Drop zones & supply - make the airborne work harder.

[stubby331]

Only a third of the way through my first scenario - the Arnhem Historical campaign (see the campaign lost thread [:D]). Anyway, I was thinking, what would put even more pressure on the airborne units not only at Arnhem but throughout the game?...

Answer: Give the player a reason to defend the dropzones after all the units have been "delivered".

As we know, historically, a big problem for 1st Abn was that early on, the supply dropzones were overrun, leaving them short of most supplies.

I know that the focus of HTTR is not on supply (which is great) but it does seem to be a bit of a gift that the airborne units get the same amount of supply every night REGARDLESS of whether or not they actually still hold the Dropzones (eg. Renkum heath).

I would like to see a supply penalty introduced which encouraged the player to hold dropzones for real benefit, ie recieving their full supply allotment.

If you decide not to put any effort into protecting your supply dropzones, fine, your choice, but pay a percentage penalty of say 75% of your daily supply allotment.

Thoughts?

[MadScot]

Sounds good, although I always assumed the Arnhem resupply rates incorporated the effect of the supply drops being overrun anyway.

Historical the atrocious radio situation prevented a movement of the supply drop zones; the game doesn't - can't - model that, since it would reduce the allied player to the same bystander role Urquhart had for much of the battle - historical but not fun - so do you let the player replan the drops or not?

[Golf33]

If you want to give the player a reason to hold dropzones, put victory conditions on them so he needs them to make up part of the score.

Regards
33

[stubby331]

ORIGINAL: Golf33

If you want to give the player a reason to hold dropzones, put victory conditions on them so he needs them to make up part of the score.

Regards
33

Yup, I'm happy with that. When's it going to happen? [;)]

[Golf33]

You could quite easily edit the scenarios that shipped with HttR to add this in [:)]

We're not planning on doing anything in this direction at present, however.

Regards
33

[stubby331]

ORIGINAL: Golf33

You could quite easily edit the scenarios that shipped with HttR to add this in [:)]

We're not planning on doing anything in this direction at present, however.

Regards
33

No worries Golf [:)] Thanks for the response. Do you see my suggestion as something that could be tossed around for the COTA development or would you just go down the victory location road to produce the desired AI behavior?

With regards to altering Scenarios to include victory locations based on Supply drop zones...

The Arnhem Scenarios are only ones I think I will change. Given that the 1st Abn Comms pretty much died in the arse as soon as they hit the ground I think I can pretty safely assign permanent zones to defend. I will have to do some research into the exact historical dropzones assigned... Any website suggestions from anyone on that score?

I'm assuming that the AI will see these new victory locations and allocate resources to either attack or defend them?

[MadScot]

There's a map in Ryan's 'A Bridge Too Far' showing DZ locations, including supply zones. pp220-221 in my version. Not sure on websites, but I've seen one somewhwere Im sure.

[Golf33]

ORIGINAL: stubby331

Do you see my suggestion as something that could be tossed around for the COTA development or would you just go down the victory location road to produce the desired AI behavior?

This is something that should happen once the detailed supply model comes on line (currently planned for BftB, i.e. after CotA). I can't comment on how the details will work though, that's better left for Dave to talk about.

Regards
33