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A Better Fortification System


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First off, let me say that for the most part I'm satisfied with the fortifications in the CM series. I think in scenarios the fortifications are great (although some Osprey titles could be more closely consulted in designing historically appropriate set-ups for given nations, formations and terrain). In QB, the AI defenses are generally okay, although with obvious and understandable limitations.

However - the placement of player fortification in QB is tedious. It would be time-consuming enough to manually place obstacles, but they are scattered all over the map!

Not only do I have to place all the wire by clicking individual pieces, but unlike units which are intelligently grouped at the bottom of the map, I have to pick the wire out from the clutter of the mines and other fortifications spread everywhere, and either place one piece at a time and then find the next or place them all into a pool where at least they occupy the same place on the screen, though I still have to place them, move the camera from where I was looking, click a link and then place it.

An infantry team occupies one foxhole, with a section occupying between 2-4 so to have just a company dug-in results in a huge amount of foxholes scattered all over the map, and sometimes an hour or more of set-up. It's very very frustrating and time consuming.

I think there are a few ways this could be improved:

  1. The first, and I think single most important would be to place foxholes like CM1 titles and SPWW2. When defending units are placed in the set-up phase of a QB, their foxholes are automatically placed under them.
  2. For trenches, mines and wire, ideally a system like SPWW2 would be used where fortifications other than foxholes would be purchased on the purchase screen, as now but would not appear on the map initially during the set-up phase. Instead, they would be placed with a click, maybe from a tab like air support and artillery. This keeps everything organized, there is no clutter on the map, and no on-map item needs to be located to place a fortification.
  3. As above but with click and drag placement of wire and trenches. From the tab suggested above, a "place line" option would appear. This would act exactly like linear fire missions - On-map the cursor would appear with the "strike target" cursor used for artillery maybe with the fortification symbol in the middle rather than the crosshairs. Clicking would draw a line, terminated again with a cursor reading "set end point". Once the line is set, trenches and wire objects would be placed along the line by the game. If this can't be done during the set-up phase, placing the lines and having the fortifications appear during the start of the battle would still be great, so long as the glowing lines remained viable after placement, like when selecting the FOO of a linear fire mission so the general layout of fortifications would be visible while placing units.
  4. If these suggestions are too difficult, at the very least grouping fortifications by type and placing them together at the  start of the set-up phase would be a big improvement over the random scatter.
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I agree with your points about how it takes a long time and many clicks to move fortifications around, but I am personally not happy with the way the fortifications actually work in the game, once they are placed. It's been discussed in detail before in many other threads, so I don't want to derail this one. Just wanted to chip in and say the whole fortification aspect of the game could do with an upgrade.

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37 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I agree with your points about how it takes a long time and many clicks to move fortifications around, but I am personally not happy with the way the fortifications actually work in the game, once they are placed. It's been discussed in detail before in many other threads, so I don't want to derail this one. Just wanted to chip in and say the whole fortification aspect of the game could do with an upgrade.

I thought about that when writing the post and I'd rather have better placement of existing fortifications now than perfect fortifications in Engine 5 or CM3.

I hate the hassle of foxholes to the point of not using them for anything larger than a platoon sized battle, so how effective they actually are is often irrelevant.

Edited by DougPhresh
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