Battle Group strength idea

[davidss]

Hi,
Although I don't own (and haven't tried LSA) ... I've seen information about LSA's model for simulating Battle Group strength.
I can't say I completely understand the system, but I think there is another way to portray Battle Group strength and attrition, as well as, balanced game play.
I've been working on a selection overlay that basically simulates an infantry platoon with weapons platoon support, and a possible tank platoon.
I'll attach the image for review
The idea is:
1.Lock all 15 slots ... so that each slot can only be filled with specific types of units.
2.Each slot has its own types of possible teams to select.
3.A slot remains empty, when the Force Pool can't supply the team type matching the slot’s description.
The overlay allows for a variety of different Battle Group possibilities, but restricts players from selecting amounts beyond a set limit ... thus balancing game play.
The strength of a Battle Group can be varied in several ways using this overlay method:
1.Battle Groups can be designed with proportionally historical correct amounts of units, and then attrition will eventually lessen the amounts of certain team types until none are left. BG’s with more units will eventually prevail over time, if losses between opponents are similar. Progressive losses will reduce available team types … thus a reduced amount of slots available. A player with more slots is able to field more units and thus has an advantage.
2.The Command Infantry/Vehicle slot can be used to give Armored and Mechanized BG’s an advantage over Infantry BG’s … similarly, an Armored advantage over Mechanized. Since this slot only allows for Command Infantry or Command Tank units, a BG without Command tanks will not be able to select a tank for this slot … therefore will have less tanks to field in a battle than a BG that has Command tanks. Armored BG’s could have more Command tanks in their Force Pool than Mechanized for the same purpose.
3.Force Pool amounts of certain team types could be kept minimal, as another method of restricting the Active Roster. Combined with an increase in the amount of times a BG can re-enforce, then amounts could remain historically correct but made available on a more time frame relevant basis.
4.Unlock BG button:
Add an unlock button to the Battle Group screen that will allow a player to select any units to fill the active roster. The amount of times a player can unlock could be another in game option (or written in the campaign text as another option).
This would give players freedom to field a unique BG for a specific purpose, but be restricted to a finite amount of times … thus more realistic and providing more strategy options

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Kanov]

Hi davidss,

Maybe you already know or not, but Achtung Panzer uses a very similar system for refitting and reserves. Although its unit structure is different since it uses platoons instead of companies, the concept you propose is very similar to the mechanics it uses.

in AP:K a typical infantry platoon consists of a command unit, 3 or 4 infantry sections and a support unit (halftrack with heavy gun, AT gun, AT section or a HMG team), when casualties occur, you can either refit the squad with men or replace it with a similar one from the reserve pool, command teams for command team, infantry for infantry, support for support; If a unit is "Broken" you cannot refit it and when you send it to the reserve pool it is lost for ever I think, I haven't confirmed this but they disappear. Other thing is that platoons from the same company share a common forcepool of units and men, something that is not explored in CC and its mods even though CC4 used the shared forcepool system, now every BG has its own FP. Other thing is that if you destroy the platoon in tactical phase, it is gone for the reminder of the operation even if it had reserve units in its pool.

Something that has been missing since CC2/CC3 is that you no longer care for your men since you get this big amount of resources at your disposal, so you careless throw them into the meat grinder, in CC3 I remember I used to get mad when one of my beloved veteran soldiers died. In CC5? not so much.

[davidss]

Hi Kanov,
Thanks for the info about that other game using similar mechanics.
I ended up abandoning this above mentioned idea, and decided to limit the force pool to approx. company size (along with reenforce enabled) ... as seen in the "Objective Caen" campaign in Ground Tactics 3.1
In my opinion, this is the best solution for CC. But for longer than 5 day campaigns ... there would need to be an increased number of times to reenforce built into the game.

[Kanov]

I enjoyed Objective Caen campaign very much, it was very entertaining more so by being focused on one sector. I started the full one some while back but noticed that the amount of reinforcements was normal and not reduced like in 'Objective Caen'.

-If I play the normal "Full" campaign, are the british BG and the german BG that appear in the 'Objective Caen' campaign going to have reduced strenght compared to the rest?

I'm starting to develop a taste for static selection of troops, it seems it ties the strategic and tactical decisions and outcomes better than say being able to customize your force at will.

