Things in ASL that aren’t in CMx2

[folkie]

 

 

Broadsword did that for our La Luzerne battle, but it didn't quite pan out.  Your units don't get good visibility from any type cellar windows and in addition artillery will just create a big hole from it.  It also created some odd pathing problems, but it was fun trying it.

 

The Hosingen map I did for Kohlenklau has cellars for just about every building. here is a screenshot from a test map I did before putting the cellars onto the real map. you can see the gi in the cellar, the 3 germans died. Ran some arty test on my test map and the cellars held up good until i tried the larger calibers, but any building can be knocked down with enough arty. I put a cellar door on just about every cellar too and for adjoing building i linked them inside with cellar doors to make interconnecting cellars. you could enter a cellar at one end of the block and go cellar to cellar then pop up at street level at the end of the block. 

 

[RockinHarry]

If BFC would allow doors (and balcony)on 2nd level to be used as entry when level to the ground, it "could" work maybe. So far it´s a building with locked doors on faked 1st story and entry only via the "basement" door. Need to try that (again), when I get to the Aachen map.

[folkie]

awww crap, i didn't test for that!   . i assumed a door is a door and the troops could enter. i was mainly looking at the entry and exit to the cellars. i also need to pay attention when i run a test, my troops didn't exit as i thought when i ran my cellar to cellar test. I feel like such a dunderhead right now 

[RockinHarry]

Folkie...actually it works as you said! Just made a quick test setup with 3 story modular buildings in 3m deep basement action spot. While it´s not possible to enter on the levelled 2nd floor and that´s new to me, ..you can exit from the balcony if all guys are placed there with the face command while inside the building! Beeing on the balcony already puts them effectively outside the building, but the balcony (flat variation) needs to intersect some with the ground terrain mesh. Also movement plotting needs to be at least 2 action spots.

Also tested, a breach team blasting to neighboring cellar where there were no connecting doors (just plain walls). A locked up building (no doors in the sunken basement) can always be entered with the blast command from outside. The blast opens a wall in the basement and any movement works through this entry. That´s nice new mouse holing variations.

Edited July 25, 2015 by RockinHarry

[akd]

Like I said, "almost," but the difference between almost and working featuring involves some pretty limiting behavior.

[folkie]

rocking harry,thanks for running a correct test. i also ditch lock 3m down and ditchlock the next square out from the building also to give the entrance way to the basement. so to get houses with cellars all we need is for BFC to make the 2nd story door enterable if there is a ground hex level with it, sounds simple enough. i just make maps so i was more concerned with how it looks and just ran some quick tests. i'll have to play around but i have an idea.

 

AKD- yes, but were close and just need the upper story doors to work as the 1st story doors. i guessing the limiting factor is guys trying to jump out of the upper story doors.

[folkie]

ok so we just add a smaller building attached to the larger building to use as an entry way and then drop the adjoining larger building and make sure we have a 2nd floor door on both buildings. 

[Bob Willett]

In ASL I liked two things not seen in CMBN that I wish could be added besides the fires that spread etc, and that was the process of dropping paratroopers and seeing where they land plus I liked seeing the planes on the board before and after they strafe or drop bombs etc.  CMBN does include the shooting graphics and it is directional so that's pretty close.

 

I, as well of others played ASL with a passion.  My biggest problem was I had only a few opponents whom I played against and in time that available time for us to play ASL H2H diminished with our family and work/career priorities etc.  The battles always took a lot of time to set-up and play.  To speed up start times we'd pre-plan our set-ups at home and come to the battle with our set-ups written down or already in place if I were hosting the battle.  We'd try and finish the battles on another day by first writing down all the units in their positions etc on a piece of paper in case the board had to be put away.  If the board could remain up it had to survive little kids or family pets possibly disturbing the game in spite of being placed in what we thought was a secure area.  Back in that day I was fortunate to have a small travel trailer stored in my side yard and I could put an in-progress board game on the table in my RV.  Walking it carefully out and into my RV without knocking over piles of units on the folding map sections, was a big challenge always!  

 

But, always, my biggest obstacle was finding joint time with my few buds who played the game too.  I had a few friends who tried to play but had never bought the game and I ended up spending too much time confusing them with the rules that it made it hard for them to follow and caused us to run out of time to finish the battles always. The rules were just too overwhelming for the non-owners and they were always at a disadvantage while playing the game too in spite of me giving them the easier side.  

