id: objectives title: What winning means, and what to do when it stops being available status: blocked dependsOn: [tactics] exitCriterion: > A losing force switches to preserving what it has, does so on a stated threshold rather than a guess, and does not oscillate across that threshold. #

objectives #

An objective is what the side is currently trying to do. It is the utility function, not a constraint list: under WinOnBattleValue a withdrawal is terrible, and under PreserveByRouting an advance is. The same tactics are legal either way; what changes is what they are worth.

That distinction is load-bearing. A TaskOverride removes options from a set after they are scored. An objective changes the scoring. Collapsing the two loses the difference between "forbidden" and "bad".

There is a third, and it sits between them. A TacticOverride replaces one unit's weights with a named profile, so it changes the scoring like an objective but for a single machine rather than for the side. The pair is what a spotter needs: the profile sends it somewhere it can see, and the duty stops it shooting once it arrives. A profile a force hands out is normally one no unit could choose for itself - spotting, screening, drawing fire - which is how a force expresses sacrifice, and Status::OverrideEligible is what keeps such a profile out of the set a force may transition into.

Absent objectives, Engage is the whole game and half the tactic vocabulary is unreachable - which is the state today.

Two to start #

• WinOnBattleValue - the current victory rule. Makes Retreat unreachable, Reposition nearly so, and Screen unavailable to a side with only one force.
• PreserveByRouting - reached when the match is lost. Admits Retreat, Reposition, Screen above one force, and Break, which is how a disengagement survives: losing line of sight is what buys the turn in which withdrawing is not fatal.

Break sits in both sets, which is right - breaking contact serves winning and losing equally.

• The transition is a threshold, not a judgement: remaining battle value, or a count of crippled units. A threshold can be stated, tested and shown to a player; a learned judgement cannot yet
• Verify it does not oscillate. Flip at 30% and check the behaviour at 31% is stable. This is the cheapest available test of the hysteresis in plan/tactics.md, and losing is easy to produce on demand
• An objective may also bias rather than only constrain, including by which side of the scenario we are on - an attacker and a defender have different utility, not different legal moves

Scenario-derived objectives, later #

MegaMek already carries this. MMS V2 has per-player victory: conditions and composable triggers, and UnitPositionTrigger is literally an extraction objective. None of our maps declare one yet, so the objective layer cannot be exercised beyond the two above.

• Read objectives from the scenario rather than inventing a vocabulary
• Objectives decompose by assignment - first lance screens while second exits - which is the coordinator's relational assignment, not a blend