[davidss]

Hi,
I kind of gave up on the full campaign in order to focus on developing company sized force pools for the Objective Caen sector ... due to the amount of time required to make the other changes, as well as other reasons.
Therefore, I'd recommend playing only the Objective Caen campaign ... and the other sectors as separate campaigns.

Limiting the force pool quantity (company sized)seems to be a compromise between having locked BG's and unlocked BG's with large force pools ... the end result possibly being:
1. more historically realistic active rosters
2. attrition occurs relatively sooner, which puts more emphasis on unit management and survival
3. BG re enforcement plays a larger role in overall strategy and end results

thanks

[aadamjohnsons]

It is really impressive Idea about Battle group Close combat idea about using same mechanics by different games. I really appreciate your for your wonderful and uniques idea. Thanks for sharing.

[SteveMcClaire]

Some cool ideas.  We're always discussing ways to make the battle group system work better or be more interesting.  Feel free to throw out suggestions in the Panthers in the Fog forum too (under the "Coming Soon and In Development" section further down.)
 

[davidss]

Here are a couple of screenshots of the approximate company sized Battle Groups in the TLD Ground Tactics 4.0 mod.
26/12SS BG is equipped with strong Panthers, but no more are available in the Force Pool. If and when any Panthers are lost ... they can be replaced with lesser vehicles or ATG's until attrition forces a player to re-enforce back up to full strength (which will provide another four Panthers, perhaps slightly more). Similar mechanics are working in other types of units.
This adds a higher frequency of decision making for players, since a player has to weigh the consequences of waiting to re-enforce when a Force Pool is exhausted, or re-enforcing sooner(so as not to be overwhelmed by a stronger opposing BG).
915/352 is a relatively weak BG with no vehicles ... it represents an already worn down BG used to slow the Allied advance until new German BG's arrive.

Therefore, the battlefield strength of a specific Battle Group is represented by it's Force Pool/Active Roster and its depth in the number of times in can re-enforce.
Number of times a BG can re-enforce is already an option that can be edited in TLD, but only to a finite number of times (seems to work ok for a five day campaign).
It's also interesting to see the AI use the re-enforce option too.

note: it would be nice to have a warning message generated when a player removes a unit from the Active Roster on a day when that specific unit type is not available. (example: if you remove this unit, it will no longer be available in the Force Pool). This would remedy the situation of having the unit disappear in this type of situation.

... link to mod:
http://uploading.com/files/mbd8fa18/Gro ... _v4.0.tLD/

[davidss]

915.352

[SteveMcClaire]

ORIGINAL: davidss
note: it would be nice to have a warning message generated when a player removes a unit from the Active Roster on a day when that specific unit type is not available. (example: if you remove this unit, it will no longer be available in the Force Pool). This would remedy the situation of having the unit disappear in this type of situation.

It's a fairly rare case in the stock game, but that is a good suggestion. I'll have to go back and double check TLD but as I recall the team type is completely removed from the FP list if it FPools.txt calls for it to be removed (rather then set to quantity of 0), so this should be one way to tell if you can safely remove the team from the BG slot.

[davidss]

ORIGINAL: Steve McClaire

ORIGINAL: davidss
note: it would be nice to have a warning message generated when a player removes a unit from the Active Roster on a day when that specific unit type is not available. (example: if you remove this unit, it will no longer be available in the Force Pool). This would remedy the situation of having the unit disappear in this type of situation.

It's a fairly rare case in the stock game, but that is a good suggestion. I'll have to go back and double check TLD but as I recall the team type is completely removed from the FP list if it FPools.txt calls for it to be removed (rather then set to quantity of 0), so this should be one way to tell if you can safely remove the team from the BG slot.

Hi Steve ... thanks for your reply.
Looking to see if the team type is listed in the Force Pool sounds like a good way to check before removing a team from the active roster.
I think for some players (without knowledge of how the fpools file works) it may seem kind of mysterious and frustrating to have teams seem to go missing or change to a different type ... especially without anything written down as to which units will be available for what days. I think it's a bonus to have these options though.

That got me thinking about the reasons why I mentioned this in the first place, as well as what you said ...
From what I can think of, reasons for having a specific unit not available on a specific day:
1. Different equipment arriving at a later date
2. Not available after a certain date due its special purpose, like a DD Sherman landing on a beach ...etc
3. Not available after a certain date due to rarity ... limited number of a team with no replacements of that type

There may be a simple solution:
when editing fpools
1. For a team type not available until a later date ... The team class is -1 and the quantity 0
Result: team type isn't listing in the Force Pool until the day it arrives (same method is already used).

