Broadsword56

Just uploaded this to the Repository. The earlier WIP discussion for this map can be found in this thread: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97115&highlight=carillon Here's the readme: xix_corps_center_4x4km_jul44_no_ai_master The name tells the story: 1. This map covers the center 4km x 4km zone of the U.S. XIX Corps in the July 1944 campaign for Saint-Lo. For those wanting to know exactly where it is, some coordinates are: Upper left corner: Latitude 49.180033 Longitude -1.086301 Lower left corner: Latitude 49.144603 Longitude -1.100560 The map has been rotated clockwise, to match the orientation of a particular wargame hexmap (more on that later). So, true north is actually NNW on this map. The west zone is being covered by LongLeftFlank’s W.I.P. master map of the “La Meauffe-Le Carillon” area, a 2.5 km wide x 3km deep battleground of the 137th Infantry, 35th ID. That’s the east bank of the Vire River from Le Meauffe to the Pont Hebert-St Lo highway. It is hoped eventually to map the zone east of the Isigny-St. Lo Highway, to cover the remainder of the corps area where the 29th ID and part of the 2nd ID fought in the July 1944 battles. This map will wait until we have the Fallschirmjaeger module, since those were the principal Germans in that sector.) 2. The map contains no AI and it’s a “master” map. That means it has no objects on it, except for forests and major churches with steeples (more on that later). What is does have is a highly accurate terrain, with elevations and tile placements painstakingly researched using Google Earth, French 1947 aerial photos, and other reliable sources. The major roads, departmental roads, and principal minor roads are all in place. And virtually every hedgerow in the sector is marked with placeholder tiles of XT grass and/or weeds. (What’s nice about this is you don’t really see the bocage lines in-game, but you see them clearly in the editor, so you can “paint by numbers” to quickly place the borders you want to use. Or, just skip the bocage entirely if you want to use this map as a starting point for non-bocage projects.) The smallest roads (dirt paths between fields, sunken farm lanes, etc.) are not placed. It seems better to deal with that level of detail when you’re customizing a smaller mapped area for a scenario. Why did I go to all this trouble to make an enormous historical master map? I wanted to be able to use the board wargame, “St.-Lo” as an operational layer for CMBN tactical battles. As the operational game plays out, specific interesting battles can be set up as CMBN scenarios. The results can be transferred back up to the operational game, and so on. This map is too large to be fully detailed with objects. As it is, even the master map takes a good while to load. So to make your detailed battle maps, you can either cut down the boundaries to a smaller size and save it with a new name, or -- what I plan to do -- save a copy of the master map at full size (let’s call it “battle_1”), then detail just the smaller battle area within it. By keeping the entire 4x4km map active, you can: Use the map editor to designate your battle boundaries with rows of “Landmark” dots: NW NNNNNNN NE W E W E SW SSSSSSSSSS SE You can also place rows of land mines along the boundaries to*“enforce” the boundaries for HTH play. Setup zones go within the battle area, but here’s what’s cool about the master map: You can also paint some special setup zones or place units outside the battle area. A good use of this is to put German FOs in the church steeples and at vantage points from higher elevations. They will, as they did historically, be able to see over the bocage and spot for accurate artillery fire -- something they are seldom able to do from ground level on normal CMBN maps. You could even place your off-map artillery on the master map, although I think the game handles off-map artillery well enough and this doesn’t seem necessary to me. When one battle is done, you can do a “save as” and call the new map “battle_2.” Now add another play area and detail that one, deleting whatever objects and detail you no longer want. You can continue this way, either until you’ve filled the entire 4 x 4 km, your computer explodes, or you’ve played through the entire map and are ready to march into Saint-Lo itself. Enjoy the map, and please share your feedback and experiences with it on the BFC forums. --Broadsword56 Aug. 13, 2011

[quote=YankeeDog;1304243 Generally speaking, for most tactical situations, to create a more realistic tempo in CM scenarios, the scoring system should give both sides a strong incentive for force preservation (e.g., keep your casualties <20%, get x points)...Usually, the above scoring conditions virtually force a longer battle, since both sides have a strong incentive more cautious with their forces. So this should be reflected in the time limit for the scenario. However, shorter scenarios are still certainly possible under these restrictions; the objectives just have to be appropriately limited.

Just a thought on the scenario design, since I always greatly prefer historical ones... How about just picking one several-hour slice of the real battles over the causeway, and making that the scenario? It might be more manageable than trying to either create the whole massive multi-day thing, or distorting the forces and situation so much that it becomes a fictional battle on a historical map.

Having just finished a Huzzar battle as US (and losing), I follow with great interest. I support the design philosophy of unbalanced and historical scenarios. A few questions -- You mention the US having a lot of artillery. But all I ever had up to the final 29 minutes (when I surrendered) was one unit of off-map M7 Priest. On map I just had the few organic 50mm mortars that came with the infantry. Since this is intended to be a lopsided and desperate battle for the US, then maybe the answer is adjusting the victory conditions in some way, so that the US can have a little more hope for a "win" in game points with just better-than-historical or better-than-average results. Once the Germans have the crossings and those Panthers assume dominating positions behind them, it doesn't seem to matter how many tanks the US has -- they just get picked off at long range before they can get into a more equalizing range or angle. I enjoyed the tactical problem. But I just don't know if there's a US solution against a competent HTH Geman player that can win the game.

One trade-off is less firepower in a team, so if it gets in a firefight it is quicker to lose fire superiority and become suppressed. Very important to keep teams covered and mutually supporting, so they don't get isolated and destroyed in detail.

