Limit battle radius

[Santini]

Speaking of features that are easily gamed, I think the limit battle radius needs to be reworked somewhat.



So, I have the battle in Exhibit A about to start. I've got my battle radius set to limited, because I like pretty graphics and not the best of computers.

Exhibit B shows the result: all 9 grids are available for deployment and capture, yet only 4 are occupied.

Exhibit C shows how it should work out: only the active squares should be playable, and all units within deployed.

The current battle radius system is way too easy to exploit

[Flashburn]

Hmmm it can go either way really.  But that is actually a hard one.  Also if your attacking often you will have 2 or 3 squares basically attacking 5 or 6.  If they are all full of units this can be a REAL pain if set to the other extreme....unlimited.  With GTOS/SABOW system that it has evolved into I find that alot of the time the defender can end up with way more forces to defend with than the attacker.  How to handle that in a different way than now?  Apart from some artificial system to pick and choose units to allow it to the fight I simply do not know.   Right now it just grabs the units in a set radius based on battle size. 

However... If the mission designer decides to stick in those valuable objectives they can set the number of nodes for the defender to not be overly excessive.  Buts is a hard one really to get right with the current square system. 

K43 and the 1st release of SABOW where only 1 unit per square also had these issues but now with up to 4 nodes per square it is just something to consider when attacking/defending.  Sometimes you get a HUGE advantage.  Sometime you get the other end.  But what would be a better way is the REAL question. 

You C means that instead of fighting over 3 x 3 km you are saying fight over 2 x 2km.   

Sort of why HEX's in war games are used.  But that would just not work or work weird in GTOS. 

[Santini]

Well, I think it should be configured so as that:
Full = 9 squares
Moderate = 6
Limited = 4.

The selected fire square forms the linchpin, and the attacker (Or human) rotates the selection as they wish.

[Santini]

I'm doing up a quick graphic to show the idea

[Flashburn]

Ugh i edited to slow.  

Or a system that when a fight broke out you could maybe choose which units to use to actually fight.  But that is not the greatest idea ever.  Another possible thing is larger battle squares but fewer taking part in the actual fight.  Again how to do that and make that work.  The maps for the battles pretty much have to be squares due to the tech behind it.  Well that is the simplest way.  I suppose you COULD shape the useable area using some sort of weird boundary in game to contain the fighting to an area.

[Santini]

Okay, so Fritz in Green is attacking Ivan in Red. Fritz is playing limited radius, and so on the battle turn has 4 options.

Option 1 gives Fritz local superiority, but he can only capture one square that way.

Option 2 gives equal odds

Option 3 is not available, as there are no Kraut squares

Option 4 gives slight advantage to Fritz

[Santini]

Okay, same battle, with moderate radius.

Option A, best odds for Fritz, but smallest reward

Option B, 1 on 1 odds and a good chance for a breakout

Option C, terrible odds, a lot of possible territory to capture

Option D, the moderate option

[Flashburn]

Larger squares with fewer overall is a possible I guess.  Right now each square is 1km.  If they where 2km or 1.5 or whatever and instead of up to 9 it where 4 or something.  Although ideally the attacker would potently  get an extra square to attack from.  I think it is sort of nuts that the defender can potentially have 2/3 more forces to defend with than the attacking force.  

[Santini]

Larger squares with fewer overall is a possible I guess.  Right now each square is 1km.  If they where 2km or 1.5 or whatever and instead of up to 9 it where 4 or something.  Although ideally the attacker would potently  get an extra square to attack from.  I think it is sort of nuts that the defender can potentially have 2/3 more forces to defend with than the attacking force.  

Take a look at the proposed solution.

[Santini]

The idea is the attacker gets to decide between local superiority or potential for breakout.

Risk vs reward tradeoff

[Flashburn]

Well i do think that there is room for improvement over the current system on the OP map and the actual fighting, I get concerned with the size of the area to fight over gets smaller.  For infantry stuff fighting over 4 square km or something is fine.  If tanks and vehicles are in there....its to darn small.  My point is that you change the 3 x 3 stuff its not a free lunch. 

I understand what you are saying.  But how do you pull it off with the various layers of the game?   I still want BIGGER squares with more area to fight over.  You know where trucks and apcs are really needed to get around with.  but i am the minority.  I say that just cause.     But what in effect such a setting means is the need for variable sized battle areas?

[Santini]

Then play on unlimited with crappier graphics.

Anyhow, most truck and apc movement is on the strat map.

"But what in effect such a setting means is the need for variable sized battle areas?" <- what's this?

[Flashburn]

Your example of 3 x 2 squares for instance.  What this means when in a battle is the that area is 3km x 2km.  PLus a 1km border on all sides.  The view distance in gtos I think is maxed out at 2000 meters BTW.  Have to ask Andrey what the max is for sure.  But 99 percent sure its 2000 meters.  Ok this means that no matter how big the size of the area its always drawing everything in the world out to 2000 meters.  I think the BIG performance killer is numbers of AI.  Both the CPU time to run the ai and also the polygons to render on the vid card.  Only an issue if ALOT. 

Chances are you run any of the polygons empty with few ai it runs fine?  But fill up with ai and how cpu hungry they are you can hit the roof of what your cpu can do. 

Ok so there is that......

But the game likes to have the actual fighting map at 5km x 5km ......3 of which is playable.  If as a setting you can have 2 x 3 or something gets weird.  each chunk of map is 2km by 2km cells.  They are subdivided into the 1km by 1km for the battles.  You see those nice grids in the set up phase of them.  Going away from the 3 x 3.  doing other sizes may end up being just as wasteful as bigger 3 by 3 ....or not.  I guess its sort of messy.  Another way to think of it is that sometimes the border area you can see the end of the world when zoomed out.  Other times you do not.  reason I think is that the world is made up of 2km by 2km chunks.  It can stick those in various combos I think.  But what you are proposing is a setting that allows you to decide how many of those 2km by 2km chuncks of the world get in.  Or even how big the battle area is?  Assuming your limited is fixed at 2km square fighting area?  Or would those be larger?  Like 4 squares on the OP map = to 4 square km for instance. 

Does that make sense?

[Santini]

The displayed map would still be the 5 x 5

But you'd only be able to deploy and fight in the 2x2 or 2x3 or 3x3

[Flashburn]

So in your ideal the actual fighting sized map stays the same.  The OP map is different sized?  Wow I could have JUST said that.   

[Santini]

The 3d depiction of the map stays the same

The playable and deploy-able area is shrunk.

That requires the least change to the engine, and I thought I made it clear with my dumb drawings xD

[Fritz]

As I understand if you have limited radius game give more forces to attacking side.

[Santini]

Yeah, it just also results in the really awkward "ghost" units - as in, you can deploy and play on squares that are empty in the battle but technically have units in them

[Santini]

The other problem is that your combat has effect on other battles as well.

I won battle A and battle B got cancled

[andrey12345]

As I understand if you have limited radius game give more forces to attacking side.

Yes, and better play to normal limits as default.
In this case attacker can control and concentrate forces to attack.