2. For a team type not available after a certain date, due to special purpose ... The team class could be assigned its axsteams/alsteams number (eg. 152) and the quantity 0 (presently TLD uses -1,0 for the team class and quantity for this situation).
Result: No new quantities of this team type will be available on future days, but any in the active roster can be moved back into the Force Pool without having them disappear.
This makes sense to me for another reason too ... if a player has two DD Sherman tanks in their active roster on June 6 and then moves them into the Force Pool, he/she should still have use of them at a later date ... just the same as if they were left in the active roster (use them if you want). You would think these types of units would still find a purpose in battle after a landing ... Centaur, Churchill, DD?
The exception being when there is a large quantity of that team type in the force pool ... in which case you could use the change team type to new type option (DD Sherman to Sherman), but then again it may seem like something is disappearing ... so it may be best to have these teams with the ability to move into the force pool and let the player decide whether or not to use them.

3. For a rare team type ... set the same as in "2." above (eg. 152,0 for team class and quantity).
Therefore the initial amount of a rare type remains available whether or not it's in the active roster or force pool, even after re-enforcement on a future day when the quantity is zero.

thanks again

[davidss]

ORIGINAL: Kanov
-If I play the normal "Full" campaign, are the british BG and the german BG that appear in the 'Objective Caen' campaign going to have reduced strenght compared to the rest?

on second thought ... it should work OK, since the reduced force pool BG's can reenforce and the campaign is short.

[davidss]

hi,
an idea regarding the Battle Group system:

Add another option field in the bgroups.txt that allows each Team Type slot for each Battle Group to be assigned a number. The number assigned would designate a specific Team type or types to each slot in the Active Roster. Therefore, each slot could only be filled with Team types that are designated by the slot assignment number.
Each Battle Group's Active Roster could be designed to represent Armor, Mechanized, Infantry, Static, or an Ad Hoc formation.
This along with Company sized Force Pools and a higher maximum number of times to Reenforce ... may increase strategic options and battlefield realism.

note: each slot would still be assigned a default Team type ... as is presently done.

Attached is an example reference table for the slot assignments

or 17 ... all types

[davidss]

possible new bgroups

[SteveMcClaire]

While it doesn't use this sort of slot-type assignment system, that is something like what happens in the existing engine.  Based on the slot type in BGroups.txt, the game tries to match with something 'close'.  So if you picked 'heavy AT gun' for the slot type, and there are no heavy AT guns in the force pool, it will first look for other types of AT guns, then various other types of guns with anti-tank capability, then an infantry AT team, and then finally it just gives up and looks for any other type of unit to fill the slot.
 
It is a good suggestion for a future 'campaign construction kit' type product, though.  Will keep it in mind.
 

[davidss]

Hi Steve,
I think the existing engine does a good job of filling in vacant slots with similar teams in a logical way, but it doesn't restrict players from rebuilding an Active Roster with more lethal teams in any slot. For example: 10-tanks, or 8-MG42's, or 4-mortars, etc.
The slot assignment is just a suggestion to help resolve this ... for example: a player could select any type of tank available in the Force Pool to fill the slots assigned for tanks. Therefore, if an Active Roster has five slots assigned as tanks, then a player can only select five tanks, etc.
It would also restrict the existing engine from filling an empty slot with a team type that doesn't meet the slot's assignment (when the Force Pool can't supply a specific team type) ... therefore reducing the amount of slots available (which is another way of portraying attrition). For example: if a player lost all mortars, then the mortar slot/slots couldn't be filled with a different team type (stays empty).
The restrictions of what a slot can hold can also be used to force a BG to resemble an Armor, Mech, Infantry BG, etc., which may allow more diversity when BG's of different types face each other.
This is just my opinion, and may not be what the majority (if any) of CC players desire ...

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to comment ... and for the improvements you've made to CC.

[SteveMcClaire]

Ok, I understand the distinction you're making.  Thanks for clarifying.  LSA does this in a way, based on the battle group type.  It also has a point system which limits how many expensive (i.e. powerful) teams you can field.  But for TLD and earlier, there is no restriction on what the player can field.
 

[CSO_Talorgan]

ORIGINAL: Steve McClaire

It is a good suggestion for a future 'campaign construction kit' type product, though.  Will keep it in mind.

Oh good! You've mentioned this concept again!