TOD, as a distinct collection of events, (for lack of a better phrase) never made much sense to me. We would quickly grow bored with static events (Oh gawd no, here comes #6 again.)
TOD as a dynamic event maker [functionally dependent on numbers, skill level of participants, map and most importantly, a bit of randomness] sounds like a hoot. It also sounds like a very hard problem to solve.
curly
I grabbed curly's quote since it got me thinking. He's right if TOD is going to be like Medal of Honor - Map loads same old scenario then TOD will be a wash. fun for maybe a few hours.
On the other hand if TOD is going to be a dynamic war that will take place over a long interval a few tours. Then this may have some interest.
As curly states the second option is a difficult problem, so I pose the question to the community what are your ideas for implementing TOD. Maybe HT will even give us a sneak peak at what he expects.
One scenario I thought to get this started:
A computer AI has the overall war plan with objectives defined.
Each objective has its requirements.
An example requirement would be, say bomb a cities resources or capture a field.
Select a Major to Coordinate and Fly a Mission:
If you are of the appropriate rank you can log on and see a list of possible missions for which you can choose.
You choose a mission and get your orders, then you need to select your people to fly the mission. If you don't have enough people you can draw from a pool of certain ranked people (privates/captians) waiting for a mission. You brief your sqd mates and prepare for the mission.
After the mission each person's rank is reflected based on how they personally performed and the overall success of the mission.
The total mission success is also reflected in the mission leaders rank.
War Requirements ( missions) could be to disable certain capacities of the other side, or a fighter cap for a certain area.
The WAR AI would have to coordinate offensive missions with defensive mission from the other side so both sides would run into each other. The AI would time each side to launch based on the mision orders ( ie. flight speed way points etc. ) with the intent of running into the opposition.
Just some thoughts, what are yours?