pre battle deployment

[Picton]

I would also like to see the ability to deploy your army, division, brigade, artillery and cavalry before the battle starts like in the Total War series.

[Amish John]

Are you talking scenario designer?

[norb]

I haven't played that, but what exactly do you mean when you say deploy.

[ironsight]

Don't want to speak for Picton but what i think it means is something like the deployment and digging-in of the opposing sides at Gburg's missionary and cemetary hills. The major battles basically originated and commenced from those two positions.

[norb]

So explain to me how that works in the game. What's the interface and the steps? Is this something done pre-game?

[Vonviper]

probably like SSI

ever play PanzerGeneral B)

[ironsight]

Never played Total War or PanzerGeneral but one way it could work in OP is the game would give some kind of sneak preview of the future enemy position or just show the already established enemy position and allow a certain amount of adequate time to strategically deploy and dig in facing the enemy. Whether the player attacks or defends would be up to the pregame menu selection or when the deployment setup clock runs out it could be a free for all anything goes like a meeting engagement in OP.
At Gburg both sides were allowed to position their well established strong defensive positions. In other words the game would allow a certain amount of time to deploy without any serious enemy harassment.

The current TC2M OP 'Defend' option comes close to this already except the enemy is in your face too quickly which usually doesn't allow time for a good defensive deployment. And offhand i'd think if breast works are in the picture for the new game, this issue probably becomes even more important.
Maybe all this might make better sense for a Defend OP option only, i dunno!

What might be a similar simpler alternative is something i mentioned in another thread is to have an option for the game to set up positions of the opposing forces for an instant battle without long deployment marches. Althogh sometimes those marches are cool..options, options, options.

It would be great to hear other brain storming ideas on this.

[Hancock the Superb]

Sounds like a decent idea to me.

[Amish John]

I'm sure Meredith and Cutler would have liked the idea on the morning of July 1st, 1863.

[69th NYSV]

In the TW series before each battle your troops were basically dumped in a pre-determined location. Before the start of the battle you had the ability to arrange your troops in any fashion, basically moving them around within a radius of the dump point.

You weren't playing historical scenarios so troop dispositions weren't set to re-create the situation at the start of the battle and you didn't want to be stuck with the computer deployment. In the context of this game it would be used for OP and MP.