How to best get an overview of larger maps?

[Bulletpoint]

I usually prefer playing small maps, but recently I have begun moving up to "medium" sized maps such as 'Carbide Carbide'.

It's the kind of map I like: a really beautiful, well-made and realistic looking place - and also damn difficult to get an overview of.

I usually zoom down to the lowest levels and fly across the map a couple of times, looking at it from different angles, trying to get an idea of the lay of the land, potential cover, firing arcs and so on. But I find it is very difficult to get a good impression this way.

Part of the reason is that I don't know how high the camera is at the lowest levels. Head height? Then how to do a check for prone troops?

And how about tanks? If I select the next-lowest level, is that at tank turret height?

Also, trees seem to not block line of fire or line of sight very much at all, so often I'll take fire from positions I thought well out of sight.

All this adds up to a lot of headache for me, and really keeps me from playing the bigger scenarios, as the amount of potential lines of fire grow exponentially on larger maps. I feel I'm "flying blind" sometimes, despite rigorous checking and re-checking I just have to pray that there won't be some odd line of fire to my Sherman from the location I'm sending it to.

How do you go about getting a good overview?

[womble]

Part of the reason is that I don't know how high the camera is at the lowest levels. Head height? Then how to do a check for prone troops?

It's easy to see how high the camera is: fly it over troops that are stood up. I reckon it's about 8 feet up. You can't get a good look at what prone troops could see unless there's a handy declivity behind where you'd want them lookin from.

And how about tanks? If I select the next-lowest level, is that at tank turret height?

Again, just move the camera around your tanks. You'll soon get a feel of which height setting corresponds to gunsight and commander heights.

Also, trees seem to not block line of fire or line of sight very much at all, so often I'll take fire from positions I thought well out of sight.

Foliage isn't a reliable blocker of LOS. Sometimes one tree makes it impossible to see, other times you can see through what looks like a whole forest. You have to take into account the LOS matrix model, which, IIRC doesn't count foliage, but foliage provides concealment to affect actual spotting, if the LOS matrix say it may be possible.

All this adds up to a lot of headache for me, and really keeps me from playing the bigger scenarios, as the amount of potential lines of fire grow exponentially on larger maps. I feel I'm "flying blind" sometimes, despite rigorous checking and re-checking I just have to pray that there won't be some odd line of fire to my Sherman from the location I'm sending it to.

This is always going to be an issue, and it probably ought to remain so. Expecting guarantees on the battlefield seems optimistic, and where would we be without surprises? If you've been and looked, and you think you're safe, that's the equivalent of the TC not noticing the tiny keyhole opportunity that he's directing his ride into, which seems pretty reasonable to me.

How do you go about getting a good overview?

Take a unit, and draw a drunkard's walk across the map, stopping at points of interest. Have a look at the LOS from those waypoints to see what they can really see (bearing in mind the posture of the observing troops/height of the vehicle is used as the origin height and the ground level (or 1m up) of the observed location as the target height). So you might want to a) either fiddle with the location of or find different examples of infantry so their current posture reflects the postures at the OP and/or use a variety of AFVs for variable heights.

[PhilM]

I usually prefer playing small maps, but recently I have begun moving up to "medium" sized maps such as 'Carbide Carbide'.

It's the kind of map I like: a really beautiful, well-made and realistic looking place - and also damn difficult to get an overview of.

I usually zoom down to the lowest levels and fly across the map a couple of times, looking at it from different angles, trying to get an idea of the lay of the land, potential cover, firing arcs and so on. But I find it is very difficult to get a good impression this way.

Part of the reason is that I don't know how high the camera is at the lowest levels. Head height? Then how to do a check for prone troops?

And how about tanks? If I select the next-lowest level, is that at tank turret height?

Also, trees seem to not block line of fire or line of sight very much at all, so often I'll take fire from positions I thought well out of sight.

All this adds up to a lot of headache for me, and really keeps me from playing the bigger scenarios, as the amount of potential lines of fire grow exponentially on larger maps. I feel I'm "flying blind" sometimes, despite rigorous checking and re-checking I just have to pray that there won't be some odd line of fire to my Sherman from the location I'm sending it to.

How do you go about getting a good overview?

I agree with all of Womble's points above. But, from my bold bit above of your post, it sounds as though you are using only the pre-set level views, changed by the number keys?

If so, then you can as a - better - alternative, by using a mouse or keypad, scroll continuously through the full range of the view height available, and not be restricted to the pre-set levels?

So you can move the camera height exactly to that of the unbuttoned TC, say, and see what he sees ...

(A bit of an aside, but I find my mouse with mini touchpad by far the easiest way to view: move and pan in any direction, with height adjust as above, all available at your fingertips, and easier to get fine control than with the keys.)

Having said all that, I think Womble's point on not expecting guarantees is key here: how precisely *should* you be able to determine LOS etc from ANY point in the 3D space of the battlefield, before your pixeltruppen get there?

[Bulletpoint]

I'm not asking for certainties or guarantees, and I do like a challenge. But my problem is with a 3-d world represented in 2-d.

