you save mid mission, the plan has already been chosen. So, same plan once you came back to that point.

To see a different plan you need to start the mission again.

It also has to do with how you had set this up in the editor: Frequently used, Rarely used, etc.

I thought having more than one plan was a waste of time since not many people were replaying the missions. I found out that this is not the case, that people do replay missions and campaigns quite often so now I'm always doing several plans for my missions.

I'm trying to make the plans really different. One is an aggressive and somehow reckless attack. The other careful advance and flanking manuover, etc.

Afte some time even you won't remember where the enemy is coming from!

-

[ April 25, 2008, 09:14 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Originally posted by Paper Tiger:

Thanks for the reminder, I wanted to ask about that. So far, every time I've reverted to the save point at the begiining of the new mission in a campaign, the AI always uses the same attack plan. (For testing guys ) There are a few missions in my campaign that have two or more AI plans, and when I loaded them back up, I always got the same AI plan. Perhaps I've just been unlucky? Or has the AI already chosen it's plan when the save box comes up?

I don't know, but I think you've just been unlucky. I'm pretty sure I restarted Strong Stand at one point and got a different AI attack plan, but I might be wrong.

-FMB

[Battlefront.com]

The Plan is chosen at the beginning of the game and followed until the end. But if people want to imagine the AI being more adaptive than it actually is, who am I to argue?

Steve

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The Plan is chosen at the beginning of the game and followed until the end. But if people want to imagine the AI being more adaptive than it actually is, who am I to argue?

Steve

So does this mean that if I load the save game that the campaign automatically makes (i.e. during the setup phase) I will get the same attack plan every time?

[Paper Tiger]

FMB

"So does this mean that if I load the save game that the campaign automatically makes (i.e. during the setup phase) I will get the same attack plan every time?"

yup, that's my question too. When I've reloaded missions from the save point I always seem to get the same AI plan. With Strong Stand, there's an equal chance that I'll get attack plan A OR attack plan B. But I always seem to get the same one from THAT save point. It's like the AI has already chosen it's attack plan BEFORE the mission is saved.

Webwing, you must have noticed if this is true. When you say restart, you mean reload from that save point, yes? Or do you mean restart the campaign? I'm pretty sure you meant the first.

[Battlefront.com]

The decision is made (IIRC) between setup and the actual start of the game. If you save before that (i.e. during setup or at the end of the previous battle) the AI Plan for that battle has not been chosen. As soon as the game starts playing out it's locked in for the rest of the battle, no matter when you save or come back to it.

This is because it is not possible for the AI to anything more than start up another Plan from the beginning and follow it to completion. Think about it this way:

Plan A has all forces straight ahead 200m, dismounting, then moving into a village.

Plan B has all forces move to the left flank 300m, dismount, then move into a set of trenches.

Imagine that the AI's units are at the 200m spot in Plan A and have dismounted. Then it switches to Plan B. Without a LOT of AI code in there to try and figure out how to disregard parts of Plan B, sensibly, the only thing for the AI to do is move all its troops (unmounted) back to the Setup area, mount them, then move to the left flank 300m, dismount, etc.

This exposes one of the major tradeoffs between a semi-scripted AI and a fully dynamic one like CMx1 had. In CMx1 the AI would pretty much do the same thing each and every time, though perhaps in a slightly different way. It was able to switch onto the defensive and still do something because to the AI it didn't matter if the goals were changed since it doesn't care. With CMx2's system the AI can do a lot more dynamic behavior in terms of being pertinent to the specific battle conditions and terrain, but it can not improvise once it starts.

Each has its problems, each has its plusses. After our experiences with CMx1's AI we felt that the benefits of an AI that is more predictable for the scenario designer is more valuable than one that is left to figure things out for itself. We feel absolutely sure we made the right choice, though there are things about the AI we would like to improve over time.

Steve

[TOG]

I agree that going back to an earlier save during a battle isn't really fun. During battle you make some decisions and you should take responsibility for that, it adds realism. Some things just happen and you have to copewith that. But I think that an option to save the game during battle should be avalible and it's up to the player to use the game the way he likes. I rarely have time to complete one big battle at one time so saving during battle is very useful. Restricting player from doing some things isn't a good way. Everyone should use the game the way he likes. When playing against AI you only cheat yourself.

[Paper Tiger]

Steve

"The decision is made (IIRC) between setup and the actual start of the game. If you save before that (i.e. during setup or at the end of the previous battle) the AI Plan for that battle has not been chosen. As soon as the game starts playing out it's locked in for the rest of the battle, no matter when you save or come back to it."

Aha, excellent. That answers my question. So I HAVE just been unlucky. Thanks for the reply.

[Paper Tiger]

Hey, while we're at it. I want to ask about making changes to the core units file. I wanted to have my core units get progressively weaker as the campaign drew on so I follwed the instruction in the manual carefully. But when I complied the campaign and checked their status, nothing had changed. Is this not working or did I screw up.

quote from the manual

"From time to time changes may be made to the Core Units File hat require synchronization with existing Campaign battles. This is generally an extremely easy and painless thing to do.

