Falcon BMS uses initiative to model the posture of a given team during a campaign.
There are 4 possible strategic postures: Offensive, Minor-Offensive, Defensive and Consolidate. The maximum number of initiative points in a campaign is 100 points. That means if one team has 100 points, the other team will automatically have 0 points.
Higher initiative points will allow a team to go into offensive, while the other team goes into defensive. If the initiative points difference is not large enough, then a team may simply go into a minor-offensive. And if the initiative points for both sides are similar, then is very likely that both sides stay in consolidate.
¶ Winning and losing Initiative points
There are many ways to win or lose initiative points in campaign in Falcon 4 BMS. Among the main ones:
- Player bonus: Every time a player finishes a mission successfully, initiative points shift from the enemy to his/her team.
- Destruction of a battalion: Every time a battalion is destroyed, initiative points shift from the owner of the unit to enemy.
- Strongly damaging a battalion: Every time a battalion is strongly damaged, initiative points shift from the owner of the unit to enemy.
- Capturing a City or Town: Every time a city or town (not villages) is captured, initiative points shift from the original owner to team that captured it. Cities are worth 5 points, while towns are only 1 initiative point.
- Forcing via Trigger file (#SHIFT_INITIATIVE): Initiative points can be finally shifted between teams via this command. The shift of initiative points affects the strategic posture completely independent of the strategic situation and, therefore, shall only be used in specific situations (see below).
The #SHIFT_INITIATIVE command offers the campaign developer to guide the flow of the war according to factors beyond the battlefield.
The BMS Dev team suggests the following application:
- When an ally enters the war, initiative points can be shifted to team getting new ally to trigger an offensive posture. Recommended maximum value is 50 initiative points. Campaign developer should test how many points are required to trigger a different posture and avoid shifting too many points.
- When a capital falls into enemy hands, initiative points can be shifted to the team loosing it to trigger an (minor)-offensive to reconquer it back. Recommended maximum value is 50 initiative points (only one time). Campaign developer should test how many points are required to trigger a different posture and avoid shifting too many points.
- Never use this command to shift additional points when cities and towns are captured. This is already covered in the code.
- Wrong use of the #SHIFT_INITIATIVE command may lead to a complete stagnation of the war. It is strongly recommended to avoid using this command in any repetitive way for both sides.
Note:
The correct syntax is #SHIFT_INITIATIVE from_team_num to_team_num points
(eg. #SHIFT_INITIATIVE 6 2 30
)