Lack of depth perception makes getting an overview (arguably) more difficult than it would be in real life, and lack of a topographical map means that each bump in the landscape needs to be closely studied by panning and scanning the camera, then making what seems a guess as to visibility/vulnerability to and from each point of interest.

I'm using a mouse with scroll wheel, and it takes me up and down in jumps as I roll the wheel. I can hit what seems to be turret height from a Sherman, but I'm not quite sure this is the actual measuring point for the LOS. As for infantry, the camera either seems to hover above their heads or at stomach height, never getting all the way down to the grass.

That being said, my post was just to know your techniques to get an overview of the battlefield. Womble's "drunken walk" for example hadn't ocurred to me, I kept issuing a new move order, cancelling it, issuing a new one, and so forth.

Maybe tonight I will have a whisky and try this method.

[PhilM]

I'm not asking for certainties or guarantees, and I do like a challenge. But my problem is with a 3-d world represented in 2-d.

Lack of depth perception makes getting an overview (arguably) more difficult than it would be in real life, and lack of a topographical map means that each bump in the landscape needs to be closely studied by panning and scanning the camera, then making what seems a guess as to visibility/vulnerability to and from each point of interest.

I'm using a mouse with scroll wheel, and it takes me up and down in jumps as I roll the wheel. I can hit what seems to be turret height from a Sherman, but I'm not quite sure this is the actual measuring point for the LOS. As for infantry, the camera either seems to hover above their heads or at stomach height, never getting all the way down to the grass.

That being said, my post was just to know your techniques to get an overview of the battlefield. Womble's "drunken walk" for example hadn't ocurred to me, I kept issuing a new move order, cancelling it, issuing a new one, and so forth.

Maybe tonight I will have a whisky and try this method.

I'm not sure if we are seeing the same thing but interpreting it differently, or we are getting different results? But for me, mousepad / touchpad scrolling to change the view height seems to me to give infinitely variable view height, not in "jumps"? That's why I assumed you might be using only the view key levels, which are indeed (big) jumps.

I agree though with the 3d world in 2d issue, it is a problem. But - though I don't want to fall out with you over it, and we can have different opinions for sure! - I still feel the game estimate of view and vulnerability you can get of a *future* waypoint that you think will be a good one to get to for your purposes is probably better than you would have in real life: sitting at your start point with a limited, at best, map, scanning the ground and thinking "That gully looks a good route ...". You don't *really* know until you get there ... and you certainly couldn't get the view from the enemy position, as you can in the game.

But we can agree that the "3D in 2D" thing is not perfect!

[Bulletpoint]

I'm not sure if we are seeing the same thing but interpreting it differently, or we are getting different results? But for me, mousepad / touchpad scrolling to change the view height seems to me to give infinitely variable view height, not in "jumps"? That's why I assumed you might be using only the view key levels, which are indeed (big) jumps.

I suddenly realise that it might just be my mouse and mousedriver doing this. I thought it would be the same for everybody. In webpages, my scrollview also scrolls in "jumps", maybe this carries over into the game.

As for the 2D/3D issue, I don't have an ax to grind with anyone. I know that in some ways, we already have lots more info about the terrain than a real commander would have had. Then again, in real life, the platoon commanders and the squad leaders would make many of the decisions that we as company commanders impose on them. This might include how to best use micro scale terrain to conceal an advance.

Just looking for some gameplay tips about how to best get an overview of the terrain, get situational awareness and plan ahead. I'm doing it my way at the moment, which generally works - I pride myself on a mission won with low casualties - but it's always nice to get some inspiration from others.

[Rake]

I usually prefer playing small maps, but recently I have begun moving up to "medium" sized maps such as 'Carbide Carbide'.

It's the kind of map I like: a really beautiful, well-made and realistic looking place - and also damn difficult to get an overview of.

I usually zoom down to the lowest levels and fly across the map a couple of times, looking at it from different angles, trying to get an idea of the lay of the land, potential cover, firing arcs and so on. But I find it is very difficult to get a good impression this way.

Part of the reason is that I don't know how high the camera is at the lowest levels. Head height? Then how to do a check for prone troops?

And how about tanks? If I select the next-lowest level, is that at tank turret height?

Also, trees seem to not block line of fire or line of sight very much at all, so often I'll take fire from positions I thought well out of sight.

All this adds up to a lot of headache for me, and really keeps me from playing the bigger scenarios, as the amount of potential lines of fire grow exponentially on larger maps. I feel I'm "flying blind" sometimes, despite rigorous checking and re-checking I just have to pray that there won't be some odd line of fire to my Sherman from the location I'm sending it to.

How do you go about getting a good overview?

I enjoy smaller maps, too, But, with the release of RT, I'm finding that the larger maps are a great deal of fun, larger scenarios, too... They just take longer to finish, sometimes a lot longer :eek:

I've found, as Womble related, that I can't expect to see everything, and I don't expect any commander would notice everything during the heat of battle... that's one of the reasons for overwatch. I just try to take care of due diligence with my recon. I've found that most tanks seem to draw their LOS is from the second level with 1-3 "clicks" down on the scroll wheel. KT's seem to be at 1 click down, Shermans and PzIV's at two and the smaller German AT vehicles slightly lower... I pan around using the hotkeys for fine adjustment (I've set mine to I,J,K & L; default is W,A,S,& D). I also use the arrow keys to pan and the X,Z keys to zoom. I always try to remember to check LOS from any new waypoint that I set.

