Military Model III

[Krenske]

Xin Yu,
The model that harli, is batting around with myself includes consideration of scouting and effective deployment. If a unit is completely outscouted it could indeed be ambushed. The effects of this ambush effectively halve the ambushies firepower and remove any support from artillery and airpower etc, until the units deploy. The chances of an ambush completely working decrease as the size of the forces increases. (More accurately, the less units you have involved the better the chance of an ambush on the opposition.) The scale we are working on would have the minimum unit at a strength of ~1500-2000 men, more ususally it would be around 5000.

We are looking at having several phases to the combat with scouting and maneuver happening before the main battle phase. We do envisage some skirmaishing between forces during the maneuver phases, mainly by light and independent troops. The battle scale itself does not lend itself to skirmishing unless both sides have low aggression values.

[Mark_Everson]

Logo:

Well, the train tracks thing is dumb in civ, but I don't think we want to necessarily go to the extent of having little trains loading and unloading either. There are several ways this sort of thing can be handled in a wargame. You could have a "transport pool" and your units could move on rails until they exhausted the pool. You can have little choo choos , you can do like civ. My personal preference is a railroad transport pool, but it's certainly up for debate.

Xin Yu:

Welcome to the Clash forum...

We are trying to keep the combat here on a strategic scale. We will certainly have sieges and duals (as you classify them). They should actually include possibly picking tactics, although we don't want to bog things down too much for the player. The new model should be out shortly, why don't you check back in a week and see what you think.

Krenske:

Thanks, you explain the model and how it relates to Xin Yu's categories much better than I would have. (In fact I was in the middle of that when I saw your post )

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited February 09, 2000).]

[Krenske]

Mark,
As to rail movement, I would throw my support towards a pool structure. You could even increase rail capacity within your Civ by purchasing loco's and you get a increase in the pool for each loco. Obviously the economic effects of military use of railways can be a serious problem. (When the huge german Siege gun from WW2 was being moved around it efectively disrupted traffic over great sections of germany. It needed to use two lines simultaneously so two way traffic was impossible.) Maybe the military gets to use excess rail capacity for free bu after that there is a direct drop in production with further rail movement. Unused capacity could create some additional income effects.

You could increase rail capacity within your Civ by purchasing loco's and you get a increase in the pool for each loco. (The increase could be dependent on the current rail tech) It should even be possible to simulate trainbusting with aircraft by allowing the rail pool to be targetted and decreasing the pool.

A further benefit of the pool concept is that if large areas are conquered quickly you will gain the rail net but not much of an improvement in the actual transport pool.
[This message has been edited by Krenske (edited February 09, 2000).]

[Xin Yu]

Thanks for the quick response. Ambush in my classification includes certain kinds of 'secret weapons' which are unexpected by the enemy. For example, using natural resources such as fire to attack is typical in many legendary tales. Here's one: Yue-Fei, the most famous general in Sung Dynasty of China, commanded 800 soldiers to defeat 100,000 Northern intruders (yes, 5 zeros). What he did in the legend was he attacked the enemy's base all by himself and killed several before fled to the mountains (where his men set up ambushes), then used fire, water, and boulders subsequently to kill a majority of persueing enemy soldiers. This legend may not be true, but think about those secret weapons -- scouts may not find them, and large army has no advantage at all against fire.

[don Don]

Xin Yu,
That's more like guerrilla activity than military action. I suppose there will be something of that sort in the game, but it shouldn't be a major factor in the mil model. All the things you've mentioned are tactical, rather than strategic (or "operational") scale. We are looking at battle occuring in 3-day "ticks" of the metaphorical clock, too long for us to micromanage action plans. We're using 100 km tiles, or point locations specified to the nearest km, too large a scale to include information about the terrain that would influence such decisions and outcomes.

We do need separate rules or procedures for seiges and field battles. Separating field battles further into skirmishes and "duels" or full fledged battles could be included.

[LOGO]

Xin Yu's idea is interesting, ever once and a while a great comander will use extemely unconventional warfare to achive victory. Think of the Trojan Horse. I don't understand at all how we could factor that in though, maybe through the use of our charactor system, maybe add resourcefulness (spelling?) to their name? I don't know but I do see Xin Yu's logic.

[marc_anton]

Hi folks,
I have a question.
How is upgrading of units handled?
I think of youst paying for new equipment, not for men also because recruiting should be represented in support-costs.

[Krenske]

Marc_Anton,

(shakespearian?)

It all depends on whether there will be a unit workshop or not. If we allow for the creation of our own units then we can indeed just pay for the improved item. (Eg. Replace bolt action magazine rifles with semi autos.)

If we instead go with a preestablished unit path, then we will need a indicated upgrade path to allow for unit upgrades. (EG. ML rifleman will upgrade to BL rifleman for 10 Clash monetary units.)

At worst it should be possible to purchase a new unit at the expense of a old unit and gain the old units experience ratings etc, for the new unit.

I am hoping for the first case to be the one used.
[This message has been edited by Krenske (edited February 10, 2000).]

[Xin Yu]

The factors of attack, defense, and speed of units were addressed in Civ2. However there is another factor which becomes more and more important in modern weaponry: maintainance. AK-47 and M-16 are both excellent assault rifles, but AK-47 is better in that it requires basically no maintainance. You can put it in the rain for two months and it still can fire. One way to reflect the cost of maintainance is to give certain units diminished attack/defense/speed every turn it is out of the cities (like helicoptor in civ2).

[Harlikwin]

Here It Is!!
This is the first part of the combat resolution model that Kerenske and I have been working on. I will post the other parts as they are completed. Along with a unit data post. If this is unclear Kernske will be posting the converastions we had in order to get to this model up on his website...
(K, can you post a link to that??)