 

Finding new opponents who had the time to play was very hard to do.  There was no INTERNET back then but we did have the Avalon Hill "The General" magazine that would come out periodically and there you could try and find opponents on the back page, if you were lucky.  I was fortunate the store where I purchased the ASL games and modules, had "opponents wanted" message boards but ASL players were hard to find on that board that lived nearby.  I tried one time using the board  but I had to travel to a nearby city to play that opponent.   This was not convenient nor was it time efficient but it was fun to find some other ASL addict that wanted to play who knew the rules.  Most of the time I spent several hours working on set-ups for the various battles and even tried doing some solitaire battles to test out my set-ups. In time, the games got stored in the garage along with the storage trays container that housed the game pieces. Unfortunately, after a few house moves they got left behind (shame on me) to make room for stuff my whole family used.  Fortunately, PC games like the "Close Combat" series came about and eventually CMBO-CMBN and the spirit of ASL got resurrected all to be stored on a PC and in a pile of CDs with their instruction manuals in the drawer of my PC desk and we no longer need a human opponent to play against!  And I can play against another human if I want who even lives several thousand miles away from me.  Wargaming has only gotten better in time!

Edited August 6, 2015 by Bob Willett

[para]

Can't the Gliders be present as flavor objects - even though not used as a means of transport in real time during battle. The use of gliders might be limited, though Historical battles happened using them, and I'm sure there were a few lying around burning or used as a CP. what the heck, perhaps one can enter it for cover same as one storey building ?

I played scenario operation dead stick - with pretty wording glider1, 2 and 3.. Who knows how it'd look like as discussed above. It can also contain ammo, where one can enter to 'acquire' additional equipment and ammo.

+1 I would be happy with them just lying around for eye candy along with discarded parachutes.

[Barkhorn1x]

Ahh...SL/ASL.  Bought the original SL (purple box) right after seeing the ad for it in The General - see pic #1. No wargame up to that time looked like that.  And, of course I bought most ASL modules, Delux ASL modules, Annuals, 3rd Party stuff and still have it all.

 

But I will never play ASL again because - and let's all be honest here - do I really want to memorize all those rules when  a high fidelity PC game like CMx2 will either let me move or shoot something or it won't?  Yea, thought so.  I attached another screenshot w/ a "brief" (in the ASL world) summary of hedge effects from one of the starter kits.  With CMx2 I don't need to determine who has "Wall Advantage" or that weird LOS hedge line across hexes C2/C3, I just move my units and shoot stuff.  Oh sweet bliss.

[fabishdFGM]

Ahh...SL/ASL.  Bought the original SL (purple box) right after seeing the ad for it in The General - see pic #1. No wargame up to that time looked like that.  And, of course I bought most ASL modules, Delux ASL modules, Annuals, 3rd Party stuff and still have it all.

 

But I will never play ASL again because - and let's all be honest here - do I really want to memorize all those rules when  a high fidelity PC game like CMx2 will either let me move or shoot something or it won't?  Yea, thought so.  I attached another screenshot w/ a "brief" (in the ASL world) summary of hedge effects from one of the starter kits.  With CMx2 I don't need to determine who has "Wall Advantage" or that weird LOS hedge line across hexes C2/C3, I just move my units and shoot stuff.  Oh sweet bliss.

You bring back some old memories.

[Heinrich505]

Yep, I've still got the purple SL box too, along with most of the modules and all things ASL.  Lots of good memories.  I played solitaire as I didn't have the time to hunt down opponents and my younger brother wasn't really that interested.

 

Always dreamed something would come down the pike to simulate those boards and counters.  CM arrived.  I still play with a sense of wonderment that this all happened and the counters are now represented by troops 1-1 fighting across a 3D mapboard that brings terrain to life.  I spend a lot of time at ground level looking at what the pixeltruppen see and remembering it was all imagination with the SL-ASL boards.

 

Pretty amazing when you think about how far we've come.

 

Heinrich505

[kensal]

Steve

 

One feature I would love to see and one which I think would particularly increase the accuracy of the game in the Normandy context is an additional 'weather' condition, a background battlefield smoke / haze, which would go a bit way beyond thick haze in terms of limiting spotting etc but not obscuring completely like laid smoke. It might ideally be patchy. 

 

Many of the accounts I have read of Normandy engagements comment on how smoke quickly built up during heavy engagements, and it would increase survivability

[slysniper]

To this day I still think ASL is what helped make me into a engineer. - If you could understand those rules, you pretty much can learn to understand pretty much anything.