Larger, longer scenarios

[Wolfgang]

Hmm... well lets see.

I mean we could experiment and try a homegrown pbem campaign length style scenario and just see what happens...
Large base maps exist for it in at least some of the games like RV and MW.
The Order of battle could probably be created to accommodate the quantity of forces needed.
Units do recover weapon effectiveness and I believe morale too, given enough rest (But the rates at which those occur may not be realistic over extended periods of time).

I'm not sure what the upper limit is on the number of turns that can be entered into the Scenario builder, but here are the stats:

At 5 minutes a turn:
1 hour = 12 turns.
12 hours = 144 turns
1 day = 288 turns
2 days = 576 turns
1 week = 2,016 turns.


We have no way to really block out large amounts of time (say... an 8 hour rest period and then pick up the game later) so that's a factor... (or maybe not).

* Basically 2 day operations would be at the limit of what would be playable. A 1 week op would probably take several years to complete in pbem mode lol. (An alternative is to further abstract game time - perhaps saying that each turn is actually 10 minutes rather than 5 but then that would skew a lot of other things in the game.)


Also weather would never change from what it was at the scenario start.

The terrain at the start of the scenario would never change either - so we couldn't build new fortifications over night for instance.

With the above parameters in mind, and the fact that the game engine was probably never designed to handle such large amounts of data (who knows how enemy AI actions would play out during a player's pbem turn) a test could be made. I'm sure we'd probably run into unforeseen consequences but it could be interesting to try it out.

Alternatively - An operation could be broken up into 'pulses' of say... 1 day each covering a certain number of hours of that day. Of course this wouldn't take into account the results of the prior day of battle as far as forces at hand, disposition of those forces, etc since there is no dynamic tracking/forwarding of that data. *But* a set of scenarios could be made up for each day and the actual one chosen for the next pulse of the operation would depend on the Victory point level of the prior day of action and final disposition of forces on that day. i.e.: If the U.S. had a draw and controlled area XYZ of the map then play scenario B. If they had a major win and controlled area ABC, then load scenario Z for the next day.
That is a lot of work though lol!