Variety is the spice of life

[Wdll]

Thank you for your answers.


I am sure all of us would want a higher unit limit for both player and AI units, but I have no idea if it is possible and if it is, how difficult it is. If my memory serves me right the limit can't be increased due to some hard coding.

I guess the easier way to increase the difficulty is a combination of increasing game difficulty (negative percentage of reinforcements), increasing the AI bonus to 400 and buying fewer than the 200 core units you are allowed to.

[Imp]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think your getting at is the unit limit of 200 is way too low and needs to be uped if the "masochist" game settings are to function properly

You totally misunderstood what I just said. If you want to set AI buy to 4 times yours in a 20 battle campaign & allow this to still be true when it attacks your core should be small as in 50 units when reach 100 exp now equalls 75 standard (70exp) units.
So X4 =300 more if its equipment or troop quality is less.
Now its assualting can it buy enough units, debatable.
Setting to 150 or 200 max might give it a chance unless you always play with less than 50 units.
If you normally play with a core near the 200 limit setting to 130-150% is probably as high as you can go & on a defend battle you should probably still stick 1/3rd of your core in a corner not to be used if you spend any support points.
Why once gain experience those 200 units now represent 300 standard guys if facing a 70 exp force with identical equipment.

[plastictree]

I suppose we could add another level ( insanely hard ) at -40% but it's difficult to belive it would be used much.

Actually I was thinking -80%, which would come in handy during NATO v Warsaw Pact games, where you are NATO. This could be a good equivalent of a NATO formation possibly having to fight several major battles in a row without significant reinforcements, but facing fresh Warsaw Pact formations due to their passing through of fresh divisions.

And yes, I am the king of SPMBT masochists.

[Wdll]

Originally Posted by plastictree

Actually I was thinking -80%, which would come in handy during NATO v Warsaw Pact games, where you are NATO. This could be a good equivalent of a NATO formation possibly having to fight several major battles in a row without significant reinforcements, but facing fresh Warsaw Pact formations due to their passing through of fresh divisions.

And yes, I am the king of SPMBT masochists.

I advice you to do what I plan on doing. Buy less than the 200 limit, and/or don't buy ANY units with the support points, apart perhaps from ammo carriers or the occasional air sortie if that is your thing.
Or as, I think it was Imp who said it, don't always repair your units, do it every 2nd or 3rd battle.

[plastictree]

I normally buy historical formations (eg. in my current British v USSR campaign, I bought a Mech Inf HQ which includes 6 SPMortars and Milans, 3 Mech Inf Companies without Milans, and 1 tank company minus 2 tank platoons), but never include support elements such as engineers, SP or off map artillery or helicopters in my core buy except when a formation has organic support - such as Armoured Cavalry Squadrons (or regiments? Can't remember which) that have an organic SPA battery.

I normally do go a couple of battles without repairing, but it would make it far more of a challenge (in a good way) and make people far more cautious if the buy points were physically restricted to that degree.

If you restricted by say -80%, using rough calculations off the top of my head, that you could repair one or two vehicles per battle, or replace infantry losses, or else wait a few battles and have enough points to repair a few platoons in their entirety.

[Ramm]

Originally Posted by plastictree

I normally buy historical formations (eg. in my current British v USSR campaign, I bought a Mech Inf HQ which includes 6 SPMortars and Milans, 3 Mech Inf Companies without Milans, and 1 tank company minus 2 tank platoons), but never include support elements such as engineers, SP or off map artillery or helicopters in my core buy except when a formation has organic support - such as Armoured Cavalry Squadrons (or regiments? Can't remember which) that have an organic SPA battery.

I normally do go a couple of battles without repairing, but it would make it far more of a challenge (in a good way) and make people far more cautious if the buy points were physically restricted to that degree.

If you restricted by say -80%, using rough calculations off the top of my head, that you could repair one or two vehicles per battle, or replace infantry losses, or else wait a few battles and have enough points to repair a few platoons in their entirety.

What is a mechanized infantry company headquarters and how is it different than just a mechanized infantry company? Do you mean mechanized infantry battalion instead?

Andrew

[plastictree]

In the 4.5 (and I think the 4.0) British OOB there are a number of Battalion HQ units for Infantry formations.

From memory there is an Infantry (foot) HQ, two Saxon Bn HQ formations, and a Mech Inf HQ.

