Planning Land Movement

[Shannon V. OKeets]

For the AI Opponent playing the USSR in the Barbarossa scenario, I have broken the map into 23 separate land regions. Prior to deciding about making land moves, the AIO calculates statistics for each land region and then summaries them into Total Combat Factors and Total Combat Values. The combat factors are used to set the Power Level, Status Level, and Danger Level for each land region. The latter two are from the point of view of the USSR player. For example, a Status Level of Vulnerable means that the USSR units there, while not currently fighting Axis units in the land region, they are vulnerable to being attacked by Axis units in an adjacent land region.

I need to understand how the AIO should us this information to decide about transferring units from one land region to another. Those transfers could be to retreat, or to send reinforcements forward.

What I have done recently is to take that data and present it (to myself) as a graphic, using CorelDraw.

Presently I have drawn two of these nodes and links diagrams. Both are taken from a Global War game I played over the Internet, using NetPlay. The earliest is from May/June 1941, impulse 7, with the USSR as the phasing side. The other is from later in the same game, in July/August 1941, again with the USSR as the phasing side.

I think the tables and notes provide enough of a description to explain what the various colors and shapes mean.

[Courtenay]

Here are six saved games from the first few impulses of a solitaire Barbarossa scenario. The Russians were basically destroyed.