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APOLOGIES (if necessary)
I have searched both Poly and CFC and found no mention of anything like CAMO, the invisible, flying AI wonder weapon. My humble apologies if I've failed to give credit to anyone.
On the assumption that an interactive demo is worth a zillion words, please download the attached zip and unzip it in a new folder on desktop. Fire up your TOT and load SAMPLE.sav, a modified version of my current Red Front test. The mods consist of destroying most German units so the END OF TURN doesn't take so long.
TEST I OVERVIEW
Head up to Kaunas and Vilnius (near square 33,77) and you will find a "live" KV-1 outside each city and no city garrisons. Keep a close watch as you use the tanks to enter and capture the cities. I don't think that you will see anything out of the ordinary.
Now click on the 8 squares adjacent to each city and you will find a total of 6 squares that contain a Soviet Camouflage unit, the wondrous CAMO. No big deal so far, just some invisible spawning. However, unfortunately for the Soviets, one square near each city contains 30+ high grade German units spoiling for a fight and two squares that contain nothing more threatening than butterflies.
Before ending the turn, I would suggest that you cheat up whatever Soviet units you want and try to either identify the square with the German units or, better yet, to destroy the German stack. Once this has proven to be impossible, I suggest that in each city you cheat up a good garrison of whatever units you would use to spearhead an offensive. End the turn and admire the ensuing carnage.
TEST II PREVENTING THE SPAWNING
Reload SAMPLE and return to the test area. As you are an experienced player, familiar with how to block spawning, cheat up as many Soviet units as you want on the spawning squares and then capture the cities.
In this test, it really doesn't matter whether or not you garrison the cities, so just end the turn and watch what happens as the cities are recaptured by the Germans despite the blocking units.
In summary, CAMO makes possible invisible, unblockable AI spawning, invisible AI stacks, impregnable AI stacks, surprise AI attacks and AI decoy stacks to confound players . . . . . . pretty good for an invisible, immovable, flying unit that is otherwise incapable of hurting a fly.
HOW IT WORKS
The CAMO has to be an undisbandable, Mv=0 air unit to work properly. Otherwise a Soviet player could either move it away or disband it in order to uncover the stack of German units under it.
The CAMO EVENTS file excerpts from the events file the events used to create the stacks at Kaunas and Vilnius. The statement that is absolutely needed to create a stack of mixed Soviet and German units is the CHANGETERRAIN that MUST separate the Soviet CREATEUNIT events from the German ones. Without the CHANGETERRAIN, the German units are not spawned. This is why the decoy stacks contain no German CAMO units. Note that it does not matter in what sequence the German units are spawned after the CHANGETERRAIN.
I don't know whether stacks containing units from more than 2 civs are possible.
I suspect that it is the need for a CHANGETERRAIN that has kept people from figuring out how to spawn stacks containing units from more than one civ. I hit on it more by serendipity than anything else while investigating the possible use of invisible units as a way to launch surprise German attacks that could destroy significant numbers of Soviet units in the later stages of Red Front TOT.
NASTY IDEAS
As a player, I may live to regret writing what follows.
CAMO stacks can make life very miserable for players. For example, after capturing a city and discovering CAMO stacks around it, it becomes a judgment call of whether to try to garrison the city adequately to withstand a possible attack or look for another route to advance. As there is no information on the attacker's strength and whether any of the stacks contains enemy units, one may lose none, some or all of the spearhead.
Because hostile stacks need CHANGETERRAIN and decoy stacks don't, it would seem that the hostile ones should be spawned on squares with no improvements or river, lest players spot the terrain change. However, it is no problem to add a CHANGETERRAIN to the events that spawn decoy stacks and leave players guessing. In that case, an extra player CAMO must be spawned to make up for the one destroyed by the subsequent CHANGETERRAIN.
The ultimate nasty idea, especially suitable for insurrection/guerrilla type scens would be to spawn decoy stacks containing only an AI and a player CAMO at some point in the scen or have them in place in the .scn file. Of course, the stacks would be located next to cities or places where players might gather units. These decoy stacks would continue to exist indefinitely because there is nothing that players can do to destroy them. However, when the time is judged to be ripe, it would be no problem to use RANDOMIZE and COUNT to add attack units to a number of these decoys to create AI attacks of unpredictable strength and location.
PROBLEMS
CAMO units of the player's civ cannot be disbanded or otherwise wiped out. If there are many in a scen, it may be necessary to have an obsolescence tech for the CAMO and to give the tech to all civs for a few turns and then take it away.
I have a feeling that this is such a powerful tool for the AI that it should be used with the utmost caution in scens.
