Tag Archives: Armies

AI Routines Added But We Need More Testing Data (Maps & Armies)

The AI routines for calculating battle lines and range of influence have been ported over from the original C++ code to C#:

Antietam displaying Range of Influence and Battle Lines. Click to enlarge.

I’ve written a number of blog posts about these AI routines which you may find interesting:

Battle Lines, Commanders & Computers

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Wargame AI Continued: Range of Influence

That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m also installing the Machine Learning AI that was the basis of my doctoral research and it needs more battles to learn from. A lot more. Currently there are 15 armies (click here) and 5 maps (click here). Ideally I would like about 50 armies and 30 maps used to create 30+ battle scenarios.

Are you a cartographer or a researcher? If you are, and you’re interested, I could use your help if you would like to volunteer. All the maps and armies were created using the tools that you, as a backer, have already been provided: The General Staff Army Editor and The General Staff Map Editor. A little bit of PhotoShop or another paint program was used to clean up the old maps and a free program, Inkscape, was used to create the paths for roads and rivers. The most difficult task is the research. Finding Order of Battle Tables (OOBs) are pretty easy but General Staff requires knowing the actual troop strength of every unit. Sometimes, that is very hard to find. For the maps, adding elevation is usually the most difficult bit, but there are a number of built-in tools to make this easier.

If you’re interested in helping add to the data files please contact me directly: [email protected].

Gameplay Survey 2: Army Structure.

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This week’s survey will wrap up our questions about units and armies and after tabulation work can begin on the Create Army Module. General Staff is a simulation of 18th and 19th century warfare. We hope to use the same engine for an Ancient and Modern wargames as well.

We have just three survey questions:

What unit types should we include in the Create Army Module? Armies will be created by clicking and dragging unit icons from a pallet; consequently we need to know in advance what the ‘pre-designed’ unit types will be.

Will the armies have a hierarchical structure (e.g. Division → Brigade → Regiment) or a ‘flat’ structure (i.e. units do not belong to a superior command structure but, rather, can be given orders without consideration to other units).

What is your preferred screen resolution? We’re thinking of writing for 1440 x 900 resolution. Does anybody have a problem with this?

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General Staff Features

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General Staff is a direct descendant of the UMS seies which featured a suite of tools that allowed the user to create new maps, armies and scenarios. Our recent survey indicated that 73% of respondents felt that it was either ‘very important’ or ‘somewhat important’ for General Staff to have these abilities, too. Below is a flow chart of the five modules that make up General Staff:

Flow chart of General Staff. From the main screen the user can either create a new map, create a new army, combine a map and two armies into a new scenario or play a previously created scenario. Click to enlarge.

From the Main Menu the user can select:

The Create Map Module

This module provides all the tools that a user needs to create detailed, authentic-looking maps. The are numerous tiles that represent the eight different terrains (field, water, swamp, city, woods, bridge, road, fort). Additionally, the user can sculpt hills and ridges with the AI automatically adding ‘splash contours’. Rivers and roads are added using a Bézier curve tool.

After the map is completed the user can select the amount of ‘dirtying’ (map folds, coffee stains, age stains, etc.) to be added to the map.

The Create Army Module

Armies can be in either an hierarchical format (see below) or a flat format. A flat format is a data structure without layers of commanders. Next week we will be running a user survey to find if you have a preference for hierarchical or flat army unit structures.

Screen shot from UMS II: Nations at War showing a hierarchical army structure. There are four levels of command in this army structure: Army Group, Army, Corps and Division. Click to enlarge.

The original UMS had a flat army structure while UMS II had a hierarchical unit structure. For both systems an intuitive click and drag interface is provided for quickly creating, editing and saving armies.

Available unit types include: heavy and light infantry, heavy and light cavalry and heavy and light (horse) artillery. Headquarters and courier units are provided for hierarchical army structures.

Create Scenario Module

In the Create Scenario Module a user can combine any two previously created armies with a previously created map to create a new scenario. Mix and match to your heart’s content! The Napoleonic Imperial Guard against the Army of the Potomac’s First Army Corps on the Gettysburg battlefield! The battle of Marengo re-fought with Russian and Austrian troops! Obviously, you can also create historically accurate scenarios, too.