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Terrain Frustrations


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So I'm playing the second PBEM where I have a piece of armor that I placed on seemingly innocous terrain that looked perfectly passable to a tank. Only to have it repeatedly ignore my move orders and upon closer inspection for me to realize that there is perhaps one tile that for whatever reason is impassable to armor. Look, I get it - if it was a river, or something really obvious. Even if it was gigantic boulders or something, but as it is, the tiles I think impeding my movement are like.. rocky tiles but they do not appear impassable in anyway - I know it's abstracted but my point is I wish that someone could mod them, something to make them more obvious as impassable. They dont appear as sheer cliffs or any nonsense like that and it's not like I placed my armor somewhere insane... FWIW. its happened with a semovente and a stug III f/8. and no they werent bogged, or immobilized. or even under fire.

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Sublime,

At least you haven't Bogged while still doing a CMBN training ground scenario! Nor, I suspect, have you played as the Germans in CMAK trying to escort a truck column across what seemed like small, no big deal rocks, at night. Had so many Immobilizations that I wondered how anyone ever operated in North Africa. I have seen lots of footage, too, in which softskins ran around the open desert effortlessly. To be undone by a single tile must be annoying, and I don't even own the game!

Regards,

John Kettler

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Its not even bogging or immobilizations though. the tank wont even attempt it, it just disregards my orders I guess because there is technically no path it can take.

speaking of immobilizations though I lost 3 PZ IVs in a qb to immobilizations going through vineyards that looked like a tank would go right thru them. wont make that mistake. two tiles and the tracks had it. all immobilized in completely useless defiles where they cant see a goddamn thing. and then to top it off we get strafed and does the ******* go for the immobilized tanks? of course not! he goes for my infantry and a truck full of men towing an ATG.

-sigh-

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The rocks painted onto 'hvy rocks' terrain scale to about the size of trash cans if you were to place a soldier on the tile for comparison. Bad idea to try driving across a landscape of trashcan size boulders. Sometimes (not often) a map designer decides he wants a 'no-go' area for tanks. Then out comes the heavy rocks, hvy forest and marsh, all of which are impassable to vehicles but passable to infantry.

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When you get to a point that you don't care anymore about the battle or it finishes, open the map in the editor and find out what is there. It is a good thing to do for future reference. Learning the terrain variations in the maps is pretty critical and if you don't actually use the map editor much it takes a lot longer to learn.

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I appreciate what you are saying. However, it is a bit late then as someone, or maybe two players, will have spent quite a bit of time playing a scenario that is now a bit messed up.

I don't understand why BF did not include a graphic image of special terrain features and their key characteristics (such as impassable to tanks, x% chance of track damage, etc.). Would have taken a page of two.

Gerry

When you get to a point that you don't care anymore about the battle or it finishes, open the map in the editor and find out what is there. It is a good thing to do for future reference. Learning the terrain variations in the maps is pretty critical and if you don't actually use the map editor much it takes a lot longer to learn.
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I believe I'm on the other side of this PBEM as well as the other one where he had a stuck Stug. I'm not sure where this semo may be because all of my front line spotters are now dead, but I have some ideas.

Either way based on the hordes of Italians you are throwing at me on a night map with hundreds of hidden approaches you should be fine. Unless you have no other armor which at that point you may have an issue.

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Is there any rock type flavor 3d object that can be added by map designers to make these terrain tiles more evident from afar? I believe that would be a good idea, since lots of people don't zoom in so close to tell some terrain types from others, specially when you have a whole batallion to give orders and wayponts to.

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I am playing a map in CMBN that has light and heavy forest tiles intermixed. Not being up to par on the scenario editor I am having a hell of a time seeing what is passable and what is impassable. Plotting move points and running the cursor over the map is the only way for me to see what I can pass over. I did open the .brz files and mod the mini-terrain tile for forest but unfortunately CMBN uses the same tile for heavy and light forest. One is passable and one is not. But they both look the same when modded as I do with the CMFI tiles below.

I did the same for the mini-ground dense forest floor, mini ground heavy rocks, and mini marsh tiles in CMFI. I colored them completely red just for test purposes. Good thing is that this game keeps the light and heavy forest floor tiles separate. See screen shots below. The middle band shows light forest tiles inside of heavy forest tiles. Just modding the mini file only causes the mod to be viewable at birds eye view. When you zoom back down to see the action you see the close up tiles. Might be good for us that have a hard time when the light and heavy forest tiles are intermixed all together.

