Campaign system idea for discussion.

[Fullhouse]

Ok so campaign systems have been discussed before and the same various problems seem to always arise. The chief of these seem to be:

1: Maintaining the interest of players, several of whom might not be playing at any one time.

2: Administration

3: Majority of Battles being largely uncontested as one force retreats in the face of superior numbers.

Now I think I have a campaign idea that totaly solves two of those problems and for a large part should automate most of the administration.

I dont know how many of you have played with or used Robbos quick campaign generator? (Avialable from CMODS search for ROQC in CMBB) If you have you might be able to see where I am going all ready, but for those that havnt I will briefly describe it.

ROQC is a single player campaign system that allows you to take command of a company/armoured platoon or bigger and fight with them from June 41 all the way to the end of the war in 45.

Battles are determined by a number of Dice rolls that have modifiers that effect weather, battle type opfor composition, experience ammo and fitness and the like relative to what period it is during the war and how you performed in your last battle. Players earn prestige that they can use to request support units like armour and artillery for use in Battle or even to swerve battles completely if they look a bit hazardous.

The dice rolls have been totally automated in an Excel spreadsheet where you can track your battles and the history of your core force. The scope and variation of the battles generated are very varied and you can find yourself in many tactical situations you will never encounter in standard H2H play.

Now I had some fun with ROQC but found it had one major shortcoming. I had to play against the AI. Situations arose where I was on paper quite up against it (Heavy counter attacks from armoured/mechanized forces etc,) but no problem, the ineptitude of the AI saved my ass time and time again and gave me lots of prestige with which to request perks from HQ.

So really I am suggesting that a way be found to remove this one glaring weakness, ROQC needs to go MULTIPLAYER.

This would remove many of the problems mentioned above. Players involved would always have a game. All situations require that the player stand and fight for at least as long as he realizes the situation is totally pointless, immediate retreats mean prestige hits in a big way and if he has to retreat it is normally in a break out kinda way if you catch my drift.

Also if the spreadsheets could be adapted by an excel jedi (not me I am afraid) then much of the administration would be automated for the GM.

I envisage a tourney come campaign system with strong RPG elements and massive AAR potential.

You have two teams who compete to score the most prestige over the course of the war or specific campaigns in the war. Players would play both there own core forces and the random forces rolled up to play against the opposing teams. They would thus seek to succeed with there forces and frustrate the opposing team in there rolled up battles. Perhaps if certain conditions are met core forces would collide on the battlefield for a showdown perhaps without the players even knowing it.

This would provide players with massively varied playing experiences where perhaps the get given conscripts with no ammo etc but must seek to hurt the enemy as much as possible (instead of just running away) to make sure that prestige gained is at a minimum, and if they can cause casualties to the core force all the better.

Battles in ROQC are allways rolled up Random force + Core force v Random force. With the random forces being determined by the die rolls for division type etc etc.

Anyway lots of waffle, not much further I can go if no one is that interested in this idea, it would be cool if any one interested in developing this idea downloaded ROQC so they had some idea what I was talking about and gave some input.

I think there is way to arrive at a good solid mulitplayer campaign system, but that can be achieved by abadoning the idea of an uber realistic strategic layer and replacing it with a fun strategic layer simulator that is less complex but still generates a multitude of very varied tactical situations and gives the player a reason to play those situations out.

[Easymeat]

If you define the rules and data, Excel can be used to automate the battles and bookkeeping.

If you do not want to use Excel to send the data you can use other programming languages to read and write Excel spreadsheets.

[USS Wyoming]

I've been following the various threads about campaigns and they all have some good stuff.
I like the campaign generator your speaking of. I'll have to go give it a look.
I think one of the flaws is a storyline. Flaw isn't the right phrase, I should say obstacle. I've been working on that angle, but it will take awhile. The concept is to develop a storyline that revolves around each battle. You lose and the story takes you one place, a draw or win takes you some place else.
But, how do you change history or do you go with an alternate history that may not even have historical combatants at odds with each other?
I've elected to write it to give the player a chance to change history or modify it. Certain historical events have to be modified at the outset, but they are certainly plausible based on historic events from 1938 through 1945. The campaign generator might be a useful tool during battle design...now, if I only had an expert map maker...?

[Fullhouse]

Well yea.

I was trying to move the emphasis away from the idea of there being some realistic operational level simulation which used CM to resolve battles to a more simple and elegant system of dynamic battle generation.

ROQC dynamically creates battles and the parameters depend on the historical situation (if you are germans in june 41 you are much more likely to get attack battles, than in Dec 41 etc) but these are all generated by die rolls with modifiers, so any battle type is possible just some become more likely at certain times of year.