I have searched both Poly and CFC and found no mention of anything like CAMO, the invisible, flying AI wonder weapon. My humble apologies if I've failed to give credit to anyone.
On the assumption that an interactive demo is worth a zillion words, please download the attached zip and unzip it in a new folder on desktop. Fire up your TOT and load SAMPLE.sav, a modified version of my current Red Front test. The mods consist of destroying most German units so the END OF TURN doesn't take so long.
TEST I OVERVIEW
Head up to Kaunas and Vilnius (near square 33,77) and you will find a "live" KV-1 outside each city and no city garrisons. Keep a close watch as you use the tanks to enter and capture the cities. I don't think that you will see anything out of the ordinary.
Now click on the 8 squares adjacent to each city and you will find a total of 6 squares that contain a Soviet Camouflage unit, the wondrous CAMO. No big deal so far, just some invisible spawning. However, unfortunately for the Soviets, one square near each city contains 30+ high grade German units spoiling for a fight and two squares that contain nothing more threatening than butterflies.
Before ending the turn, I would suggest that you cheat up whatever Soviet units you want and try to either identify the square with the German units or, better yet, to destroy the German stack. Once this has proven to be impossible, I suggest that in each city you cheat up a good garrison of whatever units you would use to spearhead an offensive. End the turn and admire the ensuing carnage.
TEST II PREVENTING THE SPAWNING
Reload SAMPLE and return to the test area. As you are an experienced player, familiar with how to block spawning, cheat up as many Soviet units as you want on the spawning squares and then capture the cities.
In this test, it really doesn't matter whether or not you garrison the cities, so just end the turn and watch what happens as the cities are recaptured by the Germans despite the blocking units.
In summary, CAMO makes possible invisible, unblockable AI spawning, invisible AI stacks, impregnable AI stacks, surprise AI attacks and AI decoy stacks to confound players . . . . . . pretty good for an invisible, immovable, flying unit that is otherwise incapable of hurting a fly.
HOW IT WORKS
The CAMO has to be an undisbandable, Mv=0 air unit to work properly. Otherwise a Soviet player could either move it away or disband it in order to uncover the stack of German units under it.
The CAMO EVENTS file excerpts from the events file the events used to create the stacks at Kaunas and Vilnius. The statement that is absolutely needed to create a stack of mixed Soviet and German units is the CHANGETERRAIN that MUST separate the Soviet CREATEUNIT events from the German ones. Without the CHANGETERRAIN, the German units are not spawned. This is why the decoy stacks contain no German CAMO units. Note that it does not matter in what sequence the German units are spawned after the CHANGETERRAIN.
I don't know whether stacks containing units from more than 2 civs are possible.
I suspect that it is the need for a CHANGETERRAIN that has kept people from figuring out how to spawn stacks containing units from more than one civ. I hit on it more by serendipity than anything else while investigating the possible use of invisible units as a way to launch surprise German attacks that could destroy significant numbers of Soviet units in the later stages of Red Front TOT.
NASTY IDEAS
As a player, I may live to regret writing what follows.
CAMO stacks can make life very miserable for players. For example, after capturing a city and discovering CAMO stacks around it, it becomes a judgment call of whether to try to garrison the city adequately to withstand a possible attack or look for another route to advance. As there is no information on the attacker's strength and whether any of the stacks contains enemy units, one may lose none, some or all of the spearhead.
Because hostile stacks need CHANGETERRAIN and decoy stacks don't, it would seem that the hostile ones should be spawned on squares with no improvements or river, lest players spot the terrain change. However, it is no problem to add a CHANGETERRAIN to the events that spawn decoy stacks and leave players guessing. In that case, an extra player CAMO must be spawned to make up for the one destroyed by the subsequent CHANGETERRAIN.
The ultimate nasty idea, especially suitable for insurrection/guerrilla type scens would be to spawn decoy stacks containing only an AI and a player CAMO at some point in the scen or have them in place in the .scn file. Of course, the stacks would be located next to cities or places where players might gather units. These decoy stacks would continue to exist indefinitely because there is nothing that players can do to destroy them. However, when the time is judged to be ripe, it would be no problem to use RANDOMIZE and COUNT to add attack units to a number of these decoys to create AI attacks of unpredictable strength and location.
PROBLEMS
CAMO units of the player's civ cannot be disbanded or otherwise wiped out. If there are many in a scen, it may be necessary to have an obsolescence tech for the CAMO and to give the tech to all civs for a few turns and then take it away.
I have a feeling that this is such a powerful tool for the AI that it should be used with the utmost caution in scens.
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