Artillery rethink and some other thoughts.

[Dangus]

Hi everyone. I am new to this forum, but I began playing WZ2100 when I started learning Linux years ago. This is an awesome game, with customization unlike any other RTS. I really enjoyed playing the single player campaign but found several things very disappointing. I know the AI doesn't really compare to humans, but I do animal rescue and really don't have time to commit to multiplayer games, especially not long ones like WZ2100. Obviously though, the single player gameplay degrades over time into massive artillery batteries used to wipe out everything in sight. This "Expand your base toward the enemy" type gameplay is not that great, and artillery in general really ruins the unit-on-unit combat. Sure you can VTOL the batteries and AI tends to not rebuild them, but that also just doesn't seem right.

So what I think would really help would be to reduce the range and accuracy of major artillery pieces, as well as increasing how expensive they are. In addition though, introduce targeting lasers. Some units like sensors and commanders already sort of do this, but I think it should be handled differently. Artillery should be allowed to blind fire, and it's damage should be extreme, but without a targeting laser it should be incredibly inaccurate. The targeting laser should also require some time to lock. I find it both irritating to have my huge force blown to bits in narrow cannons by super-accurate artillery, and also that as soon as one sensor turret wanders near enemy defenses, dozens of artillery pieces precisely bombard it with no delay. Real artillery is typically inaccurate when not guided, and even modern rocket batteries can't cover a whole battlefield all day long every day. In real life if one tank in the field spots a target, artillery doesn't automatically know it's location without being contacted first somehow.

I don't know the limitations of the engine, but reducing the accuracy the further away the target is would probably make for the best gameplay dynamic. It would make base vs. base gameplay more challenging the harder you push the enemy because getting closer to the base would have more of an incremental challenge. It might even work better in multiplayer, because only players able to protect their targeting lasers could effectively use artillery to push forward.

Reducing the distance at which arty can effectively control the battlefield could place more emphasis on targeted mass weapons like the laser satellite. These should also require some sort of laser targeting or some other sort of marker. A cruise missile could be introduced for another really long-range option, but an expensive one. It would have a long target lock time, but would do massive damage. Counter measures could include reflective roof panels, and anti-missile batteries(like the real-life phalanx anti-missile gun).

Another fun idea would be to add counter-measures to vehicles and defenses. The upside would be that AA missiles and ground fire weapons would have trouble getting easy kills(possibly even including an artillery laser jammer that reduces accuracy of enemy arty.) The downside would be that while engaged in using counter-measures the vehicle can't engage in other combat actions. Don't you just hate when you "find" the other player's defense line by getting blasted by missile turrets, often resulting in the loss of your scout? For fast units like hover tanks, a simple lancer tower is deadly even at extreme range. Scouting with VTOL is similarly frustrating. If I am going out of my way to avoid contact with the enemy, it should be a bit easier to do so without constant losses. Counter-measures obviously would either not impact, or be less effective against direct-fire weapons like machineguns and AA gun batteries. In big fights they could potentially tie up units trying to avoid missile fire, making the combat a bit more dynamic. Perhaps if the counter-measures have to recharge, the way weapons do, they would automatically be more effective against long-range shots, but way less useful in fast-paced close fighting. If shields are implemented at any point, they'd add an even greater degree of protection against cheap surprise kills. This would also ensure the toughest fights are always going to be that final assault. Defensive lines with counter-measures, targeting lasers, and anti-missile batteries could be a tough nut to crack.

Anyway that's all for the moment. Great project though. Thanks for all the work you guys have put into this.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Artillery counter short-range tanks and structures, tanks counter AA, AA counter VTOLs, VTOLs counter artillery. That's a simple rock-paper-scissors mechanic for newbies to learn as they start to go into depth about Warzone 2100's game mechanics.

Also, learn to use counter-battery (or CB) sensors/towers. Any enemy artillery that shoots into the vicinity of those CB sensors/towers can be targeted by your own artillery.

By the way, if you'd like to see an AI that uses artillery effectively, try NullBotSW. It'll attempt to research rush for long-range artillery, maintain around 20 long-range artillery structures (although it may build more), and will even use CB radar in an attempt to counter enemy artillery. Sadly, the AI will only work for the Contingency mod (which adds many new long-range artillery weapons, including fortress-sized artillery firebases, and cruise missiles that can one-shot many artillery structures), since NullBotSW was originally developed for that mod alone (though others are free to modify it for vanilla Warzone 2100).

[Jorzi]

Using artillery can be a common tactic against the default AI since it cannot defend itself properly against that. Not sure, however, that you could get as good results against a nullbot on hard, not to speak of multipayer where you would get steamrolled by mg tanks quite fast, since artillery doesn't do much damage on tracked vehicles, and mg's are fast and durable.

[Iluvalar]

The AI play badly against artillery. That's true. This mean that it might easily lead to situations where, as a noob, you manage to defend yourself correctly with artillery while being too late in other domain to be able to advance and win the game properly.

I suggest you try to play some games without artillery at all. It's not mandatory and you will learn the sequence better for other researches.

Like Jorzi said, in mp peoples know that a large line of artillery can be painful to attack afterward. When they starting receiving some mortars, they know exaclty where you spent your research in the last 5 minutes. And therefore, they know that you have a smaller, less researched direct weapon army. they use that knowledge to quickly launch a rush attack, take down your army, your first few mortar and the oil around and they leave you in a very bad position.