How you performed in the last battle will change many factors and it is worth noting that the ROQC has an experience system for your core forces and squad leaders (who can gain bonuses such as stealth etc) but most of the advantages come via prestige that can buy you better support troops and arty etc and also be used to influence the type of battle you next fight (though this will use up a lot of points)

ROQC can be fun but playing against the AI soon gets old for me. So I was looking at how it a similar system could be implemented for Multiplayer. A story system is one way, but that way you give up all the diversity and flexibility of ROQC in which no 2 campaigns will ever be remotely the same and you can fight the entire course of the war.

I see prestige points as key. Players in the Campaign are seeking to become the most famous or infamous commander of WW2. So the game takes on an almost RPG element. It is worth noting that in ROQC you can be killed and your prestige reset to 0. Retreating costs prestige, but you dont want to end up dead/captured.

However there could be a way to allow players to "alter" history, in ROQC there is an operational situation modifier that effects the battles the player is given. This is hard coded dependent on the historical situation at the time. Perhaps a system could be implemented that if one player succeeds to a given parameter this would change the operational modifier. I find this a bit unrealistic if you are fighting the whole war say, as the performance of one company or battalion however brilliant would have no overall effect. If you are talking about a specific operation such as Kursk/Stalingrad though, it becomes a bit more realistic, or at least enough to suspend disbelief for.

A starting point and I would do this myself if I had a clue how, would be a system that simply generated battles e.g Force type by division etc, exp,ammo etc then battle type and then weather, time of day etc depending on time of year and year itself. Then perhaps add a modifier based on the performance of the last battle, based purely on the victory result. A system for linking battles to maps could be included also.

So really all I am looking at is a system for dynamically generating battles for H2H play that will put the players in unusual unbalanced situations (as is the case in war) but will give them a motive to stand and fight to achieve the best outcome possible for the sake of prestige. This system will be of course dependent on taking its parameters from the historical and meteorological circumstances of the time in which the battle is fought. Also it is important that over the course of a given campaign that unbalanced situation occur roughly equally for both players.

One interesting idea I think, would be for a battle type called Hold at all costs. This would have an open ended time turns with no set limit. One of the players will be outnumbered massively but seek to make the battle last as long as possible. Victory conditions are determined literally by how long the battle lasts and the players prestige will be determined like wise.

I am waffling to much, but the core idea is dynamic context driven battle generation that creates more realistic situations and then gives the players a reason to fight what might be unbalanced battles.

[USS Wyoming]

I read in quite few posts about the possibility of commanders retreating their force when faced with superior forces to avoid a significant loss. It doesn't take much research to learn that one side or the other was typically facing a superior force.

We also know that a comander who routinely withdrew would end up losing command as the Allies or more serious consequences if you were either German or Soviet. I think it is reasonable to have scenarios as hold at all costs or a fanatical defense oblivious to the enemy forces being faced. So, a campaign would have to reflect that. A hold at all costs sceario doesn't have to end up with the entire force eliminated. I think you could tweak a scenario to salvage the commander for the next battle if he performed well.

We might have to team up to test the ROQC system in pbem's.

[USS Wyoming]

I've downloaded and begun reveiwing the ROCQ spreadsheets. I'm impressed with the designers of the program.

I've started to fill in the required fields, selected a core force, rolled the dice...

I could see the interest, as well as the challenge to a successful campaign and the earning of awards for the units ,if they faced a human opp instead of the computer.

Looks like major fun.

[SHAEF]

This is an interesting idea to me. But how do I get to CMODS? Does someone have the website address? Also, is Excel spreadsheet required to use ROQC?

Later,
Dave

[Mad Russian]

I read in quite few posts about the possibility of commanders retreating their force when faced with superior forces to avoid a significant loss. It doesn't take much research to learn that one side or the other was typically facing a superior force.

We also know that a comander who routinely withdrew would end up losing command as the Allies or more serious consequences if you were either German or Soviet. I think it is reasonable to have scenarios as hold at all costs or a fanatical defense oblivious to the enemy forces being faced. So, a campaign would have to reflect that. A hold at all costs sceario doesn't have to end up with the entire force eliminated. I think you could tweak a scenario to salvage the commander for the next battle if he performed well.

We might have to team up to test the ROQC system in pbem's.

One of the campaigns discussed here was my own Op CM. That isn't actually dead. What we are looking at doing is switching where the fighting takes place to an area where there were pretty evenly matched forces with both sides having the same amount of opportunity to attack and defend.

I'll try to go and download the ROQC program tonight as well.

At the moment the two big sticking points of a campaign seem to be the unbalanced nature of real life battles vs a wargame and that if the games are for ladder play who whats to take that whipping on their record.

Good Hunting.

MR

[USS Wyoming]

Mad Russian, do I need a turn from you or vice versa?

[Ratzki]

If anyone wants to try out the human factor for a game or two to see how things fair, I will play the AI picked force.