Just open up the scenario file and Import Campaign Units again. Core Units already in the scenario retain almost all of their

customization, such as placement, Group assignments, Orders, etc. Therefore, synchronizing with the Core Units File does not

wipe out hard work! What it does do is remove units no longer in the Core Units File, imports newly added units, and updates attributes (such as names, experience, etc.). The latter is

probably the only potential drawback of synchronizing since customized settings like that must be redone."

Okay, it doesn't mention 'weakened' but I also tried altering their experience both ways and that didn't work either. It looks like the campaign can only use the first core unit file. If that's true, then it's a pity as there is great potential in this.

[Webwing]

Paper Tiger.

Lets see if I understand what you are saying.

I imagine you mean weakened in the Fitness settings.

You don't actually need to change anything in the core units file.

After you imported the core units into the mission you are working on you can then delete what you don't need or add other units you need.

Now you can also change the settings for those units. You tried that and it didn't work. Is that it?

Settings for Rest and Supply are set by the script for the campaign:

[bLUE RESUPPLY %] 100

[bLUE REST %]100

In the example above your units will be fully resupplied and rested from the previous mission.

[bLUE RESUPPLY %] 0

[bLUE REST %]0

In this example if they expended half their ammo and where in a tired state in the previous mission, then that's how ALL your units will be in the next mission.

So if you want ALL your units to be still tired leave the [bLUE REST %] at zero.

Although this might not be exactly the same as the fit setting it will impact the mission in almost the same way.

I imagine fit units will get back to a rested state faster than unfit units.

But a unit won't suddenly become weakened in the middle of a campaign. They will become more tired. The are more or less fit depending on their training long before the campaign started.

In this sense the system works very well and you will able to get the results you want.

Remember that the % has to do with how many units have a chance of being resupplied/rested and not the amount of rest or supply.

-

[ April 26, 2008, 07:34 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

[Paper Tiger]

Webwing

thanks for the reply. Yes, I meant fitness. I also understand all that you posted about the campaign scripting, the %s and everything. However, I am asking about sychronizing the Core Units File during the campaign. When I read the manual about this I thought, "cool, I can change my core units experience and fitness levels during the course of the campaign".

You already know what follows but let's just state it so that folks understand what I'm asking about. When you create a campaign, you specify the core unit file you want to use. That sets your units experience, fitness and ammo levels for the campaign. I am probably wrong but my interpretation of the manual quoted above is that it is possible to 'point' later scenarios in the campaign to a different core unit file with different values for experience and perhaps fitness. I'm just not sure how this works in practice.

What I tried in my test compilations was to give all the missions after 'The farm' a different core unit file with weakened fitness levels. However, when I opened up the later missions in the compiled campaign, nothing had changed. Si I tested again, and this time I changed a couple of things, experience levels as well as fitness but still, NOTHING changed. When I realised that I wasn't going to be able to do this, I made ALL the RG units weakened for the whole campaign which wasn't ideal but still gave me the effect I was looking for. Is that a bit clearer?

[Webwing]

Originally posted by Paper Tiger:

Is that a bit clearer?

Clear as muddy watter!

Just joking, it's very clear now.

It was probably the way I read it not the way you explained it anyway.

It is not possible AFIK.

If you change the core mission file in any way and then re-import this file, the changes will apply to the whole campaign. Every single mission in it. Just as you said.

When you think about it, it wouldn't make much sense to have several core files, since then they wouldn't be core anymore.

What I understood from that part of the manual you quote is that if you decide that you want to change the force mix in any way, when you import it again only the changes will apply not what is common to both files, the new one and the original one.

But I don't really see the logic in changing the fitness of the troops mid campaign. The resting state is ok though.

Some things shouldn't be changed in the middle of the campaign IMO.

For instance, Equipment Quality, Leadership, and even Experience, although this last one is debatable. Even motivation is debatable. But it seems to me that those last two also have to do with something more long term and not something that would change form one mission to the next.

Maybe the nomenclature is a bit misleading? I don't know.

For me fit has to do with training. But then you have this term weakened in the options. For me weakened has to do with being tired not with fit or not fit. Does that make sense?

Or does "fit" and "weakened" has to do with some minor injuries? I don't think so.

Maybe Steve could clarify that.

-

[Battlefront.com]

I think what I am about to say will be relevant, but perhaps not

You can customize unit stats for a specific scenario, however if you Synch with the Core Units file you will lose these changes. In that case all you have to do is change them again.

The thing that I think is tripping up Paper Tiger here is that the data as saved in a specific battle (scenario) will override whatever is carried forward from the previous battle EXCEPT casualties and Condition. These things are affected by the Resupply and Rest variables.