The Mech Bn Inf HQ contain a squad or two of infantry, 6 Milans carried in 3 FV's, as well as 6 SPMortars and a FO. There might be other units in it, can't remember.

Haven't noticed Bn HQ formations in other OOB's, but they might be there.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Wdll

Thank you for your answers.


I am sure all of us would want a higher unit limit for both player and AI units, but I have no idea if it is possible and if it is, how difficult it is. If my memory serves me right the limit can't be increased due to some hard coding.

The unit and formation limit can be increase quite easily but it totally screws up every existing scenario and save game and tends to bump into other game limits as well. I have a perfectly functional copy of an exe which allows 500 formations per side. This would allow *potentially* 2000 units per side


Andy and I thoroughly tested this late last fall and the bottom line is ( harsh as this is going to sound.....)we are not going to trash everything we have so a very small ( but vocal ) minority of players can fight what would amount to divisional level games and neither would any of the people who keep asking for this if they were the ones faced with the effort of rebuilding the game to accommodate what amounts to less than 1% of the players

As well, there is NO way we could allow a campaign to be played because there ARE hard coded limits to the number of casualties reported that one of these monsters would produce in no time. The save games are HUGE once there is a lot of combat recorded for playback and there are limits to that which has knock off affects to other areas.

Years ago we set up the limits on a firm belief that what we have now is more than enough to satisfy 99% of the players knowing full well it's impossible to satisfy 100%

However, that said I will show you want 1500 attacker units looks like zoomed all the way out and the defending force they would face in an advance/delay



Don

[Wdll]

Originally Posted by DRG

The unit and formation limit can be increase quite easily but it totally screws up every existing scenario and save game and tends to bump into other game limits as well. I have a perfectly functional copy of an exe which allows 500 formations per side. This would allow *potentially* 2000 units per side


Andy and I thoroughly tested this late last fall and the bottom line is ( harsh as this is going to sound.....)we are not going to trash everything we have so a very small ( but vocal ) minority of players can fight what would amount to divisional level games and neither would any of the people who keep asking for this if they were the ones faced with the effort of rebuilding the game to accommodate what amounts to less than 1% of the players

As well, there is NO way we could allow a campaign to be played because there ARE hard coded limits to the number of casualties reported that one of these monsters would produce in no time. The save games are HUGE once there is a lot of combat recorded for playback and there are limits to that which has knock off affects to other areas.

Years ago we set up the limits on a firm belief that what we have now is more than enough to satisfy 99% of the players knowing full well it's impossible to satisfy 100%

However, that said I will show you want 1500 attacker units looks like zoomed all the way out and the defending force they would face in an advance/delay



Don

I have to admit I didn't consider the map size in this. Obviously any increase to the amount of units, similar to the above, would require an increase of the map or else it would have many other problems (gameplay ones).
It would be super cool if it was (easily) changed to have both increase of units and map sizes and not break everything else apart. From your sayings though, the task is just not worth the trouble for you and I completely understand that. As you said very few people would actualy play with such settings.

Tell you what, if you ever decide to make a sequel/remake, consider increasing the limits from the get go.

For now, I wouldn't mind seeing an extra difficulty setting (as you mentioned) to further reduce the amount of reinforcements in campaigns, in some future patch

Thanks for answering this.

[Imp]

For now, I wouldn't mind seeing an extra difficulty setting (as you mentioned) to further reduce the amount of reinforcements in campaigns

I pressume you mean R&R points here.

Setting AI prefs to 130-150% for a harder game is a good idea I have changed it to that for ages now.
People who want huge games I am guessing are just messing with the game not playing proper massive battles. Limited tactics there armour takes up position & just plinks at hordes of probably inferrior tanks. Then they go & mop up & thats fine if its there thing but the whole reason for this post was to try & make people realise it can be a good massivly versatile game if you approach it correctly. If you want to approach it as a plink plink game that to seems possible but you are missing out on huge chunks of work put into the game. I for one know which camp I am in hence I appreciate the work put into constantly improving the game.

Sadly the way people approach this game seems hardwired as the main thing this has degenerated into a discussion on making harder by increasing buy points. Making it harder more varied & fun by varying your force seems only to get input from people that play that way anyway so mission failed.
Shame realy it does not occur to anyone that if say early WW2 the Russians come at you mainly with BTs & T-26s with the odd nice tank thrown in that perhaps thats the sort of force you should be using not a fleet of KVs & T-34.
Must be something wrong with the way my brain processes logic it seems diffrent to most peoples