Scourge of War Boards

From what you are saying it sounds like this is a scenario you have played several times. No AI system is going to give you a fresh experience time after time. Most of my solo games are sandbox hunt them down games so every encounter is fresh and I never know what I am facing and where the enemy is or is likely to be.

This is the only time that I have played this Open Play battle. I can tell that there are hidden forces behind the ridge considering that they keep showing up from the north. So the ridge is blocking my LOS, other-wise I would see them marching.

The brigade that General Gordon has encounter facing east would have to be from a different Division since I have a clear line-of-sight with two brigades facing north.

I don't think I have ever replayed a single SoW game I've done. Not one.

Every now and then I will replay an Open-Play-Game if it's real good. I've had some pretty good fights doing that.

The best part about replaying is that the AI will not do the exact same thing, but you do have the knowledge of knowing from which direction they are coming from.

Another self-imposed rule is I never click on distant enemy flags and generals to find out who they are (because you wouldn't have that knowledge).

Yes, I play the same way but sometimes those damn-black-hat-boys give away which division I'm facing.

So not knowing what enemy formations you are facing helps cut out a sense of knowing too much.

True.

Do you pay with a limited camera view at all? I find that helps to increase the sense of immersion as well.

Well not exactly, I do try to keep the camera view at ground level, but switching between the Generals will usually raise the camera.

If anybody can control twenty-three-brigades while keeping the camera-view in the saddle, is a far better Commander than I am.

I find it impossible to align the brigades without scrolling the camera left or right.

davinci

@Marching Thru Georgia & Saddletank - yes changing the values in the OOB seems to help out.

The enemy is doing a lot better with attacking my forces.

The only change that I made from how you play is keeping the aicount at 100 which seems to spread the AI out better.

Thanks,

davinci

Glad to hear you've seen some improvement. We set aicount to 55. We tested extensively 55-65 and found the AI would be too aggressive at those higher settings. I never ran a game with it set to 100. How does the AI behave? I would think it would become Conan the Barbarian where everyone attacks at once. What's your experience?

My experience with the aicount is that the higher the number of cycles per calculation, if I understand that correctly, the more the AI will not bunch-up.

You will see them performing the oblique-movement a lot more than when the count is lower.

This is the current battle after adjusting the OOB .

1) The Union Army attacks the center of my line which straddles the crossroads.

2) They deploy on my right sending in one brigade while other Union brigades line up behind them.

The X marks the brigade that held the extreme-right on my line at the time they massed to his front and right.

3) One brigade attacks the extreme left of my line, so I sent one brigade to the left to extend my line, while keeping the other one as a reserve.

4) The union sent in a brigade to flank the brigade marked with the (X), just as I raced two brigades to reinforce him.

5) A second union brigade attacks the left on my line.

6) More enemy units are now shown on the map as my line extends on the right. I probably didn’t have a clear line of sight before extending the line.

This is turning out to be a very good fight; I’ll probably keep this one and re-play it after the battle.

*** I can’t really say that the higher count makes them more aggressive, as they appear to be a lot more calculating in their attack. They seem to try to exploit any weakness that your army might display. (i.e... flanks or pulling-back, etc…)

*** I missed the post you posted before pertaining to this…..I hardy-ever see their Commander in any of the Open-Play battles that I fight. I actually have forgotten about him until I read your post.
davinci

Davinci wrote:

I can’t really say that the higher count makes them more aggressive, as they appear to be a lot more calculating in their attack. They seem to try to exploit any weakness that your army might display. (i.e... flanks or pulling-back, etc…)

That's interesting information. I'll try setting the aicount as you do and try a couple of games that way.

aicount affects the number of units the AI cycles through per frame. The effect of changing values will depend on the number of units you have in your OOB. If you have a very large OOB and you see units not reacting to enemy units, then raise the aicount value. When this will help also depends on how powerful your computer actually is.

-Jim

Jim wrote:

The effect of changing values will depend on the number of units you have in your OOB. If you have a very large OOB and you see units not reacting to enemy units, then raise the aicount value. When this will help also depends on how powerful your computer actually is.

This is a complicated calculation to make. I played one game with Davinici's setting and can confirm that in the game, the AI did a much better job spreading out it's forces and limiting interference. However, also confirming Davinci's experiences, the AI does home in on even small weaknesses in the enemy line and tries to exploit them. But this led to a battle with troops intermingled. There were no definitive lines. It looked more 20th century than 19th.

What happens I think, is more units have calculations performed for them each cycle, so they respond much more quickly to their environment. They "see" where their fellow troops are and do better avoidance. They also "see" more quickly where an enemy weakness develops and move to exploit it. So in the first case, it's good to have the AI very reactive, but in the second case, not so much. As I said, it is a difficult balancing act.

But this led to a battle with troops intermingled. There were no definitive lines. It looked more 20th century than 19th.

This is greatly influenced by the terrain that the units are standing on. One of the problems is when the AI has a line-of-sight even when they are standing directly behind another friendly regiment.

They will just stop and start firing which creates a sort of mob-like-army.

I have been going back and forth on this since the game was released, with no clear-cut way of handling or controlling how the AI deploys in a battle.

If the AI deploys in a Divisional-Battle-Line…well I hardly ever see it, I’m still not sure if the Divisional-Commander even has control of the brigades once the fighting starts.

They also "see" more quickly where an enemy weakness develops and move to exploit it. So in the first case, it's good to have the AI very reactive, but in the second case, not so much. As I said, it is a difficult balancing act.

I think that this is where the slower-movement speeds that I have helps to give the AI more time to think and react. I understand that this is probably not good for Multi-Player , but for the Single-Player is seems to help out.

*** Question – Are the units hard-coded pertaining to spreading them farther apart, such as the type of engagement?

Example – Spreading them farther apart which would slow-down the enemy units bunching up? I can’t seem to get them to start farther apart.

*** Question – Can the courier-orders be combined such as
Move to the rear of General….. and left of same General…..200 yards.

So instead of sending two courier orders someone would send one order that does two-things.

davinci

I've done quite a bit of testing of spreading out the units in various formations and also changing the default formations used in the OOB and unitglobal.. This helps significantly to reduce the usual chaos we see when the regiments try to deploy. The easiest thing to do is to add extra space between regiments in the line formations. An extra 50-70 yd. make a real difference. You can do the same sort of thing for division formation, except increase the space by 100-120 yd. between brigades. A nappy division with three brigades occupies a line a mile long in the KS mod. The AI uses divisional formations when it is defending an objective. It also uses them when the AI brings up a division and places it in reserve some distance behind the fighting.

*** Question – Can the courier-orders be combined such as
Move to the rear of General….. and left of same General…..200 yards.

The courier system allows you to write several orders in one message. But your specific example cannot be done. If the troops are in motion only the last placement order will be implemented.