Developer Diary #4 - Creating a new Dynamic Campaign Game

[Matto]

I think Arkady (he is my friend) was working on CS army (drawings and OOB) ... I will ask him

[Warhorse]

I started one as well, but just for 3/43 on.

[Tidavis]

Lets talk forces.dat for a bit here. Here is an example of one from one of my DCG's.

440828 D TANK ART INF A-T ASS-GUN ENGINEERS RECON INF SUPP A-A CAV FORTS
1 15 5 40 10 5 0 0 0 5 10 10
2 15 5 45 10 3 0 0 0 7 5 10
3 10 10 35 20 5 5 0 0 5 0 20
4 10 10 35 20 5 5 2 0 3 0 3
5 10 10 53 20 5 2 5 0 0 0 7
6 15 15 35 15 4 5 5 0 3 5 3
7 18 17 35 15 9 5 0 0 1 0 5
8 5 10 50 25 2 5 0 0 8 0 10
9 10 12 40 26 8 5 0 0 2 0 7
10 15 12 30 21 10 5 15 0 3 10 3
11 10 15 45 12 2 5 0 0 8 3 10
-1

Just playing around with these numbers in several DCG start ups I don't think they mean what the "How to design" sheets mean. The Doc states that it is the percentage of your force make up. It would appear and if anyone wants to test this that would be incorrect.

When a DCG is started the game engine assigns each side a point total then it begins a selection process by random chance of adding none core Companies to your available forces. Or is it random. It would appear that the forces.dat files is the percentage chance as a modifier that a certain Company will be selected.

Fortunately there is a record of this. In your main game folder there is a file called campaign.txt. Everytime you generate a new mission this file will get updated. Lets take a look at a pertinent section of that file from the mission I generated from My DCG Romania the Great.

nation = 3, enemy = 0, date = 431027, attacker = 0, level = 2, mission type = 7
Selecting units, needs = -96 264 102 36 -144 60 120 -84 0 0
considering force (for borrow) = P03406 Timescu [0]
considering force (for borrow) = P03303 1st Armored Regiment HQ [0]
considering force (for borrow) = C0300903 1st Company [84]
considering force (for borrow) = C0300903 2nd Company [84]
considering force (for borrow) = C0304904 3rd Company [72]
considering force (for borrow) = C0300903 1st Company [84]
considering force (for borrow) = C0300903 2nd Company [84]
considering force (for borrow) = C0304904 3rd Company [72]
considering force (for borrow) = C0302901 1st Company [126]
considering force (for borrow) = C0302901 2nd Company [126]
considering force (for borrow) = C0302901 3rd Company [126]
considering force (for borrow) = C0307902 Machinegun Company [84]
considering force (for borrow) = B0312906 1st Infantry Battalion [0]
considering force (for borrow) = B0312907 2nd Infantry Battalion [0]
considering force (for borrow) = B0312908 3rd Infantry Battalion [0]
considering force (for borrow) = C0305905 Engineer Company [138]
considering force (for borrow) = C0303906 Anti-Tank Company [84]
considering force (for borrow) = C0307907 Support Company [76]
considering force (for borrow) = B0311904 1st Artillery Battalion [120]
force selected = B0311904 1st Artillery Battalion , cost = 120, role = 1
-96 144 102 36 -144 60 120 -84 0 0
considering force (for borrow) = B0311905 2nd Artillery Battalion [120]
force selected = B0311905 2nd Artillery Battalion , cost = 120, role = 1
-96 24 102 36 -144 60 120 -84 0 0
considering force (for borrow) = B0315005 6th Engineer Battalion [0]

when you see a role= that force has been selected.

The file is really to large to paste here on page but you can get the gist of it.

What I ended up with was a non core force composed of two arty Battalions and 5 Companies of Infantry.

That hardly matches the force allocations of the forces 0 or 1 dat files at all.

Until further testing is done I do not believe that the forces.dat files play anything more than a modifier to the force selection process.

[Crossroads]

That is an interesting observation Tim! I was wondering what is the minimum size of organization the game engine goes shopping for, and sort of assumed it would be a Coy. This sort of confirms it. I was also not aware of this txt file, thanks for pointing it out

Given a smaller sized campaign, say Bn or Regt sized campaign, there's less chance of unit allocation proposed in the *-forces.dat. With Bde or Div sized campaign I'd assume there'd be more room, or points, to shop for a force mix as proposed by the forces.dat.

I think this calls for - more testing!

[Tidavis]

That can be tested too!. Here's the kicker though. From my observations the larger size the core force the fewer non core forces you get.

By the way this selection process is the reason why a player might get 3 or 4 Companies from different Battalions. When a Company or even a single Platoon attached to a Regiment is selected the Next highest level HQ is given for free.

[Tidavis]

Lets consider these numbers from the campaign.txt.

Selecting units, needs = -96 264 102 36 -144 60 120 -84 0 0

Just by looking at these numbers it appears that they have something to do with the first 10 entries on the forces.dat.

needs -96 points worth of Armor so it doesn't look like you will get any more Armor units for this mission.
The next entry is 264. It looks that's amount of points for Artillery units.
"force selected = B0311904 1st Artillery Battalion , cost = 120, role = 1
-96 144 102 36 -144 60 120 -84 0 0"

This line does confirm that 264 was indeed the Artillery points assigned. You will notice that enrty number 2 is now "144"

Now the thing is I did get another complete Artillery Battalion assigned for this mission. Two Battalions would equal 240 points and that would be close to 5%? I don't think so.

Another test or two needs to be done with everything in the forces.dat set to zero. Just to see what happens and to see if any useful info can be gained.[:'(]

[Warhorse]

Making nice inroads, Tim!![&o]

[Tidavis]

Ok now.[:D] Setting the forces.dat to all zeros has the following effect on DCG mission building. You will have your core force and nothing else. The ai will have no force at all.

Thats great if you are attacking and can get the vp hexes but not very fun. [:D][:(][:D]

I wound not recommend doing that[:'(]