If we could only have ruins like this...

[mjkerner]

Not being disrespectful to the people who went through it, but it would be nice to have ruins like this in-game.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2344233/The-ruins-Normandy-Unpublished-color-photos-taken-northern-France-1944-devastating-impact-Allied-Forces-battle-defeat-Nazis-World-War-2.html

[Broadsword56]

Stunning photos.

+1 for better ruins (or worse ones, depending on your point of view).

But credit is due to some of our more creative mappers, who have done amazing things already with the editor tools we have.

One thing I think we've discovered is that partially or fully damaging buildings is of limited use. They're still vital, but the overall effect is better if they're intermingled with other features.

For example, notice how undulating the streets of these cities became once there were lots of collapsed buildings around. You can get great rubble effects by using the elevation editor to make mounds in the elevation, then covering the mounds with rock terrain tiles and various debris objects.

It's also good to rubble a building to complete destruction, then place a few high and low wall segments on parts of the building perimeter to simulate ruins. You can even create foundation pits and collapse buildings into them. Add liberal doses of craters, some wrecked and flaming vehicles (you can even place dead vehicles inside a building and the smoke will make it look like it's on fire) and you'll have a hellscape to please the most battle-scarred veteran of the Rattenkrieg.

We'll certainly need to think more along these lines once CMBN is in Holland and we've got more urbanized combat situations.

[Bulletpoint]

Chilling pictures. There's something about seeing colour photographs that makes it more clear that the war was fought and suffered by people very much like us.

By the way, do you have any guess as what the soldiers would be digging for? I wouldn't think combat troops would be sent to do this kind of work, as long as the war was still going on..

[Bulletpoint]

Oh, and on the topic of ruins in the game - I think buildings should be much more dynamically destructible.

Even an ancient game like Black and White (from 2001) has buildings made of individual parts that collapse quite realistically when hit. So it's definitely possible.

[Hister]

By the way, do you have any guess as what the soldiers would be digging for? I wouldn't think combat troops would be sent to do this kind of work, as long as the war was still going on..

I don't know about Normandy but from where I'm from Allies offered to renovate buildings destroyed in WW2. That was just after the war was over in today's Slovenia (ex Yugoslavia). I reckon they were doing the same there like a help to the community but it could also be they were clearing the streets for the traffic?

[Sublime]

Im not sure, but I've heard anecdotes from GIs that claimed the German civilians would immediately set about picking up the rubble and sweeping the streets after the fighting which impressed them. In contrast to the French, who at least a couple of GIs felt were waiting for someone to pick it up for them.

Of course this is very subjective, personal opinion, and also obviously neither of these men were present after every battle in every town in France.

edit: Id like to also add that the thought occurred to me the men could have been witnessing German civilians press ganged into cleaning up, unbeknownst to the soldiers (who would assume the civilians were doing so of their own volition) Obviously one would assume the Allied troops would behave much more nicely to the population of liberated countries as opposed to civilians in the Reich.

Of course there seems to have been a hell of a lot of trouble with Allied troops not only in the East, but also in Italy, and France. Eisenhower's driver noted in her diary the French were making comments about a 'second occupation' and claimed the Allied troops were worse than the Germans.