Towns and urban areas... Looks like Main St. USA

[Pak40]

I have to say, Bigtime, that the demo battle between Fionn and Martin looks great. My mouth is really watering over Combat Mission.

There is, however, one small issue that still bugs me personally. Others may not care as much as me.

I'm still seeing towns laid out in this anytown USA grid pattern, which just isn't accurate for a vast majority of towns in Europe.

My concerns probably don't matter much since you will include a map editor, I will be able to make my own maps to my liking.

Maybe the maps I've seen so far are just placeholders or incomplete designs?

Would it be too hard to redesign these town maps this late into game development?

This entire situation reminds me of the movie "A Midnight Clear" about a recon squad in the Ardenness in 1944. For a long time I knew something was odd about the movie but couldn't figure it out. Then one day I saw an interview with the director of the movie, he said the film was low budget and had to be filmed in Utah instead of Europe. Then I figured what had been bothering me all that time -- Aspen trees. Not too many aspens in the Ardeness

[Fionn]

I personally have turned out town maps in 40 minutes featuring roundabouts, cross-roads, winding roads up hills, forests, churchyards, railyards serviced by roads running to and from the village etc etc..

What is shown is a simple grid-like village BUT you can make much more complex street grids with it.. Steve will tell you that I intend to create a map of my part of Dublin for a really nasty city-fighting campaign with my house as the final objective .. I'#ve played around with the editor and it is possible to make windy roads, y junctions, T junctions, crossroads and lots of other cool stuff.

The best thing about the editor is how quick it is to use..

I haven't ever designed scenarios before but I was able, within a day of getting the game, to make a nice 2 km by 2km map with streets, woods, rivers, elevation and forces within an hour.. That says a lot about its ease of use.

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_________________________

Fionn Kelly

Manager of Historical Research,

The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers

[Brian Rock]

I've been sharing Pak40's concerns on this one. The village screen shots to date haven't been very European. Not enough densely packed housing, irregular winding roads and such.

Overall the feel hasn't been quite right.

Looking at the game between Fionn and Moon I was pleased to see one of the houses on a diagonal, so I figured that it was at least possible to tweak the city layouts a bit more.

Fionn: the Dublin map you are working on sounds like a great test case for what can be done. Would it be possible for you to post a screenshot of it to this discussion board? Love to see it.

[Guest Big Time Software]

My concept of town layout isn't something that is going to be forced on you. As for the maps we will ship with CM, we currently have ZERO maps made for the final release. Too early for that, so don't worry.

As for the town layout I made... I lived in London for 6 months and spent a total of 4 months traveling from England, to Spain, to Croatia, to Czechoslovakia, to Germany, etc. My town might be a little too grid like for most, but I went to plenty of towns that were fairly straight forward like this. Is this an average town? Probably not, but it certainly isn't incorrect. I just put down some stuff that would be interesting. This is a game after all

Seriously, this is a fictitious battle so I did what I wanted to do. When you get your copy of Combat Mission you can do what you want to do, as can anybody else. Some maps and scenarios will be more realistic than others, some will be more fun than others. CM doesn't impose a single minded concept of what is right and wrong, or good and bad.

Steve

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 08-27-99).]

[Ken Talley]

Map making is one of my passions. I have been impressed by the hills and what appears to be small dips in the ground. No more of the billiard board flat lands of 2D.

I would certainly enjoy seeing a highly detailed map produced by CM really putting the map editor through its paces. Especially a good city map would be interesting.

Also, Steve, you mentioned possibly doing a campaign on the Schmidt battle. Does CM have the capability of reproducing those sharp draws leading up towards Schmidt? I haven't really noticed any draws to this point in any of the screenshots. Actually I was thinking of doing a Schmidt scenario myself. I may need to look at Vossenack or the Kall trail now < >. Schmidt was the most interesting one of that bunch though.

One other point. My minor pet peeve with the maps has been the house roofs. They are all gray and black. I know it varies with region but I remember the red roofs in the Lorraine and the Saarbrucken/Kaiserslautern areas. Wow, talk about getting picky...

