Progress

[goodwoodrw]

Dave, are these bridges the AI builds or the human player, are types of Baily bridges or are u simulating bridge repair, or temporary bridging so to speak, surely in the scale of the game the bridges couldn't Westgate or Story Bridges? slight exaggerations, but u know what I mean.[:D]
Ron

[Arjuna]

At the moment crossings have various types - a potential crossing, ferry, light road birdge, medium road bridge, heavy road bridge and rail bridge. The standard bridge constructed is a light road bridge. At the moment we don't store separate move tables for each level of bridge so once you get a light road bridge built all motorised units can traverse it. In the future we should be able to differentiate. But this will suffice for now. These light road bridges are based on the old bailey folding bridge. In many cases the engineers improvised with what was to hand. But we're supposed to be modelling operational warfare and not tactical, so we have standardised on the bailey.

[Helpless]

Well done, Dave! Can't wait to play this Beauty From The Bulge.. [:)]

[Banquet]

Looking really impressive.  I love the fact that so much work is put into the AI in these games.  In too many it's an after-thought.  In AA it's the core of the game and it puts the longevity and playability on a different level.

[barbarossa2]

Arjuna,
I am starting to get terribly excited about this game, and see it as another amazing building block on the road to the ultimate (and I mean *ULTIMATE*) WWII operational simulator. I am curious, do you model operational doctrine differences between the nations at all?  That is, do German units and American units have different code for how they behave differently in different situations?  I hope the answer is yes.  And if you don't have any now, I hope that it will be included in the future.
 
Additionally, I am still hoping that in your next release that mechanized units are modelled so that there is a "vehicles" and "infantry" section.  And that the infantry dismounts before battle, leaving the vehicles to the rear. I posted on this topic last year I believe. As my grandfather stated (who was in the 3rd SS), they always dismounted their trucks 1 km (one full kilometer!) away from the front. He claimed that the trucks were known to be far too valuable to risk near combat*. The only real situation in which infantry really rode their vehicles into combat was with the German half track, which was designed to be used as a sort of fire base during shock action. 1 kilometer is quite a distance in this game. And, IMHO, is not something which can be ignored (but perhaps must be as your engine develops in a boot straps operation of sorts). It definitely changes the tempo of operations.
 
Sincerely,
 
A great fan of yours,
 
Chris
*Hitler and Co. had a project before the war which encouraged German "entrepreneurs" to purchase trucks with state loans. Tens of thousands of trucks were built and purchased on these plans. When the shooting started, the Nazi state did what it had planned to do all a long--it confiscated these trucks and used them for the war effort. A continuation of war on its own people by other means...as Clausewitz might put it.

[Arjuna]

Chris,
 
The engine supports different doctrines, but we basically use the same doctrine for all forces as developing doctrine is time intensive. There are a few exceptions where we have hard coded things for now. By and large the doctrine used by the western armies were pretty similar. We will need to address this issue, however, when we turn "east". In fact, that is one of the factors to date which have deterred us from doing an east front game. Our basic priority is to develop what we regard as the "basic" or "core" functionality. We're reasonably close to filling out this suite of AI features, but we still need to add:

• Cross River Assaults
• Off-map Fire Support ( for arty, naval gunfire and air )
• Minefields - laying and breaching
• Vehicle breakdown and repair
• Mounted/Dismounted Infantry

Note we do automatically dismount motorised and mech infantry once they come into effective enemy fire range. However, this is not separating the foot and motorised components. This is a big job and will involve some sophisticated AI that knows when to dismount and remount, where to locate the motorised component, which will be diferent fro AFVs and for trucks ( not to mention helicopters [;)] ).

[Llyranor]

Oh, I thought Stalingrad was next in the plans. Do you have another title planned first where you'll be tackling these core features?

[Arjuna]

We have been mulling over exactly that this last week or so. Our thinking at the moment is to do Normandy 44. This will require only minor changes to the estabs and allow us to focus on these core issues. I realise many will say it's been done to death already. But not with our engine and the battle is a classic with plenty of thrust and counter thrust and plenty of what-ifs.

[BigDuke66]

I thought the next one after bftb will go back to the Mediterranean theater before hitting old europe again?

[Arjuna]

If we want to cover Off-map Fire Support ( including naval ) then Normandy would serve better than the desert. Of course Salerno or Anzio would also serve in that regard, but both would require extensive work on the unit estabs. One aim here is to try and get this next gtame out as soon as we can. As it is there is probably a years worth of AI work alone.