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Only two points I'd make here:

1. Wanting to know all and control all leads only to frustration. Cultivate an attitude of acceptance and embrace the chaos that is war. Commanders on the ground often had inadequate maps, and IRL one seldom knows from looking at an intended route through distant patch of forest or hillside exactly where there might be 8 square meters of rock or forest obstacles here or there that could throw a tread or force a time-wasting detour.

2. Convenience is a good thing. And not everyone wants to or has the time to manage a large force. But I have to wonder: What's the point of playing a game like CM2 -- which models every individual soldier and bullet fired -- and *not* want to zoom in as close as possible to appreciate it at ground level? It's not a chore; it's the essence and beauty of the game. Given the limited nature of the GUI tools and the engine and the info it gives us, I find the only way not to get tactically burned is to zoom in and try as much as I can to see what my pixeltruppen are seeing.

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They are way too big when compared to a tank

Don't forget this topic started with someone not understanding why his tanks couldn't move through heavy rocks. In CMBN people can't tell the difference between the (obviously different) hedge and bocage. Subtlety doesn't work very well.

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Don't forget this topic started with someone not understanding why his tanks couldn't move through heavy rocks. In CMBN people can't tell the difference between the (obviously different) hedge and bocage. Subtlety doesn't work very well.

Sounds like he clearly understood why his tanks could not move? He knew there was a non-passable terrain ahead but could not tell which one it was. He was clearly stating that he would like a mod that better shows the difference between the two. I gave him an idea with modding the mini files that go with impassable terrain (marsh, dense forest, heavy rocks). Not a shot at anybody in particular but too bad as almost every other thread someone states a question and then the damn thing goes 30 different directions off topic.

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yeah, like I said, I know why it's not working. I have been playing CM since 99/2000 after all. However my issue is more of that its hard to spot terrain tiles (only rocky) that tanks cannot go over. Other non passable terrain is easy to spot or is commonsense. Yes, I could go around on view level 1, and I often watch combat or get down there if I really wanna micromanage a particular aspect. However, since I almost always split my squads, and I usually play 1 company to a battalion with armor, I'm not going to spend 4 hours on view level one doing a setup. I do have a son, a job, go to college full time, etc and this is a game. So far I've been perfectly able to play, and win sometimes against humans, with my method of play. And it entertains me just fine. It just sucks that the only time this issue has happened has been in CMFI and has happened to tanks in deployment that looked like they were in a reasonable spot to move if need be only to find out they cant. At all. And I dont know what version of FI you guys are playing but I havent seen any tiger turret sized boulders, anywhere, ever. Even the heavy rock formation has just some little man/half man sized rocks on it to show what it is. Which is fine - whatever. I just hope someone mods them in some bizarre color or something, Ill take the loss of immersion not to end up with an immobilized tank from turn 1.

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What strikes me as odd about this discussion is that so far, I haven't had any of my tanks balk at going over rocky ground, including the stuff with the size boulders we seem to be talking about. In fact, in one game the only way I could get my Shermans from one part of the map to another was to go over several tiles of that sort. There was also a part where I am sure the camber (lateral slant) of the ground was great enough to have precluded passage by a real tank. Did it help that I was using Slow movement? I don't know, it seemed like a prudent thing to do and not a single one of my tanks failed to make the passage.

Michael

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Well - in the first game with the Stug, It wouldnt move at all. reverse, slow, move, hunt - nothing. at all. when Id select a move order and move the mouse over terrain it'd go to the redded out cant do it move icon over all the surrounding terrain around the tank.

The second game with the semovente. It would respond to orders at all. a quick look with the move cursor produced same effects. However in the last turn I gave it the most roundabout,way point filled slow move of all time. and I dont know if it'll get anywhere - but the tank does say driving now. we'll see if I can extricate it from its useless position. I'll find out the qb map im playing it on now. Interesting side note - the map has this gigantic ridge on one side, and im attacking up and around it. And at the base theres a large gaping hole in it. Like a cave. never seen that in a CM map. No you cant go in it =(

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