General Intro:
This model describes what happens when one TF hits another TF on the main map.
One of the things that is done is that the square that battle is taking place in is divided into 9 different terrain types (3X3) these are determined by the general type of terrain the main map hex is. Ex: River, we would have like 3 river, 2 woods, 4 plains for our 9 types of terrain. The tile where the battle is actually fought is determined randomly, though it can be shifted through scouting. The battle then commences with the scout phase, which is followed by the maneuver (deployment phase) and concludes with the assault phase. Retreat can be ordered in either the maneuver or the assault phase if the AI decides it is prudent to do so.

Scout Phase:

Element Scout Strength = (Exp + Tech feature + Comm tech) x ((Mob - fortification benefit - terrain mod) + hits)

Total Scout strength = ( Number of elements + Sum of element scout strengths)^(1/2)

Or

Total Scout strength = ( Number of elements + Sum of element scout strengths) / ( # of elements X (CF))
The CF would vary for the number of elements like 1 for (1-5 elements) or 2 (for 6-10) elements or something point is diminishing returns on number of scouts… (There is probably a better math way to do this, but math was never my strong point)

Total scout Strength X Generalship X conversion factor = % chance of going to the maneuver phase

Check how well the test was made:
10% major advantage
50% Advantage


Advantages (randomly picked)
- Terrain shifting - the scout phase allows the TF to skew the terrain to their liking.
- Deception - the scouts managed to deceive the opposition. If the opposition passed their scout test without advantage then the deception negates the test and are treated as having failed the test.
- Negation - the advantage removes the opposition's advantage or reduces a major advantage to a normal one.
- Ambush - the scouts managed to smack the enemy scouts around a bit, scouts get a free medium and long range combat round vs. the opposition scouts. (Modify this)
-Other stuff??

Major Advantage (again randomness)
-Rapid deployment, or something of the like
-Pick 2 normal advantages
-Other stuff??

Go To maneuver phase

[korn469]

i'm back after being busy with other stuff and i'm going to look over all the new ideas and i'll make a long post later tonight about what i think of the new ideas, tick cost ect...

korn469

[korn469]

i have been reading for hours now and i have almost gotten it all in but i need to finish up and reread a few things and think about all the new stuff for a little while but i'll be post again some time tommorrow with ideas

korn469

[LOGO]

Hey Harli,

Some things about scouting system.

Pre-scouting
I think there should be a bonus to scouting when you know the terrain. Maybe you could dispatch specific cartographers to take detailed records of the hexes to make combat bonuses. This could tie in with other combat systems (for example a improvement for a city might be a bunch of heavy cannons, if you had a detailed map of lands the cannons would be much more accurate, movement increase depending on the terrain (especially in mountainous terrain), and an obvious increase in trade over ocean squares. There should be different levels of mapping. Eventually it should tie in with bombing accuracy and there should be plenty of space based mapping system (like the one on the space shuttle right now). Maybe it could be a sub-menu on a sort of military menu to make things easier, for example you could finance so much money for a new map of different regions and when new techs come of age then you will have new options.

Non-land reconnaissance
It seemed to me you think of scouts as purely land-based guys on horses. What about air reconnaissance or space based reconnaissance? What about radar?

Spies
I think there should be some kind of combat advantage in having a very good infiltration of a nation for reconnaissance. Anything on that?

In territory
I think there should be a boost if the army is operating in their own nation, and a BIG boost if operating within their own city limits (sorry I don't know if I'm up to date with the specifics of the system of provinces so I'll just say my ideas in old Civ. II context, sorry).

Now about your advantages system, I really, really, really don't want randomness to give an someone a 50% advantage, maybe if it happens once every thousand years in certain battles, but 50%!!?? That's alot to give to the dice! I think we might want to make the model a little bit more complex and cut down on the randomness level, we are trying to find realistic battle outcomes

[This message has been edited by LOGO (edited February 14, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by LOGO (edited February 14, 2000).]

[Krenske]

Logo
Amazingly we have already included most of your points on a web page posting. There will indeed be a factor for being the person controlling the territory, non task force scouting can be gained from air/space recon. We also count the possibility of applying spie actions to tactical battles. I believe harli posted a initial very land oriented post, hopefully a full scout model will be viewable on a web page soon.

As to the advantage system. The percentages are the chance of gaining an advantage. If the chance to successfully scout the opposition is 30%, then 15% and below would give a basic advantage while 3% would give a major advantage. These advantages are not necessarily battle winners but they can influence the battle. Things like skewing terrain selection etc will effect the battles and the chances of a small ambush on the opposition will not greatly effect a battle but it will effect the enemies scouts more than ordinarily. The ability to more rapidly deploy a number of units will possibly allow a side to get more troops ready for battle in the first couple of maneuver phases. These will not effect the battle that greatly but can allow for more detailed battle resolution . (The possibility of allowing a fairly accurate newspaper style reporting of the broad battle is also available for those that want it.)

Note: it is envisaged that for many battles not in the modern period low scouting values will mean that the battles will have a lot of scouting and maneuvering preceeding the combat itself. The combat will necessarily be at short/melee range which will lead to high losses and the battle probably concluding within a day of combat being joined. So a battle in the "olden days" really translates to a short campaign inside a 10000 sq km area culminating in a fairly decisive battle.

In modern battles the combat ranges increase and the effects are reduced so the combat itself may indeed last for numerous days or weeks. When combined with high scout values the modern battle will have a much shorter period of scouting and maneuvering therefore generally fitting a more modern battle profile. This also leads to any scout gained advantage being less important as the effects of any advantage are really limited to the first few rounds of combat.

[LOGO]

Oh, I think mis-understood Harli on the advantage system, I agree I think that sounds really cool