I feel stooopid, because I'm looking at the Independent Buildings tiles and placed "Church" #4, the building looks great, but it has no steeple and I can't figure out how to add one. Is the steeple a separate object? I looked at Modular Buildings, but they just appear to be 1-8 story regular buildings with variations. I want a nice steeple, about 4 stories high.

Do you find that the units handle the pathfinding OK over the bridge/causeway and through the flooded areas (except of course the river itself)?

Outstanding map -- really shows what's possible using all the tools to create historical battlefields. Can't wait to play this one.

I'm confused about the EZ uniform mods being referred to, and recent mods to that mod -- were they all intended for the Italian theater? Or is there a set that's appropriate for Normandy 1944? Which one?

Terrific demo LLF! Can you possibly include a screenshot from top-down in the editor, so we see the actual way the tiles were placed in the 3D example? Thanks a bunch.

That reminds me of yet another ripping read, this time by a British author. Patrick Leigh Fermor's, "Ill Met by Moonlight." Fermor was one of those vanished breed of well-bred Empire scholar-warriors, steeped in the Classics, who might be as comfortable parachuting behind enemy lines as they would be at a diplomatic cocktail reception. This is Fermor's true story of how he and a few other British agents stayed behind in Crete to organize the resistance movement. He not only managed to survive and accomplish this, but to lead a daring nighttime ambush that captured a German general!

Yes, Webster was a New York preppie and a Harvard man who -- while he probably could have pulled strings to get a safe billet or at least an officer's commission -- chose instead to join the paratroops as a combat infantryman. I imagine his war experiences contributed to a hunger for thrill-seeking, which led him into sailing, surfing, scuba diving and eventually deep-sea shark fishing from small boats. One day in 1961 the sharks apparently got their revenge -- his boat was found, but the oar and tiller were missing, along with Webster.

As a former journalist, I really value the WWII books that are well-written and whose stories are more than just the dry facts. Here's an outstanding one I read a few weeks ago -- don't know how I missed it all these years: Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich, by David Kenyon Webster. Webster was in the famous "Band of Brothers" unit, but because he wrote this in the 1950s when the memories (good and bad) were still fresh, he doesn't put a halo on Capt Winters or nurture the legend that's grown up since then around their exploits. You won't find as many detailed tactical vignettes about the battles here -- just the most cynically honest depiction of the moment-to-moment WWII soldier's life I've ever read. One of the best chapters is one where very little happens: a long period in Alsace manning a dangerously isolated outpost in a ruined basement, peering across the river at the Germans and worrying about being overrun.

Beyond the Beachhead, by Joseph Balkoski The Clay Pigeons of Saint Lo, by Glover S. Johns Saving the Breakout: The 30th Division's Herois Stand at Mortain, August 7-12, 1944, by Alwyn Featherston And if you just want a ripping read (not set in 1944 but in 1942's Dieppe raid): Green Beach, by James Leasor

Which tree version did you find that makes a good thicket?

The test data is flying by so furiously now -- great to see it's happening, but I'm completely lost now, since the OP was about a cool discovery that one can place foxholes underneath bocage. Can someone summarize just the "what we now know" bottom line, based on these tests, in just a sentence or two?

This is the one I'd been waiting for -- it's an upgrade of the visual experience of the entire game, IMHO. Thanks for the mod.

Would it work to map lots of weeds and brush around the exposed (protruding forward of the bocage) foxholes to help conceal them a bit more, or at least make them look a bit less naked?

**Teachable moment alert** Speaking of that, how about sharing with us some examples of the variety you're describing, so aspiring mappers can understand some good ways to vary the bocage and place breaks in different formats along them? Use xxxx-oo--- type characters if you like, or (better yet) post a few editor screenies that show some good examples we can steal -- er -- learn from. The more these mapping techniques get shared, the better the maps and the better the playing experience for us all...

Fun is in the eye of the beholder. To me, it just means that scenario designers who use the newer/better bocage entrenchment technique will also have to take this into account when assigning forces, VPs, and considering the balance of play. So, for example, the attacking side might need to have 3:1 or even greater numerical advantage. The defender might have the entrenched benefit as well as better spotting for indirect artillery... all of which are closer to the real-life situations that happened in Normandy. So this innovation will encourage designers and players to see "balance" in more varied and subtle ways than simply equal numbers of forces. You can even have a totally hopeless scenario for an attacker, but which still can result in a decisive victory if the attacker achieves a better result than the one that actually happened (see Long Left Flank's W.I.P. map for The Carillon Nose, in the mod thread, which probably will give rise to scenarios like these).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the victory conditions options inthe editor. Let's say it's a HTH attack-defend, US attacking Germans. I want to create a scenario that would trigger a US defeat and scenario end if the Germans inflict over 40% casualties, and a german defeat and scenario end if the US inflicts over 80% casualties. Could I do this by having no terrain objective VPs, and assigning all 1000 VP's to either side for achieving its casualty goal first? I suppose the terrain objective(s) could simply be stipulated beforehand, and the players just would have to agree on which side controlled them at the end. That would avoid the gamier mechanism of letting the game decide objective control. What do you think?

Agreed. One thing that could easily improve this is if the game allowed the game to end at a certain level of enemy or friendly casualty percentages (depending on how the scenario designer sets the conditions) instead of only letting scenarios end when the turn clock runs out. The existing system only encourages unrealistic fighting to the last man, sloppy tactics, and gamey tactics like the ones you describe.

Eureka! This could be the innovation the game really needed to get the tactics back in balance toward a true bocage defense (fingers crossed).

One good way to help this is to put dirt tiles on/around the openings in bocage. That makes them stand out better against the grasses/crops.

What does it mean "in 3 different packs?" Do you have to choose just one to use at a time, or should you install all three?