How Big is Too Big?

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Gunner98
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How Big is Too Big?

Post by Gunner98 »

Considering a 4 day scenario. DB3000, 1995 Cold War extension. Iceland is in Russian hands, North UK has been pummelled and is in limited operations, Norway is neutralized (small stuff still going on in the South but the North has been captured.

2 x Kuznetsovs, 2 Kirovs, 2 Kievs and escorts plus LRA and Ftr support from Iceland, making a push into the North Atlantic sea lanes. 1 x US CVBG holding the line, 1 CVBG out of Norfolk clearing Nfnland 2 days steaming away, 1 CVBG from the Med just clearing NW Spain, again 2 days steaming away.

Add in a bunch of subs, a replen group (for the Northern CVBG) and some Land based air support.

I think the total unit count will be less than 1000 or so but the units themselves are a lot more complex than land facilities.

Advice please?

B
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thewood1
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by thewood1 »

I can run a game at 5-30 sec well on a 1500 unit test scenario. I found the game almost unmanageable from a complexity standpoint. I have a low/mid laptop. That was with 438.
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SilentHunter
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by SilentHunter »

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I can run a game at 5-30 sec well on a 1500 unit test scenario. I found the game almost unmanageable from a complexity standpoint. I have a low/mid laptop. That was with 438.

With that many units letting the AI manage through missions is a must. I hope to see some really long missions or campaigns really. With the ability to transport units on triggers, there's some realm of simulated dynamic wars you start with xx number of units and have to visit 3 battlefields around the globe, you can only take what you retain to the next AO.
mikmykWS
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by mikmykWS »

You'll definitely see a boost with the patch. Stay tuned.
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Gunner98
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by Gunner98 »

Well, I've been pondering a "linked Campaign Game" type group of scenarios. Tried it in H3 but was too frustrating. I would see that the scenario above would be about 10th in the campaign and would be the culminating point of the Russians, NATO taking the offensive from this point on. Haven't considered branches yet in case of an unpredictable outcome in one or more scenarios.

I think the campaign would be playable NATO only and a bunch of mission based events for the Russians.

Lots of drawbacks to this type of setup but the AI mission programming is a limitation at this point. You can't plan more than one mission per unit, fairly crucial in big scenarios. While waiting for the game to come out I dusted of a couple old copies of Jane's and Cbt Fleets and plotted out where everything should be on the planet so with that baseline its a matter of piecing it all together.

As far as complexity - I'm a big believer in mission planning vice micro playing. The downside is that the losses are higher but there is a heck of a lot of stuff going on at once - which I like.B
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jomni
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by jomni »

Based on my Singapore vs Malaysia sand box which includes the whole air and naval forces of both countries (not too large). The air war is over in less than 2 hours (meaning one side already lost 100% operational capacity). Naval battle is also quick. It is the transit that took a long time. Ship missiles are depleted quickly as well requiring a rearm. I alloted 24 hours for this but it ended at 10.

A moderated linked campaign may be better. Than a 4 day free for all. Also easier to program the Ai plan depending on the story line situation
navwarcol
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by navwarcol »

These are the types I have always enjoyed, back to H2 days... The very first thing I did when I got this game was warm up the editor 'in the bullpen' and open it up... I have a pretty good cpu..maybe upper middle end, or lower high-end (much better than I did when I tried the same thing in H2)... the facilities that were included in the db (an AWESOME idea by the way, guys!) made it fairly easy to right away try to set up a multi-carrier group strike on Iran, then opened it up further to add in the bases for most of the Gulf region.. I got everything to go..planes in the bases, etc.... it was definitely slow lol(taking about a real time minute for a game time 15seconds), but we are talking all of the db included facilities for Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,Oman.... and then I threw in some Russian and Chinese surface units, and a bunch of neutral tankers. By the time everything together I think there were on the high side of 2000 units total. The H2 attempt at the same thing, so long ago[:D] never worked at all. So on a high end cpu, I think this would have been not bad at all. The one constraint, as mentioned above, is that to be really playable, the scenario designer must do wonders with mission creation for the AI side, and on your own side, you need to use the mission creator and put a lot of trust in the "subordinates".... easy to drown trying to micromanage that one!
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Mgellis
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by Mgellis »

Based on my experience writing Harpoon scenarios...

It would be possible to write very large, very long scenarios but it would be hard to make them satisfying. The AI is good, but nowhere near as flexible as a person, and it would start doing "stupid" things because it would be unable to adapt to the changing battlefield.

Very large but short scenarios would probably work better--"One day in the Life of the Gulf War," etc. The AI can handle large numbers of missions if it is not asked to adapt to change.

It might be better to divide large campaigns into individual sub-battles...for example, "One Day in the Life of the Gulf War" might be more than I would want to set up as a scenario. But "One Day in the Life of Carrier Strike Group Nimitz" with, say, 500 sorties and a dozen or so major targets and a few hazards to the carrier group, would be a nice, complex scenario to play but much more manageable, and getting the AI to be a tough opponent would be much easier to set up.

I did have one idea for "linked scenarios." If you can open up saved games in the editor, you could play the first scenario in a series, save the game at the end, open it in the editor, and save groups like carrier groups, bases, etc. with significant changes, and then use the editor load these groups into the next scenario in the series. So, if your carrier group loses eight planes and one ship at the end of a game, you can save that group and import it into the next scenario in the editor (eliminating any redundant groups, of course) and play that version of the scenario. It is a bit more work than if the game itself automatically updated the scenarios, but it might work.

Any thoughts on this?

Meroka37
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RE: How Big is Too Big?

Post by Meroka37 »

I’m thinking in a scenario branching campaign (small to medium scenarios), depending in outcome of previous scenario you play one scenario or another, you can use even user message to guide the player for next scenario to play.

Mark, with your idea of using savefile from previous scenario it could be generated the linked scenario campaign with less effort…

Maybe I will start a WW3 Soviet campaign...
'Better honor without ships, than ships without honor"
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