One thing I wish the game had

[Rubblestone]

A posted a question earlier about starting locations/forces and was told that they were fixed. I had been hoping that some sort of variation would have been included so that the opening moves would not get stale. I was thinking along the line of axis and allies europe where the german player gets to spend money on extra units and place them where ever they wanted. I think it would of been interesting if you had an option of getting a unit (or units) to be able to place where you wanted them. For example as the german player you could choose to get an extra sub so you could attack the allied transports more aggresivly, or an extra air unit for an more aggresive 'battle of britain'. And every side would thus get some choice to what they get.

But then again when I finaly get my hands on the game maby none of this will matter. I wonder if the playtesters have noticed the opening moves to be a little to much the same each time after a while or if there is enough variaty? Anyway I just cant wait to play this game!!!

[Paul Vebber]

Once players get comfortable withthe game, and start exploring the scenario files, they will find it easy to mod the starting setups, research and build priorities to throw a wrench in the "staus quo". Whiel there is no "scenario editor" per se, the way the text files are laid out, they are pretty self explanatory. Notepad is the games scenario editor...

You want to change teh strateing forces in the West in the 40 scen, go to "regions40.txt" and look at teh area definitions:

REGION,62,Southern France,PLAYER_UN,France,TER_WARM
MOVECOST,1
POP,0
FORT,0
CONNECT,58,59,63,64,71,72
SIDE,6,4,6,6,6,6
UNIT,TAC AIR,1
UNIT,FIGHTER AIR,1
UNIT,INFANTRY,2
UNIT,ARTILLERY,1
UNIT,FLAK,1
UNIT,RAIL,2
UNIT,FACTORY,2
UNIT,RESOURCE,1

REGION,63,Western France,PLAYER_UN,France,TER_COLD
MOVECOST,1
POP,3
FORT,0
CONNECT,23,26,58,62,64,65
SIDE,4,4,6,6,6,6
UNIT,INFANTRY,5
UNIT,ARTILLERY,1
UNIT,SUPPLY,1
UNIT,RAIL,2
UNIT,FACTORY,3
UNIT,RESOURCE,1

REGION,64,Eastern France,PLAYER_UN,France,TER_COLD
MOVECOST,1
POP,2
CONNECT,62,63,65,66,71
SIDE,6,6,6,6,6
UNIT,INFANTRY,8
UNIT,MECHANIZED,1
UNIT,ARTILLERY,1
UNIT,FLAK,1
UNIT,RAIL,2
UNIT,FACTORY,1
UNIT,RESOURCE,4

REGION,65,Netherlands,PLAYER_UN,Netherlands,TER_COLD
MOVECOST,1
POP,2
FORT,0
CONNECT,23,63,64,66
SIDE,4,6,6,6
UNIT,INFANTRY,3
UNIT,LIGHT FLEET,1
UNIT,RAIL,2
UNIT,RESOURCE,1

You think France is too weak, beef it up by adding Mech, or air, or more infantry. ITs wide open.

[Rubblestone]

The only problem with this is it is a bit of a pain to do, plus there still would be no random element (what the ai would pick)

[Joel Billings]

It would be extra work, but you could mod a scenario that is a copy of the standard scenarios with only about 5-10 minutes work. Then you and your opponent agree on a system to exchange units for others of equal costs and what limit you would place on this. Then you modifiy the one file that has unit placement (the region file), which wouldn't take more than another 10 minutes. Suddenly you have a scenario where you are playing against an opponent with some variable setup. I wouldn't suggest it against the AI, but for games against other human opponents, it really would not be very hard to set up a variable set up scenario if that was really important to you.

[eMonticello]

I imagine that someone enterprising could build a random scenario generator using an excel spreadsheet ... although there is no guarantee that is will be balanced, historical, or play well:)

[mavraam]

Once I figure out how the control files work, I could easily write a Q&D program that would randomize certain elements within specified reasonable ranges.

Then you could run that before you start a game, and you would get a different game everytime you played.

I'm just throwing that out into the universe of ideas...

[Rubblestone]

Yes something like that would be cool, as what I want is something random so that the start of every games is somewhat random (though I do not want any extremes)

[mavraam]

ORIGINAL: Rubblestone

Yes something like that would be cool, as what I want is something random so that the start of every games is somewhat random (though I do not want any extremes)

Another idea that would be even simpler would be something like this:

After a while, the modding community could come up with a variety of initial setups and research and build priorities that are all reasonable.

Then, they could all be put in a seperate folder and one could write a Q&D app that randomly chooses one of these files and copies it to the original directory. Then, whenever you start a new game, you will get random but reasonable behaviour from each of the AI oponents.

It would be nice if you could script strategies too. You could have a Capture Leningrad strat or Massive Sub Fleet strat or Invade GB strat, etc and it would be a simple matter to randomly choose one.

[Joel Billings]

There is a text file for AI production spending strategies. There's a lot of things you can do in there to drastically alter production strategies. It's not simple, and it would take some trial and error to get close to what you were looking for, but you could make modifications there that would have a profound impact on how the AI played the game. To my knowledge, there are no strategy text files for movement and combat strategies.

[mavraam]

Well from what I understand from reading the AAR's build and research strategy by one country have a profound affect on the strategy of their oponent. If Russia builds nothing but tanks, it may be in Germany's best interest to attack right away before they are built catching Russia undermanned. But if they crank out tons of militia, infantry and arty, that same strategy might be suicide. So even if we can only alter build and research priorities it can still add a level of unpredictability to the AI's play that would add a level of challenge I think.