[hank]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

We have been mulling over exactly that this last week or so. Our thinking at the moment is to do Normandy 44. This will require only minor changes to the estabs and allow us to focus on these core issues. I realise many will say it's been done to death already. But not with our engine and the battle is a classic with plenty of thrust and counter thrust and plenty of what-ifs.

I think Normady will be just fine. Lets face it, every major battle of WWII has been done to death. BotB (aka TAO) had been done to death and I still enjoy it immensely. ... and I can't wait for this one.

Keep up the good work.

[Crimguy]

I'm looking forward to a Normandy game. Believe it or not, I haven't touched that campaign since Atomic/AH's Gold, Juno, Sword.

[jimi3]

I agree with the Med. Med south. Tonight I finished reading An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson. I think North Africa 1942-43 is ripe for some incredible gaming. What an amazing campaign !!! I think this has been ignored for too long.
Jim

[Deathtreader]

Hi all,

Glad to hear that you're winning the AI bridging battle!!
A couple of questions:
1/ In your last screenshot there are 6 buttons below the OOB display and the "204" total units counter. What are they for??
2/ Would the hardcoding you mentioned for the AI bridging process have any effect on scenarios ported over from HTTR?? or custom design scenarios that may feature bridges??

I retire in 6 months and plan to get a lot more active in things like scenario design so I'm more than a little curious......
Thanks!

Rob. [:)]

[Llyranor]

Well, Normandy, Italy and North Africa all sound like great choices to me.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader
1/ In your last screenshot there are 6 buttons below the OOB display and the "204" total units counter. What are they for??

The six "force structure" buttons are for setting which type of force structure you want displayed in the OB display. Now don't worry too much, we plan to reduce these to three or four for the final release build. the above screendump was taken using the debug build and this has extra stuff for me to anaylse things. Essentially the different types of force structures are:

• Organic - defined by the scenario designer
• Player - defined by you ( the player ) when you give orders
• OpPlan - defined by the AI - includes all mission plans for the selected unit
• Current Plan - defined by the AI - includes all forces assigned to the selected unit's current plan
• Current Task - defined by the AI - includes all forces assigned to the selected unit's current task
• Formation - defined by the AI - includes all forces assigned to the current force formation.

The total unit counter shows the total number of units within the current OB. This can change as you change the structure types. Eg. If you select a Div HQ, it may have 100 units for it's OpPlan - ie all of its assigned units. But it's OpPlan may have more than just one Mission Plan. The Div HQ, however, can only ever be asigned to one of them. So the Div HQ may have only 20 units in its Current Plan, with the remaining 80 units asigned to one of the other MissionPlans. Similarly, a MissionPlan may have many Tasks. These may be conducted in sequence but can be conducted in parallel or simultaneously, with different units being assigned to each. So using our example the Div HQ's Current Plan may have 20 units but its currTask may have only 5 units. The other 15 could be moving independently for example. The Formation structure will have the same number of units as the Task structure but it can be organised differently. Eg The Task structure may see the Div HQ with A Coy, B Coy, C Coy and D Coy all nested directly under it. However, the Formation structure may have the Div HQ with A Coy, C Coy and D Coy nested directly under it and B Coy nested under A Couy, because it has been subordinated under A Coy for the Advance Guard role.

2/ Would the hardcoding you mentioned for the AI bridging process have any effect on scenarios ported over from HTTR?? or custom design scenarios that may feature bridges??

We won't be porting scenarios over from HTTR - too many changes for that to work. However, we have already begun work on redesigning them from scratch, using converted maps and the new HTTR estabs, that will be included in BFTB. We have five scenarios underway already. We hope to increase that number and release them as an expansion pack. I don't know how much we'll charge or what it will comprise exactly at this stage. Stay tuned.

I retire in 6 months and plan to get a lot more active in things like scenario design so I'm more than a little curious......

Well let us know when you are ready for the challenge. We could always use an extra scenario designer. The pay is lousy ( well almost non-existent ) but the company is good. [:)]

[Deathtreader]

Hi,

Thanks for all the info.........sounds great. I'd happily pay for an expansion pack that included a majority of the original HTTR scenarios.
Yes, I will let you know when I'm ready for the challenge of scenario design. Hell, depending on you're timing for that release I might even be able to assist with the effort as I'm looking at retiring EOD July 17th.
Regards,

Rob. [:)]

[Vance]

I'd happily pay for an expansion pack that included a majority of the original HTTR scenarios.

Hear, hear.

[Llyranor]

Yep. HTTR expansion sounds mighty good (though I wouldn't mind some discount for HTTR owners!)

[dogancan]

I'd happily pay for an expansion pack that included a majority of the original HTTR scenarios.

me too...