Randomly build your OOB

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Randomly build your OOB - 5/23/2013 9:25:17 AM

Josh

Posts: 2576
Joined: 5/9/2000
From: Leeuwarden, Netherlands
Status: offline

With many thanks to Lord Karg for his original idea of playing ATG solo and building his Order of Battle randomly.

Original topic here; http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3326320&mpage=1&key=�

Quite a good read actually.
Now I know most of us already know all too wel how we create new units in ATG, you build what you think you might need.
Then later we discussed the idea of "unit templates" so to make it less of a clickfest. The idea is you make a "standard unit" according to your ideas, and then make it a template so you can create multiple units at a time. Easy peasy less clicks involved.
Now Lord Karg here introduces a whole new idea

build your OOB according to a random dice roll (D20 or whatever dice you want)

So here is what it looks like;

Build this OOB (randomly ordered: roll D20, 1-15)
1. 1-3 x Commando Brigades
2. 2-4 x Engineering Regiments
3. 1 x Mountain Division
4. 1 x Recon Regiment
5. 1 x Elite (oversized) Divsion
6. 2-5 x Para Battalions
7. 1-2 x Infantry Corp
8. 1 x Mechanized Corp
9. 1 x Tank Corp
10. 1-2 x Indepedent Artillery Divisions
11. 1 x Tank/Cavalry Corps
12. 2-4 x Air Wings
13. 1 x Flak Regiment
14. 1 x AT Regiment
15. 3 x Garrisons

Now I find this a very interesting idea, and I'd love to see Victor implement it one day in a future upgrade... maybe when AT Platinum gets here?
Any thougths/ideas?
Once again, all kudos to Lord Karg.
(if I have posted this without your permission I'll delete it okay?)

Post #: 1

RE: Randomly build your OOB - 5/23/2013 10:47:15 AM

lancer

Posts: 2963
Joined: 10/18/2005
Status: offline

G'day Josh,

Interesting idea but I'm not sure how many takers you'd get as it kind of defeats the purpose of having a production system in the game. If you've got no control over what is produced it soon becomes irrelevant.

If you wanted to reflect some kind of political restrictions on your ability to wage war, such as is reflected here, then I'd be inclined to go down a different path.

Perhaps each HQ you create is attached to an individual city? Call the HQ after the city name. You'd be representing a federation of city states that have all joined together to defend themselves.

Each individual city raises it's own regiments (kind of like the American Civil War) but the catch is that they expect them to be around to defend their home city.

Every time you moved a particular HQ more than 3 hexes from it's home city you'd have to pay a political penalty, eg. say 5 or 10 PP a turn. You could move the individual units anywhere you want but they'd be operating outside of the influence of their parent HQ unless you called in enough political favours to allow them to move as well (you'd need a simple action card, 'call in a favour', cost 10 PP, for this to burn off the PP's).

To simplify it even further you could do away with the PP cost and action card and simply have a house rule that states that an HQ must immediately return to within 3 hexes of its own city once the enemy moves to within, say, 15 hexes of the city. That's where it has to stay, regardless, until the threat of enemy invasion is gone ( enemy > 15 hexes ).

You'd probably need another house rule to keep all HQ's at roughly the same level of troops to prevent yourself gaming the system.

Either way, you could still produce what you want but you'd be politically constrained as to how you fought the war which, I assume (?), is the effect that Lord Karg was after.

Cheers,
Lancer

(in reply to Josh)

Post #: 2

RE: Randomly build your OOB - 5/23/2013 11:54:25 PM

Lord Karg

Posts: 20
Joined: 7/31/2002
Status: offline

I used the D20 randomness to impact the BUILD ORDER. Both sides get to build the same forces, only the come out in slightly a different order. It's not that big an impact, as the smaller units can be created in one turn (or less) while say a Tank/Cavalry Corps might take 3-4 turns.

The other point about solo wargaming is to allow a great amount of flexibility in the solo rules, and only use them as they fit into the best options for each side. When there is a rare major strategic decision (build strategic bombers or gamble on heavy tanks) do I get out the D20 and pretend that the decision was made by the "War Office".

(in reply to lancer)

Post #: 3

RE: Randomly build your OOB - 5/24/2013 6:31:23 AM

Konrad_Novak

Posts: 18
Joined: 3/20/2013
Status: offline

This is essentially cutting production function in game - simplifying it. If I would ever use this option (randomizing production\OOB), I'd use it in scenario editor, to determine what forces my opponent and I start with (instead of standard garrisons) and where they would be located. It could greatly change my strategy in first couple of turns. After that - I'll build my own army, thank you.

On second thought, it could be good for solo gaming, as Lord Karg noticed. Two armies with different force structure will use different strategy and operate differently. It will improve solitaire gaming.

(in reply to Lord Karg)

Post #: 4

RE: Randomly build your OOB - 5/24/2013 11:54:54 AM

wifbrad

Posts: 2
Joined: 5/15/2013
Status: offline

A long time ago I suggested a way to start a game with a ready made situation you would have to dive into which I believe would be perfect for solo gaming. Let the AI 'play' (build armies) for a certain number of turns, which you could determine, without being able to declare war then let the human take over. Either this was not feasible or there was no interest in doing it. However, it would achieve exactly what you guys are asking for - a more or less ready made OOB which you would have to develop strategy around for both (all) sides. Perhaps if it is the latter reason, enough clamoring for it will have it looked into again. I really think if you could create some ready made random scenarios in this way for solo gamers ATG would really take off. It would give people another option to stretch their imaginations beyond playing the AI. (Actually it would also be useful for people who enjoy playing against the AI or PBEM but just want something other than the civilization feel of starting from scratch). The people who enjoy starting from scratch already have the option to do this as well. Anyway, just my 2 cents.

< Message edited by wifbrad -- 5/25/2013 5:23:43 AM >

(in reply to Konrad_Novak)

Post #: 5