Seeking opinions

[GUNSLNGR]

Roman,

I hope you didn't get the impression I was discrediting your idea of AI purchase/deploy in the other thread.

I think this is a very good idea, particularly for newer players. Probably the toughest thing about this game is learning about the units and how to effectively use them to your style of play (and your opponents).

By having the AI choose the units, it would help newer players to learn the various types of units and their capabilities. As they would have to play with units provided by the AI, and not just blindly selecting units that look like a good idea - but turn out to be less than effective.

In addition it would level the field a bit if they play a more experienced player, as he would be unable to use his experience to purchase the units he knows work best for him. Everybody would have to make do with what they were given.

I'm not completely sure, but I also believe the AI would be set-up to purchase units in more historical parameters than what you generally see with player purchase. That may not exactly "balance" the game, but gives it a more realistic flavor.

Along those lines, the "third party" set-up can also be good in that the set up guy could be more apt to purchase forces that are more historically accurate for the specific nation without bias (as he wouldn't have a dog in the fight).

The third option would be senarios. It seems that guys put a lot of time, research, and expertise into designing many of these - that often makes them unbalanced, but so is real life.

The only problem I would have would be the AI/computer deployment of my forces...particularly for a meeting engagement. I often groan at how my forces are deployed in senarios, but that is often based on historical data. In a typical "meeting engagement" or as the attacker in a "advance/defend" game, I would like to able to deploy my guys myself as I have found the AI is often very quirky about how it does it. But if the design is to truly have a "play the cards you're dealt", then maybe the AI should deploy as well.

Overall, it's not a bad way to go at all...IMO :)