What this means is if the Core units start out at VETERAN, you can change this for Battle 2. However, when Battle 3 comes around the Experience level will be whatever was saved into that scenario, not what came before it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Forgot to add why this is the way it works

When a battle in a campaign is loaded for play the units can get their data from one of two places:

1. The data saved into that particular scenario file

2. From the results of the previous battle

It must work consistently the same way every single time. Therefore, it's not possible to have a unit get its Experience value from the scenario file one time and the previous battle the next. It's either one or the other.

Currently the unit attributes (Experience, Fitness, etc) come from the scenario file, not the previous battle. This means that you can adjust Experience, for example, at any point in the campaign. However, unless you make the same change for the same units for all battles that follow this change will only happen for that one battle, not the others. If instead Experience came from the previous battle then you'd not be able to override it. Meaning, if the unit starts out as REGULAR then it will always be REGULAR because that's what it was in the pervious battle. We have no mechanism to increase Experience from battle to battle since this isn't appropriate.

Hope that helps!

Steve

[Webwing]

That's definitely relevant!

If that works, that's exactly what Paper Tiger is looking for.

However, I had made some tests before with this and it didn't seem to work that way. I never managed to override the core units settings. Not once.

If a unit is VETERAN in the core file, no matter what I set it to in the subsequent missions, it will stay VETERAN.

Might be worth some more tests.

-

[Webwing]

As I was writing my response you were doing the second post!

So, what sets the whole thing would be the settings in mission/scenario #1. No changes after that.

I never bothered to change the settings in mission #1 since I figured it was getting its info from the core file. Core and #1 are always the same for me then.

Anyway, that's what I get in my tests. Bad news for PT then.

-

[Paper Tiger]

Hey, that's absolutely brilliant. Thanks for the reply, Steve. I'm going to try some experiments on this tomorrow and if I can get it to work, it looks like there'll be a final v3 Hasrabit version at some point in the not-too-distant future. (groan) And it'll definitely find it's way into my new WIP.

cheers

[Battlefront.com]

I'll be interested to know what you guys come up with. The way I described it working should be the way it works. If not, I can probably have that fixed. Probably

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

I should get round to doing some experiments on this at the weekend. I'm currently too busy designing a set of new maps for my next project to do this just now.

Something else that people seem to be having a problem with in my campaign is casualties. Since most of you guys are used to playing as the US where keeping casualties to a minimum is hugely important, and rightly so, in a Red on Red situation, I feel that it's the mission that comes first and casualties further down the list of priorities. It's quite possible to succeed in the campaign by taking up to 50% casualties in the difficult missions as long as you win the mission while doing it.

But for some people, that seems like an unacceptable price to pay for victory and it might be spoiling their enjoyment. It's especially difficult to bear when they're your core forces. I hope that people will try to win the campaign rather than carefully husband their core forces through the individual missions. Please remember that I don't have a super computer and so the final missions can't be an apocalyptic slaughterfest with whole battalions plus support units one either side. In fact, both the final missions are really quite small affairs compared to some of the earlier missions. Try to keep your cores at about 50-66% and you'll have enough to complete the later missions.

[Paper Tiger]

Last night I was doing some work on the core file in my campaign and I got a real shock. Most missions in my campaign have units with different stats because I haven't been synching the missions with the changes I've made to the core unit file.

When I first started work on the campaign I gave all my core units in the core file the very best stats possible. i.e. +2 leadership modifiers for everybody... hurrah. Of course, that was just for fun and I soon changed that core unit file. However, there were a couple of missions that used that as their core unit file. As I continued to playtest the campaign I made several changes to the core unit file reducing the quality of some of the units and so some missions were created from these different core unit files.

However, what I didn't do was go back and synchronise those earlier missions with the NEW core unit file because I thought that would happen when I hit the compile button.

Tomorrow, if I have time, I'll try a third compile with all the core units in each mission synched with the final core unit file. Before compliling, I'll adjust the unit's fatigue levels in the later missions in the scenario editor, complie it and then try it out. I'll post the results when I have them.

[Paper Tiger]

Okay, I'll share what I've found with any of you folks who are interested in creating campaigns so that you don't make the same mistake that I did.

It appears that when you make any changes to your core forces file, you must then re-synch all your existing missions with the new file before the changes will take effect. I just assumed that they would automatically synch with the new core file when I compiled the campaign. Wrong!

Once you have added your core forces to your your missions, it is possible to edit some of their characteristics such as fitness level or experience etc for that particular mission only. This is done in the usual way, by opening it up in the scenario editor and making these small changes. However, these changes will not carry on to the next mission unless you edit them as well.

It's a bit of a shame I didn't learn all this before I posted my campaign but never mind, there will be a next time. I'll post a final version 3 for posterity with some changes made inspired by the feedback I've received. It will have properly synched core forces that get weaker as the campaign progresses so it should work the way I intended it to.