Are you playing as the Takistan Militia?

Some things to consider is, Assymetric will spawn fewer units by default than an Invasion/Occupation Commander, and if your southern TAOR has less objects/objectives than the north one, that will also cause less units to spawn.

I like to use a profile counter when balancing, which you put in the debug window (then click local exec). The snippet is found here:

http://alivemod.com/wiki/index.php?title=Script_Snippets

Run this periodically after mission start, and fast forward for a couple hours and see how things are going. If Assymetric is constantly getting dominated by the Militia, you may need to lower the amount of initial Militia units (by either filtering objectives to a high number, or making their TAOR smaller, etc), or increase the likelihood Assymetric can recruit new troops (increasing civ density, or increasing pre-placed installation in their Commander module, etc).

Balancing takes a lot of trial and error, but that profile counter should give you some indication what is going wrong.

Debug in general is very helpful too, especially for Virtual AI so turn that on when balancing.

I wish it were that easy to recommend that. It really just depends.

Not that it really matters, but why is the Militia playing as insurgents?

Mission balancing is tough. What I like to do is, I slow the game down. I use 25-50% for virtual AI speed. I also like to limit the friendly objectives a step or so higher in filtering than the enemy side, so players won't get interfered with too too often when patrolling.

The way insurgencies work is, depending on your starting settings, it can take awhile for the insurgents to establish themselves and build their HQ's. Upwards of 2+ hours if you've set everything conservatively and to the slowest settings.

Remember, Insurgents can only replenish their forces from the civilian population. So they NEED these civ recruitment HQ's to maintain and grow their strength.

What I like to do is setup a mission the way it seems ok, then use the profile counter and fast-forward and I watch for 2-3 in-game hours to make sure the insurgents aren't getting wiped down to nothing.

Then, as they finally establish their recruitment HQ's, I watch again to make sure they don't then grow too fast (remember, for all intents and purposes, there is no "cap" on how many soldiers the insurgents can recruit).

Meaning even if they seem like they are getting beaten pretty badly, they CAN (not always) grow so big you'd never be able to defeat them.

Generally what I like to do is have the starting forces be at least equal, or generally, have my side out number the insurgents by a little bit. And I have my side filtered just a bit higher than the insurgents in the objective modules.

At first the insurgents will take losses, but eventually, they'll catch back up. If after 3-4 hours, the numbers seem ok on both sides, I figure that's a good enough place to start.

There are lots of ways to balance missions to get the results you want. These suggestions are just one way of lots and lots. One popular method amongst the community is to only give insurgents civ obj's and only give friendlies mil obj's. That way the player can do most of the fighting but still have enough troops to call in for help. I don't do this all the time, but it's a neat method.

Long story short, you just need to play around. Go in the SP editor and use the snippet I linked and then in game run it and fast forward x4 (+ button) and watch for a few hours. After about 1 hour (game time) you'll have a decent snapshot of the landscape. I like to go 2 hours minimum before actually playing, but the more the better IMO.

The reason I ask about the Militia being insurgents is...

I don't think virtual profiles can actually "destroy" insurgent HQ's. Meaning, let's say the Militia makes a civ recruitment center. The Locals could never destroy it on their own and civs would just keep being recruited and recruited and recruited.

Unless the Locals have humans playing as a part of their squad, I'd personally:

1. Either make the Militia Invasion/Occupation

or

2. Keep them as Assymetric and put the minimum civ recruitment number in their Commander module to a pretty high number so civ recruitment HQ's either pop up rarely or not at all

That's my personal opinion though.

What mod are you using? Project OPFOR? LOP_AA is working and its Afghan National Army and Police.

What you could do with the Occupation side is...

Create a TAOR marker. Put that in their mil/civ Obj module under TAOR.

Then add new marker(s) for the AO, then place more Obj modules (civ/mil) for the same Commander, and make the obj modules "objectives only" rather than "place units."

This will make sure units only spawn in the TAOR, but will move to objectives in the AO.

It may take a bit of tinkering with Obj filtering, but this could help them put higher priority staying in the TAOR but moving into the AO. And you can always manually move them in the Commander tablet or call in Forces to hold areas in the AO under logistics.

Am I making sense?

^^^ Not saying this is the "best" way to do it. Just saying it is a way and a way I've used when one side pushes too hard.

You could consider just giving them mil Obj only. Or mil and civ but limiting the objective sizes.

Or lowering the total spawns and keeping the way you have it.

Lots of ways to get what you're looking for...

Agreed. Kinda.

Insurgencies are a bit different due to the way insurgents recruit additional fighters (from civ pop). I do think if someone cares about balance, for long term persistence, they'd be happier in the long run should spending a bit of time in the editor watching how things play out.

All in all I understand your point (just having fun), and know that's ultimately all that matters though. :)

Regarding IED's, if synced to the Assymetric Commander, the insurgents will only place them in areas they have established themselves in. Perhaps the correct term is areas they occupied.

Doing this makes the IED's go hand in hand with the Insurgency itself, but is much slower going than leaving the module unsynced.

Try it out. Place IED module not synced and watch how many and how fast they populate the map. I prefer the slower syncing method, but I've used both methods before (note: IED module can only sync to Assymetric commanders. For all other Commander types, leave unsynced).

Regarding reinforcements through logistics, yes I had that happen to me too on Takistan. Not sure why.

What I did on my Takistan mission was to place a custom obj on one of the airfields (in my case the northern one), and set that module to spawn I think 3 infantry groups.

This way, the objective is always considered occupied by my side and they can replenish their troops anytime.

For groups to come through logistics, you need a military objective to be held by your side. Otherwise they won't come. My best guess is Takistan has so little military objectives on the map which makes that airfield so important.

You could also try placing the mil Obj module close to any airfield you want to have your base on, and use the "HQ" option in the mil obj module. This should force the logistics Commander to make a mil objective close to where you actually physically place the module. Should work but I don't think I did that on Takistan.

If you want to see the mission I'm talking about, it's called Inshallah on BI forums mission area. Takistan is a unique map so it could help you with a few things if you get hung up. Though it would probably be more fun to make you own and see how it goes because mission making is fun! :) But yeah if you get stuck, looking at other people's missions is a great, probably the best way to learn for sure.

Just a heads up to anyone that hasn't tried the test pre-release RC version of ALiVE yet. Insurgency has been slowed way WAY down. If you have any missions in your rotation that you haven't touched in a bit, the balancing will likely need to be redone.

@highhead probably because the mode is pretty much his baby! Maybe through public pressure he'll release some. :)

One of my favorite A2 memories is ACE Insurgency on Lingor - Cops vs Drug Dealers