[This message has been edited by Ken Talley (edited 08-27-99).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

Brian, there are certainly all sorts of towns and villages in Europe, not just the kind you describe. I remember fondly a very old and small village in the Black Forest. It was the most sparse and spred out place you could imagine. Only had a couple of streets too.

But of course there are places that are wall to wall houses and have really crazy streets, but these are more likely to be decent sized towns or even minor cities (by US definition a city is can be very small). CM allows houses to be in any of 8 directions, but the big buildings must be put in only one of 4 directions. This is a limitation made necessary by CM's underlying game engine. It is not something that can be changed at this time thanks to, yes, hardware. Long involved reasons behind this, but take my word for it we would have diagonal large buildings if we could. Everybody should feel comfortable with the fact that we don't take shortcuts

Steve

[Guest Big Time Software]

Yes CM can do the hills around Schmidt. The only limitiation with CM's elevation system is that there is only one scale per scenario. So if you pick really steep grades you can not also have really smooth ones as well. Too complex to have them mixed and matched. At CM's scale this isn't a problem though. Terrain within a 3000x3000m area is going to be largely of one character.

Steve

P.S. Martin already has a really detailed map of the neighborhood around Schmidt. I might bow out and let him do it

[Pak40]

"we currently have ZERO maps made for the final release. "

That's kind of what I thought, but I wanted to hear it from you. I'm glad that the editor is so easy to use that you can wait 2-3 months before touching the final maps. That means it will be easy for us to use.

I'm glad, Steve, that you've got some travel time in Europe, it will help a lot in map design. I, on the other hand, have never been to Europe and have to rely on pictures and the little bit of "European urban design" lectures that I remember from my Landscape Architecture classes.

Could you tell pre-WW2 towns apart from the towns that had to be rebuilt after the war?

[Moon]

Well, Pak40, I am living in Germany and spend some time traveling through Europe. Haven been in France, Belgium, Holland, Italy and even Liechtenstein...

The scenario editor gives you the chance to make any town you like. And it looks great, too. You can make big cities with paved roads and pavements or you can make smaller towns and villages with farmhouses and fields etc. If Steve ok's it, I'll show you a screenshot of a part of a big city map I've recently done. BTW, I also did Arnhem based on original maps from the area - no problem!

And as to Schmidt - I have a 1:25000 scale map of the area and, incidentally, have visited Schmidt, Kommerscheidt and Hürtgen not long ago (taken some pictures, too). One word from Steve and I'll do a map asap

[Fionn]

I'm half-Belgian and I've (within the last year or so) been to Belgium, Holland, Germany and France. I've been to most of the areas where fighting occured during 44/45 (although not so much to the places in Germany).

I lived in Belgium for seven years also so I have a pretty good idea of what those places can look like and whilst you won't have different roof colours and types etc you will be able to make topographically and good-looking accurate maps of those types of villages..

My map isn't quite ready but I'll fiddle with it some more (using street maps and memory) over the weekend and see what I can do.. I'm taking about 3 hours to do each AAR PLUS the amount of time it takes me to actually plot the turns so as you can tell I don't have too much free time anymore but I'll get to it when I can.

[Moon]

Steve's ok'd it, so here is a city shot... does that look like a city or what?

[This message has been edited by Moon (edited 08-28-99).]

[Fionn]

Ah, I see my illustrious soon-to-be-captive has already responded.

PS.. Yep those are scorch marks you see. Buildings during combat tend to catch fire (as I've found out many a time ).

[Guest R Cunningham]

I think there may be some inherent limitations in the map builder. The city layout looks "better" than what we've seen in the "series replay." But I think the original question had less to do with buildings being jammed together than with the irregularities of the street layout. The one posted above shows all streets meeting at right angles. Not too many european cities are built like Las Vegas

So the question becomes at what angles can roads intersect in the map builder? 90 and 45 degrees only? 90, 60, 45, and 30 degrees? IIRC there is some sort of underlying hexgrid which has influence on this.

