Campaign Bot nearly finished...A Campaign Design Process update

 

I've made this as large as I can, so people can better read it.

One of my goals was to create this bot so as to fit on a single piece of paper, including all rules and explanations. I think I've gotten the table portion down, with just a little bit more to go as far as the evading and combat options that the player chooses and how the bot deals with both. I also need to place the table for changing depot locations, but that may need to go on the same side as the actual written rules.

Printed out, this needs to be landscape in orientation, but also fit to page, else it does come in a bit larger than desired.

I still have some cleaning up to do on it, as I just noticed that I did not change or did not use the correct version of the table on the far left. The possible enemy markers are now "sightings" and the enemy main body is now "enemy concentration." Player-side markers are now "scouts" and "field force." All of these changes are intended to help reduce the chance of confusing someone, especially myself, and also to more accurately reflect the function of each marker.

The tables only come into play once scouts or a field force moves to a location adjacent to one or more sightings markers. From that point, the player is either active or inactive, in that the player is attempting to clear the markers from the map locations or is waiting for the bot to concentrate forces on the map. The latter result may be less than ideal for the player. 

If scouts fail to clear the sightings, then there is a good chance the enemy has troops in that location. A skirmish fight will then need to take place, if the player again wants to actively deal with the enemy. If successful, the enemy is revealed and its strength determined; the proper marker is placed on the map.

If a field force is clearing the sightings, then it is either successful in doing so or finds that it has run into enemy units. Again, the strength of the enemy concentration needs to be determined.

The base strength of any enemy concentration comes from its national military strength, something determined via the economic layer. This number is then modified, by enemy proximity to depots, the number of adjacent sightings (which may indicate enemy troop presence) and if the resolution was forced at less than six sightings in the location (meaning less than the number of troops the enemy attempted to concentrate prior to contacting the player).

Once the strength is known, the player dices for the type and number of enemy units, including qualities. These are all "good guess" rolls as there may be more or less troops when actual battle is joined. The player elects whether to attempt to evade the enemy concentration, should it be much larger than his own field force, or to go ahead and accept or force a battle.

I do need to write up what happens should the two sides become separated again by one or more locations, which is more explication than tables. I also need to finalize what happens to a player's population centers when enemy sightings are at those locations, likely outcomes are contact is lost to the enemy is besieging a walled city or fortress.

Overall, I'd say about 80% or more of the work is done. I do need to run a series of tests for the numbers, to see if I am still happy with them. At that point, I will be turning this over to several friends to break and help me fix.