Force Organization, Force Points, Wargear and AI selection

[Dizzy_slith]

Figured this needed its own thread as it's in four different ones currently. So, all this happens in the non-campaign Skirmish builder:

Force Organization. Just change the name to Army Builder why don't you? We really don't want your force organization anymore. Get rid of the units randomly spawned in the list that often never have enough of the troops I like and often dont even show some of the more rare troops at all. Random is fine like it is now, but we need an Army Builder option. Also allow a .txt file for Army Lists we can share with one another.

In the Army Builder, list EVERY unit type. Let me click as many times on a unit as I like until I run out of points and cant buy more. Thanks. Happy now.

Force Points. I think your limit is 15,000 cuz I tried 25k and it defaulted to 15k. Ok. I'd like more, but I'll work with ya. If I give the AI 15,000 points the AI needs to use 15k points of troops. Right now it uses less than 5k. Once it was higher. Often it was lower. It really needs to be around 15k or within one unit cost. If I specify 7,500 Force Points for the AI, the AI needs to use that many points not less than one unit's cost from the total. Force Points doesnt currently work correctly. Fix please

Also, you have a txt file in the Core folder called Armylist.txt which lists all the various units available to an army. I dont know how it works, its so esoteric looking, but how about you replace all those strange numbers after the units with a percentage that the AI will pick that particular unit on the basis of total force structure. Use percentages or something so we know how to modify it so the AI will spawn random armies against us using varied unit types with 0 being never or 1 being unique and all other numbers being a percentage of total forces. Yeah. Easy. Happy now.

Wargear. We would like to pick and choose a unit and spend the Wargear points on it. Similarly, the AI should get their own. Below is an idea proposing the changes

AI Selection: Just like we pick out our own troops and wargear, so should we also be able to, with a toggle, choose the AI's stuff. We still want Random enemy armies, but give us a toggle to pick what the AI uses too, if we so choose. Thanks. Happy now.

[Dizzy_slith]

Here's my idea on how to make this work. Players should chime in with their thoughts. Comments welcome

Currently we have a selection window in Force Organization where there's a list of all the available units to click on. You see the mouse icons for left and right click and underneath this is the window with all the units. You click in the black box to select a unit you want and it turns red and deducts the price of the unit from your Force Points.

Changes to the Force Organization window

Instead of this, list a single entry for each different unit type for that army. The Space Wolves have at most 28 and the Orks at most 27. Right clicking adds units and left clicking a unit type removes them. Where there use to be the black box that would turn red when selecting a unit, is now a box that shows you how many of that particular type of unit you have. So If I right click on let's say a Land Speeder three times, the box to the left of the land speed will show the number 3 letting me know I have chosen three of those unit types to field. Simple.

Having an Order of Battle

Devs, I understand it's not a good idea to allow someone to buy all Titans. Or all Land Raiders. So if that concerns you lets have an order of battle in addition to an unrestricted Army Builder. Lets base it off of 5000 points per army with up to three armies since I think 15k is the max game engine limit for points. Up to 5k Force Points you get one army, between 5k and up to 10k points you get two armies and over 10k you'll have three.

Each army's order of battle is this which is a bit different than TT because Sanctus Reach uses smaller units:
1-3x HQ, 0-5x Elites, 2x to any number of troops, 0-5x Heavy Support, 0-5x Fast Attack, 0-5x Dedicated Transports, 0-1 Auxiliary Unit (Titan or special)

And this doesnt mean you get three armies, instead it just multiplies the number of your Order of Battle entries you can get of any one unit category. For example, three armies let's you buy up to 15 Heavy Support and up to 3 Auxiliary units.

Doing Wargear the Right Way

To the right of the Force Selection, you'll see the map and the units you have selected. Underneath the map, we see the unit type and it's description and the weapon box to the right of that. In the unit type's description there are six boxes where you'll see any wargear that unit may have. I propose having an arrow key added there to the left and right of those six boxes and have in each of those boxes a wargear item that you can highlight and get a tool tip on what it is, and click on it to select it for that troop and have the points deducted from your Force Points.

Hard Choices, how much in Force Points does Wargear cost?

This will simplify Force points and wont necessitate the need to have a separate toggle for Wargear Points if wargear costs Force Points instead, whihc is a simpler better idea. For example, do you buy Adamantine Mantle for a unit for 50 Force Points... or spend 100 Force Points on Geneseed Mutation that gives you HP regen, for example. You could instead probably get another unit. Hard choices... hrrmmmm. Well thats it. Thanks for reading.

[Dizzy_slith]

Ahhh forgot a detail. In the window of Force Organization, there would need to be a left and right arrow key added to each unit listed. For example, if I selected 5 troops, I'd see a 5 to the left of that unit type and to the right a left and right arrow key. Clicking on that arrow key will cycle through each of the 5 units and show any unit that has a different wargear option.

[Dizzy_slith]

Doing wargear like this and tying it into Force points is a simpler method and I like it better than having separate Wargear Points. Makes you make hard choices. But an advantage to this system is we could have generic commanders for less Force Points and assign them wargear now to have custom HQ units. Just another idea.

[ImperialGrunt]

All of this would be great. Make it as close to the TT as possible. Let the player spend the points as he/she sees fit for skirmishes.

An updates force point system could also be added to the campaign system in a manner in which the player has to make some strategic decisions before the tactical battles are fought. Each phase of the campaign could include a campaign brief that provides specific scenario information for each phase that included map terrain and mission types, expected enemy forces, number and types of objectives, etc.. Then the player would allocate force points to spend on the army list to deploy to each particular sector. This would add a 'higher' level to the game and force the player to spend points wisely and choose where to focus and where to go thin as an economy of force measure.

After achieving that campaign phase of battles, then the player would receive more force points to allocate and surviving forces would carry over. The dead.. well, the player would have to purchase new replacements. This would reward success and make the player feel the pain of losses, especially leaders and veteran units.

For example, for each "turn" of a campaign, the player gets 4000 points. And he then has to allocate those points for the two or three sectors in which he has to fight in.

Also a "rarity" factor could apply to campaigns, limiting how many of a particular type of unit could ever be purchased during the entire campaign, such as Land Raiders and Imperial Knights.

[Rosseau]

As far as maximizing Force Points in skirmish, you can use cheat engine to keep replenishing points, although I have not gone crazy with that yet.

[Dizzy_slith]

As far as maximizing Force Points in skirmish, you can use cheat engine to keep replenishing points, although I have not gone crazy with that yet.

Huh?

[PileOGunz]

Im against having the whole unit pool available within your "Army builder". Its more interesting strategically to have to work with sub-optimal unit compositions. Keep it as it is.

[Dizzy_slith]

Im against having the whole unit pool available within your "Army builder". Its more interesting strategically to have to work with sub-optimal unit compositions. Keep it as it is.

Good feedback!

In the first post I said Random is fine like it is now and that my Army Builder idea is an option. Nothing would change for you, PileOgunz. So yeah, there would be both, the Army Builder and Random. I'm with you as well. I love Random battles. But from a replay persepective, dont you get tired of seeing footslogger everytime? What if Random was weighted in three choices? What if the random list it spawned represented three distinct approaches to unit selection similar to the Army List choice already in the game? So you'd get to select totally random, fast attack random, foot slogger random, mechanized random, etc...

[ImperialGrunt]

A choice between random (with some guidance available ) and the choice to purchase your force just like in the TT would be ideal.