[Moon]

Streets and roads can meet at carious angles. I am just making a "a typical town in Europe" map to show this capability, throwing in yards, gardens, fences, hedges, farmhouses and everything you'd like. Give me a few hours and I'll have something up to show off

[Guest Big Time Software]

Hi Pak40,

Yeah, you can usually tell what before and after the war. Mostly because the house designs are different. I found the style and construction of modern houses in Europe to be fairly similar (UK most different), and VASTLY different than US houses. Most similar were Germany/Austria and Slovenia/Croatia in my opinion. I know the Germans/Austrians have large business interests there, sot that doesn't really surprise me too much.

But overall, the small villages that CM's scale was really designed to simulate are pretty sparse things. The town center (if it has one) usually has shops and appartments all bunched together. It is kinda funny to see sometimes. Not too different than small towns in the US, but of course it FEELS different because if the age and style.

R Cunningham,

Yes, there are limitations for really built up urban areas. Right angles for solid urban areas is, unfortunately, a must. There is an underlying grid (square) that everything must sit on. We can do diagonals and odd joints in open terrain, but built up cities can not be laid out this way.

Until we can change the resolution of the terrain types down to 2m by 2m (we track this low, but terrain tiles are 20m by 20m) we are stuck with this limitation. Reason being is that the big buildings FILL a 20x20 tile. Can't put a a square on top of another one which is diagonal to it

If we limited ALL map sizes to something terribly small (like slightly larger than CC sized maps) we could have done things differently. But we can only make one map engine, since the WHOLE game is based on it, and we had to plan on much bigger maps. The one being played out right now is medium sized at 2000m x 800m (or about that). That is 8000 pieces of terrain. Doesn't sound like a lot, but the AI would disagree. So would the LOS and LOF equations, as would spotting any nearly every aspect of the game. Going with 10x10 terrain would probably require dual P500s for the game to work (if that), 2x2... forget about it

Steve

[Moon]

A little rural village somewhere in Northwest Europe...

[Mike D]

Moon,

Great little village you've posted just above. Is it "perfect"? Well, probably no, but it does look pretty darn good. Good enough for me anyways! If we can build maps that look like this it is going to be a lot of fun to do up our own scenarios.

Thx for the post. BTW, the city shot doesn't look all that bad either. I would have to agree that it looks like it has too many right angles (i.e. streets, row houses, etc.), but hey, if that is all we can get for now, I'm fine w/ this too.

BTW, Steve/Charles the church steeple is a nice touch!

Regards,

Mike D

aka Mikester

[This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-28-99).]

[Guest R Cunningham]

Mr Moon's village shows the screwed up roads I would expect to find. This looks better to me. However, this generates another question. Is the density of the buildings shown the mximum possible before we get cities laid out on a grid? I ask this because in the villages here in Unterfranken the space between houses is much less than in Mr. Moon's map.

And another question, do the possible house/building types include the typical "hof" arrangements here in Germany (at least in Bavaria - not to sure about the rest)? These arrangements have the farmer's house connected to two or more barns froming somehting approximating a "U" that is closed by a wall or fence.

[Guest Big Time Software]

The two houses in the very foreground are as close as they get. The distance between the two is about 10m I think. I know the type of clustered housing you are talking about, and they are more like 5m apart. Unfortunately, CM's houses have to stay with the bounds of a 20x20 meter square (see above) so the only way they are going to get closer together is if we make the houses larger. That seems to be a bad solution as it makes the houses unrealistically large.

As for specifically shaped houses and buildings to fit a particular regional style, this is just not possible for us to do. There are SO many different types of buildings and houses in each country, not to mention Western Europe. We could spend as much time making houses as we have making tanks. While we might add more types in the future, for now it will remain as is.

In the end, at CM's scale, the absence of a plethra of building types yields VERY minor differences in realism. Remember, we aren't simulating the LOS and LOF of each and every single man on the map, just the unit. So if two buildings have a 5m gap or a 10m gap between them the impact on the game is very, very slight.

In the future when technology allows us to have a finer resolution of terrain (at least 10x10m) we can do a lot more with houses. But until that time, this is as good as it is going to get.

Steve

[Ken Talley]

That's unfortunate about the 20X20 meter squares and the restriction of one house to a square. Does a house have to be placed in the center of the 20X20 square? Also what are the total types of buildings? I have only noticed three at this point: the 2/4 story apartment buildings, the small houses and the church.

