Air war only campaign creation
Posted: 2009-07-15 17:59:41
Hey all.
I've been toying with this idea for quite a while, and it came up again in the Afghanistan folder (I think). I'm talking about creating campaigns that focus solely on the air war.
There are a few reasons why one could focus on an air war campaign, but the primary reason is that it bypasses the whole "ground movement" issue completely.
What I want to do is exchange ideas of how we could develop a campaign or two that focus on other aspects of "winning" without ground forces driving onto, and capturing, objectives.
I sort of explored this idea with Vietnam, somewhat. I can certainly create a campaign with victory conditions reliant upon ground forces capturing objective cities. But a Vietnam campaign could just as easily focus on the air war, with no real stretch of imagination. For example, in a Linebacker II campaign the ground war would be virutally irrelevant historically. The campaign would focus on taking airstrikes downtown to destroy factories and infrastructure targets. But how could we write a trigger file to decide victory?
I was sort of daydreaming some ideas this afternoon, sort of mulling over that amphibious landings thread a while back. My initial idea was to write a campaign that focused upon an amphibious landing of troops onto a hostile coast, after which the troops fought their way to some ground objective. However, is it really necessary to have the troops actually land and then drive somewhere? What if we did it this way: a carrier striking group escorting an amphibious group is still motoring along to do a landing somewhere. We could place the CSG far enough out that it has to motor for a day or so doing an opposed transit to the area of operations. Then when the CSG arrives onstation (scripted using a junction objective placed in the middle of the ocean as a waypoint?), let another day of steaming occur between two waypoints. On the third day, have the amphib group spawn a couple hundred miles away, with its destination on objective waypoint placed upon the beach somewhere. If the amphib group reaches the beach, it's a bluefor victory. If the amphib group is sunk, it's a redfor victory. Victory conditions could be tied to naval force levels maybe...I know force level triggers work, but I don't know if they work for naval forces- I've only tried with air forces. But you could write the .tri based on some attrition level of naval forces. If Day X passes, say 1 day beyond however longs it takes the amphib group to reach the beach, then it's a bluefor victory, simulating the successful ferry of supplies/troops/whatever. Think Red Storm Rising, and the supplies ferrying to Europe after which the war decisively switches to NATO initiative.
Anyway, let's just exchange some ideas here and see if there is anything we can do along this path.
I've been toying with this idea for quite a while, and it came up again in the Afghanistan folder (I think). I'm talking about creating campaigns that focus solely on the air war.
There are a few reasons why one could focus on an air war campaign, but the primary reason is that it bypasses the whole "ground movement" issue completely.
What I want to do is exchange ideas of how we could develop a campaign or two that focus on other aspects of "winning" without ground forces driving onto, and capturing, objectives.
I sort of explored this idea with Vietnam, somewhat. I can certainly create a campaign with victory conditions reliant upon ground forces capturing objective cities. But a Vietnam campaign could just as easily focus on the air war, with no real stretch of imagination. For example, in a Linebacker II campaign the ground war would be virutally irrelevant historically. The campaign would focus on taking airstrikes downtown to destroy factories and infrastructure targets. But how could we write a trigger file to decide victory?
I was sort of daydreaming some ideas this afternoon, sort of mulling over that amphibious landings thread a while back. My initial idea was to write a campaign that focused upon an amphibious landing of troops onto a hostile coast, after which the troops fought their way to some ground objective. However, is it really necessary to have the troops actually land and then drive somewhere? What if we did it this way: a carrier striking group escorting an amphibious group is still motoring along to do a landing somewhere. We could place the CSG far enough out that it has to motor for a day or so doing an opposed transit to the area of operations. Then when the CSG arrives onstation (scripted using a junction objective placed in the middle of the ocean as a waypoint?), let another day of steaming occur between two waypoints. On the third day, have the amphib group spawn a couple hundred miles away, with its destination on objective waypoint placed upon the beach somewhere. If the amphib group reaches the beach, it's a bluefor victory. If the amphib group is sunk, it's a redfor victory. Victory conditions could be tied to naval force levels maybe...I know force level triggers work, but I don't know if they work for naval forces- I've only tried with air forces. But you could write the .tri based on some attrition level of naval forces. If Day X passes, say 1 day beyond however longs it takes the amphib group to reach the beach, then it's a bluefor victory, simulating the successful ferry of supplies/troops/whatever. Think Red Storm Rising, and the supplies ferrying to Europe after which the war decisively switches to NATO initiative.
Anyway, let's just exchange some ideas here and see if there is anything we can do along this path.