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Quick Battle Maps in Combat Mission Fortress Italy


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Ah yes, there's a new terrain element called 'heavy rocks', or a name to that effect. Vehicles are stopped and infantry is slowed down. The mental image should be of trash can-sized boulders, I guess. Between that and abrupt changes in elevation (no-go cliff areas), and vineyards that can mess up your tracks if you drive through too much of it, plus those ubiquitous rural stone walls everywhere, armor does not often have an easy time of it.

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As Normal Dude said, those are all stock graphics. CMFI is as easy to mod as CMBN, so there will be no problem to add your own favorites - however, as you can see, the stock graphics have a very high quality.

Tactically, I'd guess the Sicilian setting will force players to take much more attention to the topography.

And it's not just the new impassable terraintype, there's also an abundance of rural stonewalls that stop the lighter vehicles and has to be taken into account, when planning your movement and tactics.

Here are a few more screens from the QB maps;

preview_038_165_166.jpg

preview_screen002.jpg

preview_screen001.jpg

preview_119_141_142.jpg

preview_152_153_154.jpg

cheers/

sdp

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That horizon seam thing has been in there forever and its a vexing problem. It wasn't very apparent in CMSF but was more-so in the mountainous CM:Afghanistan horizon. If it was an easy fix it would've been done two titles ago.

About the QB maps, pure artistry! Really, people should visit Google Earth and do a 'Street View' wander areound the greater Gela area to get into a Sicily frame of mind. :)

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Ah yes, there's a new terrain element called 'heavy rocks', or a name to that effect. Vehicles are stopped and infantry is slowed down. The mental image should be of trash can-sized boulders, I guess. Between that and abrupt changes in elevation (no-go cliff areas), and vineyards that can mess up your tracks if you drive through too much of it, plus those ubiquitous rural stone walls everywhere, armor does not often have an easy time of it.

Music to my ears. Seeing gullies in the screenies too -- good work! Alas, no "high brush" or thicket/stand of small trees though. That remains a major -- and tactically decisive due to its LOS blocking characteristics -- missing terrain item, with only "gapped" High Bocage segments able to fill the role.

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No bocage in CMFI - but a there's new feature; foliage now align with the "hedge" element just as it did in CMBN with the "bocage" element (but not hedge).

This lets the map designer create the kind of "higher/thicker hedges" as seen in the screenshots from a QB map below. Combine this with the heavy forest tile and you got an impassable stand of bushes.

A few examples;

CM-Fortress-Italy-2012-07-09-22-47-39-02.jpg

CM-Fortress-Italy-2012-07-10-00-10-48-58.jpg

CM-Fortress-Italy-2012-07-10-00-12-38-94.jpg

- and finally, an example of how the brushy rough terrain may look, combined with the heavy rock tile which restricts the movement of vehicles severely;

CM-Fortress-Italy-2012-07-10-00-14-18-39.jpg

cheers/

sdp

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Very nice, great stuff, but can vehicles or infantry with a few metres of elevation advantage still largely see through and well beyond it? That's the terrain element that still seems to be missing -- the dense stands of bushes and young trees that grow above waist height up to about, say, 12 feet. And many larger trees have leaves that spread nearly to the ground, instead of leaving a nice open shady space beneath them.

It's high summer right now; go to the edge of your city/town and take a look at the foliage around you. How much of it is too dense to see through and beyond? A good proportion, I'll warrant.

I know I sound like a broken record on this, but relative absence of ground level LOS obstructions very much skews the overall game dynamics in favour of (German) ranged weapons, as well as artillery FOs. These units can take advantage of an unrealistically "open" and visible battlefield to deliver accurate sustained fires at standoff ranges instead of the sporadic keyhole shots or area stonks that would be far more likely until the enemy had closed to within about 200 (?) metres and started becoming subject to crossfires.

And yes, I do get that this is Sicily, not Normandy; there's piles of dense brush and stands of small trees there as well.

Pity the poor Italians trying to advance across this open environment with huge unsplittable squads. It's amazing there was anyone left to breed after the war.

Rant complete.

