Suggestion for engineers - destruction / construction of bridge

[exsonic01]

This is pure brainstorming effort for the idea to implement bridge destruction / river crossing for AI of AB.

To begin with, prior to bridge building or destruction, AB should introduce a feature to regard map objectives, such as buildings and bridges, as a destroyable element with their own health point and armor. This will increase the realism of engineering features and reality of AB. https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-u ... 892%29.pdf I think FMs like this will be helpful for implement of bridge destruction and river crossing.

Second, it should be distinguished between fording and river crossing. I think fording is already introduced in AB for fordable water tile and stream tile. River crossing for impassable water is not implemented in AB, and this post is to discuss that part.

This idea would involves the spatial analysis algorithm I mentioned before. https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4718276

1. Bridge destruction
- 1) During the setting of assault / defense scenario, inside 'Situation' box in VP setting screen, introduce "bridges" line, and let players select 0~100% destroyed for 10% increment, then let the code randomly destroy corresponding amount of bridges in the game. Default as 0%. With dug-in and obstacle option, I think "bridge destruction" option can be related with 'how much defense forces were prepared'. But this idea can be debatable.
- 2) Introduce engineers in mech-infantry and infantry tab. Then give them C4 or any explosives. Basically, engineers should have ability to fight just like other infantry or mech infantry.
- 3) I'm not sure if more engineers would bring faster bridge destruction: It would be great if any old FMs discuss about it or engineer veterans during cold war would share their experience.
- 4) I'm not sure how long would it take to destroy bridge. Well, this also would needs some research in FM or help from engineer veterans, or very carefully considered. Also this would depends on the size of the bridge. Time to destroy long, big bridge for "major river" would take really long. On the other hand, small bridges would take relatively less. So, as a pure suggestion, let's say,
-- a) 20 minutes for bridges on "stream" tiles
-- b) +10 or 20 min to bridges on fordable or impassable water tiles.
-- c) +10 or 20 min per a tile number for 2+ tile sized bridge.
But this time should be carefully researched and considered. I think this should involves a bit of RNG to make bridge destruction time a variable or a range of time frame, not the fixed time.

2. Bridge destruction - AI defense / player offense
- 1) First of all, bridges on stream / fordable water and bridges on impossible water should be distinguished and categorized by AI. This should be straightforward.
- 2) Then, AI should decide whether to destroy all bridges or destroy bridges only for impassable water. Now, this should involve ground setting option: If ground setting is poor or bad, then let AI destroy all bridges. Let players feel the pain of negotiating rough terrains. If ground setting is fair or good, then let AI only destroy bridges for impassable water, because players will pass through streams or fordable water anyway, and effectiveness of bridge destruction for such water would be greatly reduced.
- 3) Then, AI should check how many target bridges within deployment zone, and deploy engineer platoons/squads nearby. To prevent 'cheating' play, there should be an option of unable to deploy engineers within 500m from bridge tile in deployment phase.
- 4) If there are not enough engineers to destroy all bridges within deployment zone, then AI should prioritize the bridge of
-- a) Bridge which is closest to enemy
-- b) "Important road" in defensive deployment region. "Important road" here means the roads connected to VP or pass nearby (within 500m) VP boundary.
- 5) There should be 'safety' algorithm or 'survival instinct' algorithm for engineer troops.
-- a) If bridge is seemingly occupied by enemy (if non-recon enemy forces are appeared on the AI side for particular bridge) or non-recon enemy appears within 1km of the bridge, then let engineer AI give up destruction order. Print message "Engineers 1/2nd cannot perform bridge destruction task due to enemy presence" message, just like when current AI cannot find route.
-- b) Mortar / artillery AI should give smoke cover to engineers when they start bridge destruction mission.
-- c) If engineers are being attacked by enemy in the middle of bridge destruction process, let them smoke, fight back with less accuracy and less firepower, and fall back. Mortar / artillery AI gives smoke support when engineers in bridge destruction action were being attacked. (But if morale is high enough, then let engineers stay and finish destruction work despite of losses. Heroic sacrificing effort of engineers sometimes changed the flow of battle...)
-- d) If engineer AI found that the bridge was occupied by enemy (because of lack of recon) or enemy troops are crossing at the moment of arrival, then engineer AI should follow engagement rules and scripts for infantry / mech infantry.

3. Bridge destruction - AI offense / player defense
- In AI offensive mission, I don't think AI will needs to destroy bridges. So it would be safe to assume that offense game AI wouldn't need to consider bridge destruction.
But maybe, there might be very exceptional cases. As a person who really prefers mobile defense, I think maybe, there might be some cases where offensive force needs to break the bridge to stop counterattack. But occurrence of such situation would be rare...... Anyway, flanking counter attack from player maybe requires AI to blow up the bridge. In this case, "player's counterattack" should be well judged & defined for AI to react (and easy enough for devs to code) in AI-offense and player-defense scenario. Once "player's counterattack" intent is clear, then AI can use bridge destruction algorithm, in AI defense part. But now this "player's counterattack intent" is something requires to think about...

4. Bridge destruction - meeting engagement
- 1) First of all, it wouldn't be necessary to worry about the logic of "why destroy bridges? those bridges will be needed when we attack again". Because that is why all army engineers around the war prepare and train for river crossing operations. Sometimes commanders order to destroy the bridge, and then moments later order to reestablish the connection or make a new bridge again. Sometimes commanders order to make a bridge, and moments later they order to destroy. This would happens during battle
- 2) For meeting engagement game, AI requires good algorithm for AI to judge or recognize the necessity of bridge destruction. But I guess such 'necessity of bridge destruction' for AI would increase when game negatively flows to AI, which means, AI would feel more necessity to destroy the bridge when player is winning.
- 3) First thing AI need to do is analyze all bridges in the map and categorize them based on distance from highest HQ or distance from AI deployment zone boundary.
- 4) Also, it would be better to have an algorithm to analyze and categorize bridges based on VPs. For each VP, check distance between bridge tile and the center of VP and then score the importance of bridge based on distance from VP. This way, AI will recognize which bridge will be important for which VP. Of course, there should be fail-safe algorithm to prevent infinite loop, such as ignore this algorithm if there are no bridges within nkm of particular VP, where n is variable based on given map size.
- 5) Now, AI need to know when AI is winning or when AI is losing, and introduce the moment to order engineers to destroy bridges. For winning and losing of AI, I think this should be straight forward. It might be possible for AI to acknowledge the point score of the game in situ, or VP point score or VP capture number.
- 6) If AI acknowledged that AI is losing, then AI need to make a decision when to change their plan to go defensive and destroy the bridge.
I'm not sure how others play meeting engagement game, but for me, usually I set up kill zone, use fast move to arrive to VP early, occupy better terrain earlier then AI, then snipe / hunt incoming AIs. To prevent such situation, I think AI should know how to play defensive in meeting engagement, some sort of "Offensive Defense" tactics. This "Offensive Defense" tactics for AI is totally different story, and would require its own independent post...... But anyway, I think, if player's VP or kill point is 1.5 times of AI, then AI should go 'defensive' and order engineers to destroy bridge. But this moment of "bridge destruction" should be carefully tested again and again.
- 7) Now, with bridges destroyed, AI can set up some sort of trap or ambush against chasing players.

5. Bridge construction - Post became too long, I will write this later