Total Unit Strength and Experience for Each Side in Open Suite

[Llewen]

Something that might be a useful tool in Open Suite for scenario design is a tool which totals up all the experience and all the strength points for each side/player. I don't think it would be too difficult to code, just a matter of iterating through all the units and totalling the numbers, multiplied by strength points. It would be most useful if it totalled all the separate fields in the unit display, so sa, ha, etc. etc.

A running total of all the leaders and attachments for each side would be useful as well, and for the units with an experience range, simply take the average.

I find myself doing that sort of thing myself when I work on scenarios, in an attempt to keep sides somewhat balanced, although I understand that there is a great deal more to balancing a scenario that tallying up the strength points for each side.

[none]

It would only be useful for stand-alone scenarios though: In a campaign, beyond the first scenario you have no way of knowing what the player will have done with his army, what he has bought, lost, upgraded or whatever.
Also pure arithmetic strength doesn't mean much, a huge part of the value of a unit depends on its position on the map: A heavily entrenched unit in a location blocking your progress is worth ten times the value of some unit just protecting some minor victory point.
Not to mention a good scenario has reinforcements, which (normally) should arrive to replace units killed. Obviously there is no way to know how many units will get killed and when, so a hapless player could get overrun because he can't prune the enemy forces fast enough, resulting in the enemy getting stronger and stronger while the player gets weaker and weaker... On the other hand you can also create this unbalanced situation voluntarily, to give the player a good fright (obviously you need to have some way to make sure he only gets a good whopping without getting crushed in the end).

Anyway, I'm not dismissing your idea, while it is IMHO not very useful for scenario balancing, it would still give the author a quick check to know where he is, especially in terms of scenario progression inside a campaign ("2nd scenario was a 5000. 3rd was a 5500, let's make the 4th only 4500 so the player can lick his wounds and replace any lost units, but then the 5th will be a 6000").
(Just my worth)

[Llewen]

No question that it wouldn't be any kind of magic bullet for scenario design, and all of the scenarios in the original SSI Blitz campaign were designed to be both part of the campaign and as standalone scenarios. I think it would be useful for both those contexts.

No question as well that location and many other factors are just as important as the brute unit strengths, if not more important. But I did find myself, often, totalling up strength and experience points and such when I was working on updating the SSI Blitz campaign, to try to get some kind of objective mathematical notion of balance. And those efforts did produce some useful data in that regard.

I think it would be another useful tool in the tool box, one that probably wouldn't be that difficult to code. Toggles for including or excluding reinforcements would also be useful.

[none]

No question that...

Nah, I was just thinking out loud (do that a lot, getting old... ).

As I said, I think it can be useful, if it's not too much work. If it is, there are (IMHO) a couple more important things OpenSuite is still lacking, amazing as it might be.

[LuisGuzman]

Something that might be a useful tool in Open Suite for scenario design is a tool which totals up all the experience and all the strength points for each side/player. I don't think it would be too difficult to code, just a matter of iterating through all the units and totalling the numbers, multiplied by strength points. It would be most useful if it totalled all the separate fields in the unit display, so sa, ha, etc. etc.

A running total of all the leaders and attachments for each side would be useful as well, and for the units with an experience range, simply take the average.

I find myself doing that sort of thing myself when I work on scenarios, in an attempt to keep sides somewhat balanced, although I understand that there is a great deal more to balancing a scenario that tallying up the strength points for each side.

It is probably not too much work if result is output to a .csv file with just 5 rows (one header + 1 row/player) and sums in columns. So you can load in Excel to further process
Then, columns would be totals (per player) for:

• sp
• exp
• bars
• sa
• ha
• aa
• na
• gd
• ad
• cd
• rdm
• attach1 (total units having it)
  ..
• attach12

Q: Any more ?

But I am not sure to understand these:

just a matter of iterating through all the units and totalling the numbers, multiplied by strength

neither:

and for the units with an experience range, simply take the average

How a sum can be a range ?

and

Toggles for including or excluding reinforcements would also be useful.

That would require to set up a dialog to ask, or to add one additional row for reinforces

there are (IMHO) a couple more important things OpenSuite is still lacking, amazing as it might be.

For example ?

[Llewen]

It is probably not too much work if result is output to a .csv file with just 5 rows (one header + 1 row/player) and sums in columns. So you can load in Excel to further process
Then, columns would be totals (per player) for:

• sp
• exp
• bars
• sa
• ha
• aa
• na
• gd
• ad
• cd
• rdm
• attach1 (total units having it)
  ..
• attach12

Q: Any more ?

That looks complete to me, and excellent.

But I am not sure to understand these:

just a matter of iterating through all the units and totalling the numbers, multiplied by strength

Multiply each by the strength of the unit to get a true idea of what the total strength is. So if you have a unit with ha 7, and unit str 6, you would multiply 7*6 to get the actual strength number, then add all those numbers together.

neither:

and for the units with an experience range, simply take the average

How a sum can be a range ?

I use a lot of experience ranges for units, so if you want to total the experience, you would need to take the average of the experience range. So 100 - 200 the experience value for that unit would be 150.

and

Toggles for including or excluding reinforcements would also be useful.

That would require to set up a dialog to ask, or to add one additional row for reinforces

Probably a dumb idea and unnecessary.

[LuisGuzman]

I use a lot of experience ranges for units, so if you want to total the experience, you would need to take the average of the experience range. So 100 - 200 the experience value for that unit would be 150.

Still do not understand this
What do you want to sum if the unit has an experience level of 85, 135, 289 or 311 ?

[Llewen]

I use a lot of experience ranges for units, so if you want to total the experience, you would need to take the average of the experience range. So 100 - 200 the experience value for that unit would be 150.

Still do not understand this
What do you want to sum if the unit has an experience level of 85, 135, 289 or 311 ?

The random option for unit experience provides a range of experience, that's what I'm talking about.