Question about large maps and AI

[flakfernrohr]

I have read several postings about not making maps too very large in order to allow the AI and the game to function as it was intended. The size of the four maps I have made to date are all in the range of 100X100 with a scale from 5KM to 7KM per hex. Two of them have 130 hex lengths. My plan is to make large scenarios with many units, many goals, lots of battles over lots of real estate. I am aware of several members who have made successful scenarios with such maps and many units (don't know the goals, etc.); however my question involves setting prestige, primary and secondary goals, bonus prestige situations, etc.

At the present time I am on setting the parimeters. I know I will want to use about 75-80 German units and about 120-130 Soviet units. I believe the game and AI can handle this. I have read that the normal prestige for the capture of a primary city is about 50 points and the same for an airport. This is in the usual PzC map format of a much smaller map with a lot less goals, primary and secondary along with less units in play.

I know that it will take a lot of prestige points to keep a large army going of about 70-80 units or even 120-130 units, BUT if my map has 117 primary goals (gold ring), 148 secondary goals (red ring) and 196 other cities that are not any other goal, I am thinking that the prestige will get all out of whack in game play as so many goals and cities are captured.

So I guess I am asking for input on setting the parimeters for a scenario or campaign on maps with this many units, goals, etc.

Thanks to all of you in advance.

[El_Condoro]

One option is to modify the prestige bonus for flags in the Data\gamerules.pzdat file. Anyone who played your scenario/campaign would need to have it but that's the nature of custom stuff mostly, anyway.

# Default bonuses for capturing an ordinary flag and a victory hex.
FlagCaptureBonus 50
VHCaptureBonus 100

Otherwise, every flag will give prestige. The only other option is to have less flags - are they all necessary?

[flakfernrohr]

Thanks El Condoro for your reply and input. I am finding I can set the prestige parimeters in the game's Scenario editor under "actions". The amount of prestige given or deducted for any action in a designated "zone" can be adjusted there under "Actions". Since there are 30 Zones available, and they can even overlap one another in the same hex, I believe I can set the flags for the appropriate cities once I have put them into the designated zones. For instance Zone 1 is all primary goal cities, Zone 2 is all secondary goal cities, Zone 3 is all airports, etc. Also by using the Scenario Editor I can set the Victory Conditions which allow me to select the more desireable "zones" to allow for a decisive or marginal victory.

Conversely by using this type of map, I can switch attackers using the same map and have the Soviet player attack the German sectors all on the same map.

Is my guess on this being able to use the Scenario Editor in the game correct or is the default going to overide my settings done from the Scenario Editor?

I like all the goals because in reality the scenarios can be mini-campaigns. My maps are very detailed with few "clear" hexes. So the unit's travel is more difficult to a degree and there are of course more places to have battles guided by terrain differences, more strategic intrigue I think as well. On a large map to have only a few cities with a few goals is sort of like a dinner plate with a piece of bologna and cheese on it by themselves, so I do hope to be able to use all the primary and secondary goals I have on the maps.

I have come back to edit my post since I remembered something about my primary and secondary goal cities. Some of them are more than two or three hexes big with an airport, supply depot and for those on a navigable river, a port hex. So for instance Nizhny-Novgorad (Gorky in the game as in 1944) is four hexes big with an airport, tank factory and port. All of these have gold hexes. This applies to several cities but they are not the majority of the primary goal hexes, only a part of them. The same applies to the Secondary (red) city hexes. On another of my maps set in the Urals, the City of Cheylabinsk is two hexes in gold as primary goals and the adjacent "Tankograd" complex is four golden hexes. I purposely make the larger cities with more hexes not only for visual appeal, but also because it may take more time for an attacker to capture them as in the actual situations of history. I mean Stalingrad with two or three hexes, no matter how well defended is a little underwhelming since the battle was for the city.

[nikivdd]

I work with smaller maps and the AI can already be a pain. Especially when the AI is the attacker. The best control on the AI is the use of zone and time triggers.
In my experience it comes down to a lot of playtesting which i think is the best approach to tweak parameters.
Then to share the scenario and hope for lots of feedback that helps you to improve it.

[El_Condoro]

Unfortunately, each trigger can only fire once so the first time a Zone 1 city is entered it will give the set prestige but the next and subsequent Zone 1 cities won't.

I haven't tested it but I suspect you'll find zone prestige will be added to flag prestige so that a zone hex that gives 40 PP on a flag will give 90 PP and on an objective will give 140 PP. It may be possible to set a negative value like -25 to give 25 and 75 PP.

You can put a lot of flags and objectives on a map but the size of the map you are describing may make it confusing and/or cluttered. My Kharkov map has 3 objectives in the Kharkov city of about 10 city hexes. Each is a significant location during the battle and gives prestige for being captured (in one case extra prestige if captured by a member of a named kampfgruppe). That works OK with a much smaller map like Kharkov but I'm not sure about a large map - I guess suck it and see is the advice there!

Keep experimenting and let us know how you go.

[Razz1]

Just because you have city hexes, doesn't mean you have to use a flag there.

With that many flags, I think players will ignore allot of them and go for killing units.

That map is very large and will take a very long time to play.

You also have allot of units which becomes very tedious to move.

It really takes allot of testing to find that fine line of tedious movement, too large a map and game balance.

You may be able to succeed but since it is your first map, I suggest making a smaller one. That way you can see how much work it is and what needs to be done to balance a good MP or SP map.

You will save allot of time if you do a smaller map first.

Is this suppose to be MP or SP?

You have way too many secondary objectives as players can not identify which hex is a secondary object. That function needs to be patched.

You can script a city to get less prestige. That's allot of work, 117 hexes times two as you have to script it for each player.

And then you haven't even started to balance the game which is more scripting and modding of map.

I have tried a couple of maps at 80x80 and had to cut the size down to make them playable.

I got lucky with Operation Zitadell. It's a large map 62x41 and everyone who plays it enjoys it.

It also depends upon game flow.. You can go from 100x100 and in 3 turns be at 80x80 for game play and at turn 15 60x60 which is still large.

If the flow goes fast enough players can handle it, but then why not just make it a 40x40?

Allot of players didn't like a few maps in Panzer General because you had to march and march and march to the battlefield.

You don't remember that? 3 to 5 turns for initial combat and 8 turns before it really started.

If this is for Single Player, it is way too large for the AI.

[flakfernrohr]

Thanks to all of you. If the map proves to be too large, I will just cut it down in the Scenario editor. It is a single player map.

Oh yes, I remember PG games where you drove and drove.

In my map's case, the battle starts when you cross the Oka and Tsna rivers and should continue til you reach the Volga, then again when you cross it. I planned on from 40 to 45 turns at 3 days per turn. That would make the scenario about 4 months from May until September the optimum time for tank warfare on the Eastern Front in Russia.

I am aware that it will take a long time to play it, but I wanted continous battle. The real question is how the AI and game will function with this number of units on a map this size.

[flakfernrohr]

Thanks to your advice, I took the three largest maps (of four) and cut them down into four segments each. It worked nicely. They now all tie together and I can make a campaign of them all. So I have a total of 13 maps to string together for a post Kursk victory campaign that goes all the way to the Urals. Tonight I put Joe Stalin's bunker as a bonus in the last scenario map. What a kick!