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RockinHarry -> RE: PC Campaigns (10/3/2010 9:44:16 AM)
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That all sounds promising. [8D] I never seriously tried building a campaign (well..an operation) in CMx1 vor various reasons. First, it´s very hard to work with the ingame map editor, particualry when trying to build the required large maps from historical sources. Although two tools can be used to workaround some (Mapping Mission & Map Converter), I never got it working for maps larger than 1x1 km square. The minimum I need is 3x2 or even 3x4km size maps, to get a battalion size force operation working.
Secondly, if making an operation to be played vs the AI, the second battle will have the AI forces to be totally messed up, due to the inability of the engine to deploy AI forces in a reasoable manner. This also generates a situation, that from battle to battle, you always need to start again from a "lost enemy contact" situation, which is highly unrealistic.
So my vision for a PCO campaign (1-2 day operation actually), would be the first battle to focus on reconnaisance with appropiate forces (platoon size vs full enemy forces maybe), the second battle (on same map) playing full forces based on reccon made in first battle. This could be followed by subsequent battles on different maps, but looks like this by now is not possible, without branching and scripting features. The "Steel Panthers: WaW" scripted campaign system is a good example for what I mean.
Another issue would be the victory conditions system, which needs to be more flexible. A good example again, is the various victory flag types (including invisible ones) in "Steel Panthers: WaW". Personally most important to me, is a goals/victory locations system, that allows the goals of the enemy (and vice versa) to be "unknown", or at least partly unknown. On small maps, there is not much choice about what is "decisive" locations, but the larger the maps, the more options should be freely selectable by a player. With the simplified "take that flag" game system, you know right from the start, where the enmy is, or will bunch up at last. The enemy player does also. Beside the unavoidable predictability of a battle, the player is denied to choose his own decisive terrain for his chosen tactics.
I´ve seen hundreds of scenarios (some of my own included) which have victory locations placed in a manner, that leads to unrealistic game play. In example victory flags placed on hills, that are neither commanding features, nor otherwise important to win or loose a particular battle. Another nice example is the "take/defend a bridgehead" situation, where a player is forced to simply take a victory flag placed at one or the other end of a bridge. The real thing requires a player to deny the enemy observation and fire on the crossing site. This is something left to be found out by the players and not the scenario makers to enable a halfway realistic game play.
Off course this would be difficult (or impossible) for the AI engine to be understood and used, but features like that could be implemented for H2H only games. [:)]
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