Campaign System

[Mad Russian]

I am thinking along the lines of containers which could be grouped together how the players see fit. So each side could have x number of containers grouped into differnet forces, recon, attack, defend. For example a platoon of panthers would be a container. The container could lose a unit but never exceed its initial number. So the panther container could be involved in a battle and lose 2 tanks. These tanks could be replaced depending upon the campaign rules and supply model used (don't have to be complex just a little realistic).

So for example you could have 20 panther containers, each container representing a platoon of panthers. If a battle occured on the master map, and 6 panther containers are involved as well as any other containers (infantry, artillery, aircraft etc) a battle would be created. The program would start CM, create a new battle, send the oob data for both sides to CM, number of turns, weather conditions etc, and a map. The map could be random or player chosen. Personally I think a few maps should be patched together to represent the the master map. After the battle the containers on the master map would be updated.

Is this what you have in mind? If you leave out stonkin graphics and the AI then a program could be written to do all of the above. I see it as bookkeeping and some rules on how the units move and interact on the master map.

Essentially the campaign system would never be finished as it could be added to every now and again.

That is exactly what we were trying to do in exactly the same way.

Take a step up though. The generation of the battles was done by Bootie and I against each other. Since the premise is to win the campaign and not generate CM battles the higher level commanders try to overwhelm the defenders. This does not make for balanced battles very often.

Hence the issue of gamers playing a few turns and retreating from the combat so as not to take losses that affect later combats.

This lead to only one real combat out of 6. Not a good ratio.

Good Hunting.

MR