NEW: Prokhorovka 5: The Historical Battle

[Crossroads]

Cheers zap, while I agree that certainly no one likes to play scenarios that are no fun, how about this:

Lopsided battles are what each commander opts for in his planning, where for instance he'd order his schwerpunkt to hit a particularly weak sector of enemy defence, right. So "lopsided battles" are not an anomaly as such, but of course to design a scenario with a particularly lopsided battles comes with an added difficulty.

Often, in play testing, when it becomes obvious the initial design makes life more difficult to either side, you try to address this. Even lopsided battles can be fun if the objectives are very clear from the beginning. Playing Thermopylaee as Spartans, you'd know at the end everyone dies, but how long did you delay the Persians this time, and how much damage did you cause.

With Blitz H2H system, there's a recommendation that SM 10 scenarios would not be entered, as testing them causes such a strain, takes such a long time, and many times the process is left unfinished.

Prokhorovka certainly is a SM10 scenario and then some, but luckily there's been players who've persisted with it, so there's good feedback what works and what not. I've also discussed this a good few times with Alan, and we have a decent idea as how to redesign this in EF III with the new game engine that offers so much more.

Here's a few concrete items:

First, Adaptive AI (AAI). There's currently like 100 parameters that effect the game play and the various odds, probabilities and AI behaviour too. Those can now be set per scenario, like a likelihood for Opportunity Fire for instance as just one example.

Then, Event Engine. First, Event Engine can alter Adaptive AI parameters dynamically. There can be a positive or negative trend for most all AAI parameters, or they can change per an event occurring. So for instance, since I picked the Opportunity Fire likelihood as an instance, that can be altered. For instance, as the day goes on, units "tire", and the likelihood for a prompt Opportunity Fire against a moving hostile lessens. Just a sample

Specific to Prokhorovka: Event Engine, based on events like turn # or a unit moving beyond a certain line, or an objective changing hands, can then have things happening (or not). A Release or Reinforcement can be triggered (or the arrival removed altogether).

So for instance for Artillery they could be made available for the initial barrage for Soviets, but soon after they would not be available anymore. Objective values can change during the game, additional Event Victory Points can be added, and so on. Morale can go up and down. Supply (and Arty supply) can go up and down.

Quite a lot of tools for scenario designer, which is the reason why I said there'd likely be no more Prokhorovka versions for JTCS EF, but certainly a lot of food for thought for the EF III version come the day it will be redesigned for the game.