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I know I sound like a broken record on this, but relative absence of ground level LOS obstructions very much skews the overall game dynamics in favour of (German) ranged weapons, as well as artillery FOs. These units can take advantage of an unrealistically "open" and visible battlefield to deliver accurate sustained fires at standoff ranges instead of the sporadic keyhole shots or area stonks that would be far more likely until the enemy had closed to within about 200 (?) metres and started becoming subject to crossfires.

Yeah well, that's how it was a lot of the time for much of the ground that got fought over, and that's why casualties were sometimes prohibitive, requiring a rethink of strategy. CM, not being an operational game, the player had better hope that the scenario designer has done the strategic rethink for him and provided enough artillery and/or air support to suppress the enemy well enough so that the good guys can make it across those open zones. It's all about achieving fire superiority, brothers.

One of the things that always griped my ass about the SL series of games was the map boards, which ended up looking like a miniature golf course. There always seemed to be some kind of convenient blocking terrain that did not permit fire beyond the range of infantry weapons, except in well-known exceptional locations. In the real world, terrain tends to come in much larger chunks than we find in the bocage country of Normandy.

Michael

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Which is why prepared defensive "belts", which the Germans had become masters at setting up very quickly during 3 years in Russia, were vastly more formidable for the Allies to assault even when the defenders were severely undermanned. As you know, this is far more than digging deep holes and roofing them over; it's identifying good sites for OPs and MG nests, and clearing obstructions (i.e. Brush) to open fire/sight lanes and "death strips", and mining/mortar registering any blind zones.

All this is largely missing from the CMBN experience to date; I know, because I've been struggling (sporadically) to recreate just such a "textbook" German battalion defensive position (La Meauffe-le Carillon, where documentation is ample).

What happens instead -- just look at those super video AARs on YouTube -- is a greatly simplified "fire superiority" strategy that is decisively resolved at vastly longer ranges than would historically have been the case. Which favours ranged weapons (or rather, compounds their existing advantage). And the reason is simple: absence of ground level LOS blocking terrain above waist height, except in bocage country. Result: LOS is too easy, particularly for vehicles and it's too easy to mass accurate fire on distant targets. This also contributes to much of the extreme "uberness" of artillery we've all observed.

Look, I'm not calling the baby ugly, nor am I saying the existing maps all suck, or denigrating the right of players to get in touch with their inner Wittman without having stupid thickets interfering with their set-piece massacre of 30 Shermans. I'm just saying a key, ubiquitous piece of real world terrain -- clumps of bushes/small trees between 4 and 12 feet tall is.... simply missing. For no good game engine-related reason I can discern. And that matters for those of us who are striving to "get in the boots" of the tactical leaders.

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Which is why prepared defensive "belts", which the Germans had become masters at setting up very quickly during 3 years in Russia, were vastly more formidable for the Allies to assault even when the defenders were severely undermanned. As you know, this is far more than digging deep holes and roofing them over; it's identifying good sites for OPs and MG nests, and clearing obstructions (i.e. Brush) to open fire/sight lanes and "death strips", and mining/mortar registering any blind zones.

All this is largely missing from the CMBN experience to date; I know, because I've been struggling (sporadically) to recreate just such a "textbook" German battalion defensive position (La Meauffe-le Carillon, where documentation is ample).

Look, I'm not calling the baby ugly, nor am I saying the existing maps all suck, or denigrating the right of players to get in touch with their inner Wittman without having stupid thickets interfering with their set-piece massacre of 30 Shermans. I'm just saying a key, ubiquitous piece of real world terrain -- clumps of bushes/small trees between 4 and 12 feet tall is.... simply missing. For no good game engine-related reason I can discern. And that matters for those of us who are striving to "get in the boots" of the tactical leaders.

Generally I get your point, but one question relative to this that I think may be why many of us do not notice this quite so much. Tree height is based on the specific AS it is positioned on. If you have a bunch of trees (or bushes) across a certain amount of distance, the undulations in terrain are going to alter the "height" of trees (and bushes) relative to one another. The only circumstance where the foilage/brush additions you are proposing would seem to have a major impact is in flat terrain (maybe not flat as in 0 degree slope, but a consistent slope with no undulations).

Is that a fair assumption or am I wandering around out in left field again?

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