Scourge of War Boards

That should not be the case, depending on the number of units that you have. I'm sure we can do more research in this area, but I coded it to be able to split it's forces. I thought it was by division, but I'm not exactly positive on this.

That should not be the case, depending on the number of units that you have. I'm sure we can do more research in this area, but I coded it to be able to split it's forces. I thought it was by division, but I'm not exactly positive on this.

I'll start off by saying that due to my modding that I may be causing some of this, I do mod things and then forget about it months or years down the road.

But, my opinion is that in the picture below, I move one extremely large division in search of the enemy forces. Once contact is made I will call this location A, and the try to pinpoint where the other enemy unit is located.

The blue circles is where I think the other enemy division is located, so three brigades is acting as a sort of scouting force to locate them.

Once contact is made that will be location B. Now I have the option of moving brigades that are still camped at their start-up position to their assistance, or shifting several brigades from the south to extend their line.

This is due to the fact that I know that the enemy units will not do anything other than stay at the locations of A and B, and I really shouldn't have that knowledge of their tactics.

I have never seen any other type of actions on the part of the AI, so if they are splitting their forces, I would guess that it is sending their divisions down different roads.

But, what is needed is something else that sort of confuses the human player into thinking that maybe this is only a part of their division, and the other part is moving somewhere behind those trees, or ridges.
davinci

I'm delighted that my initial query has raised a good bit of useful discussion.

Sandbox (I still try to call it Open Play !) of course is now a completely different animal given the larger and larger maps with their complex road systems.

I was very disillusioned with SOWGB as it first came out. For example, if I played on the Pickett's Map, the battle seemed invariably to happen at Peach Orchard, no matter where I or the enemy started. The small map and the radial roads, of course. The latest maps have enriched sandbox enormously bringing back the unpredictability and, for instance, diminishing greatly the value of an OOB without cavalry for scouting. This is why a lazy fellow like myself prefers 'defend mode' to bring the enemy to him.

I would like to see though three eventual amendments to enhance variety.

(1) The reincarnation of the TC2M-style completely "random battle option". The Battlefield, your OOB and enemy OOB and the battle-mode all generated randomly by SOWGB when assembling the Sandbox Scenario file. With no balancing of forces. Generates situations like Heth versus Buford. Or Evans versus a whole chunk of the Union Army on Buck Hill. Both of which happened in real life. And of such are legends made.

(2) A player option, at Army, Corps or Divisional level for sub-units to be generated in a tidy but rather sterile consolidated formation or to start more spread on the map. This was the usual situation after a night's bivouacing with the need for an area to forage over. It would also be an interesting added feature if some units could perhaps appear and become available at random times into the game and in sensible map edge positions. Rather like in the Gettysburg Jackson Scenario.

(3) A little more thought and re-thought during initialisation to prevent friendly and enemy units implausibly overlapping within rifle-firing or melee range at start up. Of course, if a less-than-realistic player opts to play Army v Army on a postage stamp map whilst wanting his forces spread out then perhaps that would be his look-out. The AI cannot be God ...... having a try at being Holy Ghost would be quite sufficient.

Sandbox is currently excellent ...... wouldn't need much though to make it awesomely, hair-tearingly and ulcer-generatingly true to life

Geoff Laver Late of Her Britannic Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot..

@Ingles

All three of your points are handled by my singleplayer campaign:

http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/modifi ... r-campaign


It will give you a very random sequence of battles. Anywhere from two to sixteen divisions, usually not balanced (but you don't know who has more at the start), potentially scattered across a 5-mile random map. Often one or two divisions will start far from the rest and have to march there -- sometimes it is your division that starts far away. Sometimes you'll start near the enemy and not know where the rest of the army is or when they will get to you.

It's pretty fun if you like things to be unpredictable.

It also has full carryover of casualties and experience gain and such with detailed battle reports.

Thanks Garnier.

I hadn't realised the potential of this. A blind spot I guess.

I will give it a try.

Geoff Laver Late of Her Britannic Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot.

Hi Garnier.

I have just spent a frustrating two hours restoring my entire system after a monumental crash trying to download and install Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0 which installation of your Campaign mod demands.

Sorry, but I think I will give it a miss and continue to campaign for direct improvements in SOWGB Sandbox

Geoff Laver Late of Her Britannic Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot