Dummy Objectives

[kevinkins]

I read the manual on these and I can see how they might be used to coach the AI's movement especially in a community pre-designed mission. But for the player side, how realistic are they? Your commander will give your objectives for the next hour or two of combat. But would not say "watch out for those dummy objectives". If I read the manual correctly, after careful planning and spending several hours fighting, any objective can become worthless. Is this true, and if so, realistic?

From the manual: "The dummy objectives are revealed in the after action report phase. Before that, the player and the AI do not know which objectives are ‘real’". Should that read "which dummy objectives are real"? Or does the player not know adead of time if any objective is real or a dummy when planning the mission?

If I am getting this right, it might be nice to have an option for AI only dummy objectives so as to coach the AI's tactics, but not confuse the player. Most designers are not going to allow the player to "pile up" (as the manual says) on any one object anyway. Perhaps I am reading all this wrong.

Thanks guys.

Kevin

[Adam Rinkleff]

Your commander in a real world would say, "I need you to take that crossroads, then get up on that hill and secure the bridge at KF037838." Those are the objectives you see on the map. What dummy objectives introduces, is that the enemy might have a very different idea about the critical terrain. They think its more important to take that forest, a half kilometer south of the crossroads. They are more interested in that other hill, next to the hill you have been assigned. They don't care about the bridge at all, because it's the warehouse district where they intend to force a battle. Neither side should know the other's plan, and neither side should be forced to follow that plan. Objectives in a real situation are simply a suggestion, but sometimes even direct orders are disobeyed.

In game, the objectives are a score keeping metric, but in a real battle it doesn't matter if you take an objective, unless that objective is actually important to the battle itself. Victory points are a gameplay mechanic, but do not exist in a real battle. By making objectives less predictable, the player is encouraged to focus on real tactics - establishing a strong perimeter, occupying good positions regardless of whether they are an objective, and defeating the enemy through force. The player has the opportunity to realize that their orders to seize Hill 232 are asinine. There's no reason to sacrifice so many good men for that position, and it's better to ignore the objective and forge a different path. Colonel Klinkus can have a picnic on his objective, after the enemy has been defeated.

[kevinkins]

Interesting, I'm starting to understand more. I could see a situation, as you describe, on a larger map where the battle would be "two ships passing in the night" = little combat = draw. I guess that be managed by the height of the map and size of the force. I will just have to play around with them to see how they work. The thing that I need clarification on is: are all objectives considered dummy until the end of the game? The manual in one sentence sort of implies that. See my second paragraph above. I think they are separate i.e. there is always at least one real known objective for the player and the AI.

Kevin

[Adam Rinkleff]

Interesting, I'm starting to understand more. I could see a situation, as you describe, on a larger map where the battle would be "two ships passing in the night" = little combat = draw. I guess that be managed by the height of the map and size of the force. I will just have to play around with them to see how they work. The thing that I need clarification on is: are all objectives considered dummy until the end of the game? The manual in one sentence sort of implies that. See my second paragraph above. I think they are separate i.e. there is always at least one real known objective for the player and the AI.

If you use the maximum amount of objectives, then conflict is inevitable. I wouldn't use less, unless you are playing a mission like "secure the nuclear bomb site before it detonates". In any real battle, there are important objectives all over the place. No single position is decisive.

The settings have it set so you can have a percentage, up to 75%, which is where I leave it. So a quarter of the time the AI is heading directly for the same crossroad as me, 75% of the time they are heading toward a nearby building, hill, or forest.

You don't know which objectives are dummies or not until the end of the game, you only get points for the actual non-dummy objectives, but you can't tell which ones they are (best to assume they are all important, but none should be considered mission critical).

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Adam Rinkleff

Your commander in a real world would say, "I need you to take that crossroads, then get up on that hill and secure the bridge at KF037838." Those are the objectives you see on the map. What dummy objectives introduces, is that the enemy might have a very different idea about the critical terrain. They think its more important to take that forest, a half kilometer south of the crossroads. They are more interested in that other hill, next to the hill you have been assigned. They don't care about the bridge at all, because it's the warehouse district where they intend to force a battle. Neither side should know the other's plan, and neither side should be forced to follow that plan. Objectives in a real situation are simply a suggestion, but sometimes even direct orders are disobeyed.

In game, the objectives are a score keeping metric, but in a real battle it doesn't matter if you take an objective, unless that objective is actually important to the battle itself. Victory points are a gameplay mechanic, but do not exist in a real battle. By making objectives less predictable, the player is encouraged to focus on real tactics - establishing a strong perimeter, occupying good positions regardless of whether they are an objective, and defeating the enemy through force. The player has the opportunity to realize that their orders to seize Hill 232 are asinine. There's no reason to sacrifice so many good men for that position, and it's better to ignore the objective and forge a different path. Colonel Klinkus can have a picnic on his objective, after the enemy has been defeated.

I could never express it this well in words.

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

The thing that I need clarification on is: are all objectives considered dummy until the end of the game? The manual in one sentence sort of implies that. See my second paragraph above. I think they are separate i.e. there is always at least one real known objective for the player and the AI.

Every battle has at least one 'real' objective.

[Pawsy]

Setting objectives such as hill, town etc went of western military use about 40 years ago. It was commonly used in WW2. We have since focused on the enemy, find, fix block, turn, etc. I would recommend developing in this direction. If players use the affects based approach in the game they will do much better. Of course you might not get a pat on the back from the game because you didnt sit a unit on the objective

There could be dummy positions as part of the deception plan. Soviets were good at maskirovka, disguise. NATO had the general deployment plan and that included all these measures and obstacles.

[blackcloud6]

ORIGINAL: Pawsy

Setting objectives such as hill, town etc went of western military use about 40 years ago. It was commonly used in WW2. We have since focused on the enemy, find, fix block, turn, etc. I would recommend developing in this direction. If players use the affects based approach in the game they will do much better. Of course you might not get a pat on the back from the game because you didnt sit a unit on the objective

This works. I played a meeting engagement and instead of moving into the objective, i set up in cover and concealment terrain around it and waited for the commies to march into the objective and I killed them by fire. I "controlled" the objective by fire. I won the scenario because the commies lost too many units trying to take that objective.

[Veitikka]

The manual says: "In meeting engagements, casualties affect scoring 50% more than in other mission types."