My questions on terrain and housing have been driven by two considerations which may be similiar to others. One is the impact on tactics. Items like brush, trails, and variety of buildings would definitely have an impact on tactics due to LOS, movement, and cover considerations. Unfortunately, it sounds like a combination of hardware requirements and the tile system prevents some of these items being considered at this time. I think another consideration is the immersion factor. The 3D nature of the game and the really outstanding look of the terrain (trees, hills, houses all truly look very good) raises hopes that the ultimate in terrain is very close. The more terrain/ building types appropriate for a squad level game the greater the immersion factor and the greater ability to reflect actual real world situations.

I can definitely live with restrictions due to hardware requirements and tile system limitations. Although I hope that workarounds are possible and that we can see a greater variety of terrain in the future.

Thanks,

Ken

[Moon]

R.Cunningham - Unterfranken? Very nice area. I have friends living there which I visit several times a year. And they make big fuss about living in Unterfranken and NOT Bavaria

As to more detailed terrain: let's not forget that CM is a squad based game and the lowest unit is a squad or team - and NOT the individual soldier. With this abstraction in mind, it should become clearer that certain details which are important for ONE soldier -the bush, the big rock, the window, the street lantern - are not important for a whole squad of twelve (or ten or nine) men. For the squad, other things count - the house, the road, the woods. All other details ARE in the game engine that calculates casualty ratios and LOS for the individual unit, but they don't have to show on the screen for anything else but eyecandy since they are not all that important for the squad.

IMHO, the same is true for different types of buildings - sure, it would be nice to see this type of house, that type of barn - but what counts for the game is the fact the there IS a house (and if it's a stone or wooden house), but not so much how it looks.

Let me put it in other words - while playing CM I haven't been missing ANY of these things so far...

[Rick]

Moon,

I think your point about this being a squad level game and therefore some of the very small geographic details might not matter that much, is probably one of the most important things mentioned so far in this thread. One bush might block LOS for one man (maybe even two) but not for the whole squad.

[Ken Talley]

I think my statement of brush is being misinterpreted as single bushes and a need for other extreme small detail terrain. When I say brush, I meant brushy areas. An intermediate level of cover between completely open/zero cover ground and thin trees. Brush would be designated as an area potentially very large in a manner similiar to trees. Brush is composed of bushy overgrown areas very common along rivers, streams, open areas of forests, logged forests that are regrowing without planting of new growth-really many different areas. The impact would be greater concealment/ cover than open ground, LOS impact w/o the height of trees and an impact on movement. Brush could potential substitute for high grass areas found in fallow fields (2-4ft in heigth) or meadows as well. I think the primary need is for some sort of intermediate level of cover between the field with 2 inch high grass and thin trees with some undergrowth. Fortunately the 3d nature of CM should allow for those minor rolls in the ground that provide cover in otherwise open areas. Also I agree that any terrain type must be appropriate to the movement/tactics at squad/single vehicle level.

By the way, I believe Steve stated in a previous post that he would like to see brush later down the road so there will be other terrain types. So for the future, it is probably a good idea to toss around ideas as to what types of terrain could be added to increase the simulation and immersion capabilities of CM.

My two cents worth,

Ken

[Rick]

Ken,

My comment was not related to your statements about brush. I didn't even remember that far back until you mentioned it. I know exactly the type of terrain your talking about too. Seems like it will be more important in the Med version of CM to follow. I know in the US that type of terrain mainly exists in semi-arid areas along rivers and in forests recovering from fire, logging etc.

Probably, shouldn't even mentioned brush/bushes in my post. The main thing I was doing was agreeing with Moon that many differences between different buildings may be relatively insignificant. In a game where individual people were modeled, it would be totally different. In that case, the location of individual windows etc. might even be important.

[Ken Talley]

Hi Rick,

No problem. I posted because the discussion seemed to be shifting from squad appropriate terrain to smaller scale items that I don't believe anyone was originally proposing. You know how discussions can wander. So I wanted to clarify the types of terrain that I was advocating for the future.

Ken