Map Making Guide - Lines of Sight in Forest

[WimO]

Some years back, when I created my first map and scenario - 'Teufelsberg' to replace the game's original 'Devil's Hill' I conducted a bit of research on distance of penetration of lines of sight into various tree types and densities. This was necessary to produce a result similar to that reported by the combatants on the hill. While my research was not comprehensive to all tree types and densities, what I found is described below. This was accomplished by creating large areas of a single tree type at different densities and then trying to trace LOS through them in a variety of directions from a variety of locations.

Results:

Tree type E (conifer), two per map square - LOS range of 40-80 metres).

Tree type E (conifer), one per map square - LOS average 80 ± 10 meters, maximum >103 meters. Tree type C (deciduous) one per map square - LOS average 40 ± 5 meters, maximum 60 meters. 

Tree type A (deciduous) three per map square - LOS 15 ± 5 meters, maximum 31 meters)

Light Forest ground and Heavy Forest ground have identical LOS penetrations of 105-110 meters.

The foregoing were tested only in CMBN. Results may differ in CMFI, CMRT and CMFB

Edited May 7, 2022 by WimO
addition

[Lucky_Strike]

13 hours ago, WimO said:

Light Forest ground and Heavy Forest ground have identical LOS penetrations of 105-110 meters.

Very interesting.

Were the results with light and heavy ground with or without trees? Heavy includes more brush if I'm not mistaken, so should be harder to see through.

I have always thought, along with some other likeminded folks that we need an extra type of ground cover or object to place in woods to create a denser feel in places - thickets. The best way of mimicking this is to use individual sections of bocage or hedge as these can happily coexist on the same tile as trees or bushes. Also good for making areas impassable to almost everything.

[WimO]

30 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Very interesting.

Were the results with light and heavy ground with or without trees? Heavy includes more brush if I'm not mistaken, so should be harder to see through.

I have always thought, along with some other likeminded folks that we need an extra type of ground cover or object to place in woods to create a denser feel in places - thickets. The best way of mimicking this is to use individual sections of bocage or hedge as these can happily coexist on the same tile as trees or bushes. Also good for making areas impassable to almost everything.

Heavy and light forest ground were identical as far as LOS distance is concerned. A bit of a surprise that. I do not remember if I tested those ground tiles with or without trees. Again, the results are not at all comprehensive as they were specific to the map I was creating.

[Lucky_Strike]

When I get back to making some more foliage mods I will have to do some testing to see what effects various combos can have. I have my eye (the one good one!) on a potential scenario that I'd like to put together for a very specific encounter so it may be quite informative to make some tests.

[RockinHarry]

Unlike CMX1 titles terrain is now more WYSIWYG. CMX1 had abstracted LOS/LOF ground terrain types while the current version uses actual object geometries. Though would be interesting to know how much of a LOS obstruction the doodad objects provide. These seem generic single plane bilboard type objects then a texture applied to them. Think testing on different type ploughed fields should give a quick answer. (no crops, green crops, high summer crops etc). So likely light and heavy forest types has same LOS obstructions (from doodads) only differing in their movement obstacle nature, similar to mud, marsh etc.