Campaign Series Legion on Twitch

[Crossroads]

The French Indochina scenarios have plenty of battles with VM against computer controlled French forces

[berto]

It is exceedingly difficult to S[cripted]AI Side A for

[*]search & destroy missions, where the enemy is all or largely hidden, whereabouts unknown (cat and mouse?)
[*]where the terrain is interlaced with rivers and streams, creating nightmares for the pathfinding routines
[*]where the helicopter borne attacking forces are (loading and) taking off, landing (and unloading), and flying about across four different vertical flight zones

In addition to the usual challenges of successfully coding an attacker AI.

Not to say scripting the attacker is impossible. It might take huge amounts of time and micromanagement, and repeated testing, to get it right.

[Crossroads]

^ +1

My 0.02 for adding new scenarios with VC/NVA as the attacking side, rather.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

The French Indochina scenarios have plenty of battles with VM against computer controlled French forces

Thats what I figured...

Good stuff.

[Jason Petho]

FYI, I will eventually go through the list and script the SIDE A components for my scenarios for the ones that aren't done, it will take time, though

[devoncop]

Thanks Jason. That would be brilliant.

I appreciate it's a huge job .

[Jason Petho]

I will be streaming today at 11AM Pacific Standard Time.

[Jason Petho]

In case you missed the live session today:

Live Session on Campaign Series YouTube

[devoncop]

Really enjoyed the French scenarios you covered in this last stream the French reliance on multiple para drops was very well portrayed.

For the first time in my playing the Campaign series I am really motivated to play through the game chronologically after the bootcamp/training scenarios are completed so I get the whole French Indo China and Vietnamese Civil War experience before I get into the beginning of the US quagmire !

[Jason Petho]

I'm happy to hear that, devoncop!! It will be a fun adventure, for sure!

[TomWalton]

There's no way I'm going to watch 3h 16m of someone else playing a video game...

3h 16 fascinating minutes later, I have question on tactics, if I may.

Isn't it better to disrupt an enemy unit first, before trying to assault it? Jason seemed to try way more assaults than anything else (though in the end doing so did seem to work for him...) ?

Kudos to all involved in this. It's looking really, really great!

[Jason Petho]

3h 16 fascinating minutes later

Ha! That's awesome! Congratulations for sticking through it!

Isn't it better to disrupt an enemy unit first, before trying to assault it?

This will completely depend on the nation you are playing. In the second scenario, for example, the Viet Minh have assault bonuses, so the best tactic to use with the Viet Minh is to get up close and personnal and assault over and over again.

Would I do the same thing with ARVN troops in the 60's? No, definitely not. The tactics would change to keeping my troops well organized and heavily relying on heavy weapons to cause disruptions (assume I cause them, because with FOW, you don't know if they are disrupted or not) and then assault with the entire company, while attempting to flank the position, etc.

You can see more of that with the Operation Starlite scenario I am playing on Wednesdays, where I am playing as the Marines - I have to be more methodical in my tactics.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: Jason Petho

3h 16 fascinating minutes later

Ha! That's awesome! Congratulations for sticking through it!

This will completely depend on the nation you are playing. In the second scenario, for example, the Viet Minh have assault bonuses, so the best tactic to use with the Viet Minh is to get up close and personnal and assault over and over again.

That is interesting. So where is it laid out that the Viet Minh get assault bonuses in the second scenario ? Would that be in the intiial briefing ? (Sorry I am just finishing watching the "Bruno" scenario on You Tube so havent got to the second one yet).

[TomWalton]

This will completely depend on the nation you are playing. In the second scenario, for example, the Viet Minh have assault bonuses, so the best tactic to use with the Viet Minh is to get up close and personnal and assault over and over again.

Would I do the same thing with ARVN troops in the 60's? No, definitely not. The tactics would change to keeping my troops well organized and heavily relying on heavy weapons to cause disruptions (assume I cause them, because with FOW, you don't know if they are disrupted or not) and then assault with the entire company, while attempting to flank the position, etc.

Thanks for the clarification, Jason. That's pretty awesome! This is going to be an amazing game!

[Crossroads]

There's also quite a few Adpative AI parameters having to do with various assault effect calculations. They are nation specific, and can be used even at scenario level to have the scenario play out to intended results. For instance:

160 [ n] assault_attack_low_on_ammo_effect
161 [ n] assault_attack_fatigued_effect
162 [ n] assault_attack_aggressiveness_effect
163 [ n] assault_attack_mounted_effect
164 [ n] assault_attack_halftrack_effect
165 [ n] assault_attack_vehicle_hard_terrain_effect
166 [ n] assault_attack_vehicle_soft_terrain_effect
167 [ n] assault_attack_nofire_nomove_effect
168 [ n] assault_attack_night_effect
169 [ ] assault_attack_flank_effect
170 [ n] assault_defense_low_on_ammo_effect
171 [ n] assault_defense_fatigued_effect
172 [ n] assault_defense_disrupted_effect
173 [ n] assault_defense_dig_in_effect
174 [ n] assault_defense_hardtarget_soft_terrain_effect
175 [ n] assault_defense_vehicle_urban_effect
176 [ n] assault_defense_nofire_nomove_effect
177 [ n] assault_defense_disrupted_morale_adjustment
178 [ ] assault_defense_flank_morale_adjustment

For instance, the VM/VC/NVA utilizes the night assault parameter in particular, they are head and shoulders above everyone else on that aspect.

In general, Adaptive AI parameters then in turn can be accessed from Lua code with the CS Event Enginge api, for immediate effect.

Tons of possibilities, and we as dev team are still learning how to push the envelope even further. Adaptive AI is rather an intriguing element of the game, and as Berto posted somewhere while an Optional Rule it should not be considered as an option if one wants to have the game playing as designed.

That is true of course to most if not all Optional Rules. They are there for a reason.

[devoncop]

Very interesting indeed.

Can you just clarify though that the player is aware of such scenario specific boosts and if so where it is described ?

[Crossroads]

What I described is a general concept, devoncop. Events are often communicated by a pop up message for instance. Scenario briefings often hint at things. Etc

[devoncop]

Ah....okay. Gotcha.

Thanks....In other words ..............read the briefings properly

[Jason Petho]

I will be streaming tonight on Twitch at 6PM PST.

Continuing my attacks in Operation Starlite

[Jason Petho]

In case you missed the live stream tonight!

Continuation of Operation Starlite