Prone infantry LOS is probably best viewed using the LOS tool from a waypoint... AIUI, this will draw LOS from ground level to ground level at any action square. Standing infantry will draw LOS from eyeball level to ground at an open AS.

Try as I may, I still often wind up with my head above the hilltops when I'm thinking I'm in dead ground. So, take anything I've said and use it at your peril... I've been playing since the game came out and I still suck at it

[Bradley]

About the best you could do for your units, and Rake mentioned this, is click unit ( go level 1) and use C-key (wide angle) view and use keys W,A,S,D and Q and E for angling the camera and move about the map. It is how I find more ideal locations without moving units too far into LOS of opposing units. Of course one neat thing about the method is unit is already selected and once you find optimum location you just plot type of movement.

[womble]

Lack of depth perception makes getting an overview (arguably) more difficult than it would be in real life...

As an aside, this is one of the factors that makes the position of the "keep the camera locked to units and at level 1" brigade tenuous.

I'm using a mouse with scroll wheel, and it takes me up and down in jumps as I roll the wheel.

Yeah, that's what mine does too, but that's still more finely grained than the preset number key height settings, which is good. Mine's a Logitech G700. I can turn off the "bumps" on the scroll wheel, but I'd rather have the haptic feedback; the "quanta" of height change are fine for my purposes.

I can hit what seems to be turret height from a Sherman, but I'm not quite sure this is the actual measuring point for the LOS.

I'm not sure I understood Steve's explanation of this properly, but I think it depends on whether you're using the vehicle itself, or a waypoint, and on whether the vehicle has a "special spotting relationship" with the target if there's an enemy unit "in your crosshairs". But getting the camera close to the gun bore is a pretty useful viewpoint, even if it's not a 100% perfect representation of sight picture.

As for infantry, the camera either seems to hover above their heads or at stomach height...

I don't think mine's ever gotten below "above their heads"... I wonder what it is that determines the lowest possible camera height, and why it might be different between player experiences.

That being said, my post was just to know your techniques to get an overview of the battlefield. Womble's "drunken walk" for example hadn't ocurred to me, I kept issuing a new move order, cancelling it, issuing a new one, and so forth.

You can do it that way too. It's probably only a bit less inefficient, because the "drunken walk" thing sometimes means you forget which way the movement path is oriented, so you click on the wrong waypath and have to redo.

Maybe tonight I will have a whisky and try this method.

Pretty sure getting wasted won't make your drunken walk any more pertinent, but have fun testing!

[Vanir Ausf B]

For tanks and other AFVs, the target tool traces LOS from the gunner's perspective, which on most tanks will be at the same height as the main cannon.

For infantry, just keep in mind that when using the target tool to check LOS from a waypoint, the LOS is checked using whatever stance the unit is presently using, e.g. prone, standing, ect. In the case of heavy weapons teams, LOS is traced specifically from the gunner's perspective, as with AFVs.

[Bulletpoint]

For infantry, just keep in mind that when using the target tool to check LOS from a waypoint, the LOS is checked using whatever stance the unit is presently using, e.g. prone, standing, ect.

This is useful info, but if some of the squaddies are prone, others kneeling and a few running about, then which "stance" is the squad considered to be in?

[Vanir Ausf B]

All of them, I believe. That is why you can get a grey target line, meaning some soldiers have LOS and some don't. Unless it is a machine gun or mortar team, then its just the gunner that matters.

[Bulletpoint]

All of them, I believe. That is why you can get a grey target line, meaning some soldiers have LOS and some don't. Unless it is a machine gun or mortar team, then its just the gunner that matters.

So, if I select a squad that is currently in a "mixed state" (beginning to sound like quantum physics now!), and then plot waypoints, then I'll get the grey target line from alle those waypoints, because the game assumes that the squad will continue in its mixed state at those waypoints?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Yes, unless you would have LOS from any of the stances the soldiers are presently in, which would result in a blue line.

One point of clarification regarding vehicle LOS. It is traced from the gunner, but is also checked for the hull machine gunner on tanks that have them, so you can get a grey target line for hull down tanks.

[HellRAYzer]

Here is what I do sometimes to get a topographical look at a piece of ground. I will click on a distant point with a Target command and then adjust the camera 90* to the Target line. Then, adjusting the distance closer or farther to that line, travel up and down that line. The line follows the lay of the land and you can easily see humps and dips that you might not see on a normal fly over.

[Vanir Ausf B]

? Target lines do not follow terrain. They are always straight.

[HellRAYzer]

Vanir...You are right. I went back to check how I did it again. What I did was to use the Target Arc command. Put a very narrow arc out to a distant point, it will look more like a line. Then look at it from the side and it follows the terrain.

[womble]

Sometime a straight line is useful for judging declivities too: it can provide clues to the answer to the question, "Could I target a vehicle/standing infantry in that place where I can't target the ground?"