Climable Mountains - How To and Humbugs.

[WimO]

A few days ago I stumbled across Michael Dorosh's "TWC The Devil's Brigade at La Difensa". While it is an incredible work I did not like the map and decided to do another of my overhaul's. I am presently working on a replacement 4km x 4km map. Mr. Dorosh's scenario showed me how to make steep cliff's scalable - add a linear feature from top to bottom. Mr. Dorosh used only low walls. I experimented with tall and low walls as well as low bocage and hedge. I like the broken up appearance of the latter two and would have used the hedge feature in my map.  The famous movie incorrectly shows the special forces scaling the cliffs with ropes whereas the reality was that they walked and climbed up the steep slope as is revealed in a YouTube interview of then surviving veterans.  The humbug is that CM infantry climbing up a steep slope move just as far (measured in linear distance travelled) as those marching on similar terrain laid out flat (see enclosed screen shots) and that the climbers suffer NO increase in fatigue whatsoever. This absurdity is sufficiently disappointing for me to toss in the towel and give up on any further scenario and map development. For me it's kind of the 'last straw' of absurd humbugs (such as tanks hiding behind skinny trees from A/Tk fire and saw-tooth road). Think I'll spend more time tending to my flowers in future.

Edited June 8, 2022 by WimO

[JoMac]

I'm with you and have never liked the idea in CM of having Infantry move at the same rate no matter if flat or high cliff. It's way too abstracted, and very unrealistic.

[Vacillator]

This is news to me, and if so it does seem a very odd way of handling it.

However, I hope it won't stop your further endeavours!

Might this also be why I noticed on a certain 82nd Airborne map that I could run my HQ up and down a rather tall church steeple very quickly and without undue exhaustion?

 

[Warts 'n' all]

21 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Might this also be why I noticed on a certain 82nd Airborne map that I could run my HQ up and down a rather tall church steeple very quickly and without undue exhaustion?

Given the fact that virtually all the church towers that the 82nd have to run up in CM are Catholic, I suspect the work of the anti-Christ.

"Ouch, what the hell was that?"

"That was Granddad Paddy's fist, yer little gob****e".

[Vacillator]

5 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

all the church towers that the 82nd have to run up in CM

Ah but my HQ unit is not from the 82nd Airborne.  For this battle I am, as they say, of another persuasion.

[Warts 'n' all]

1 hour ago, Vacillator said:

Ah but my HQ unit is not from the 82nd Airborne.  For this battle I am, as they say, of another persuasion.

Paddy looks up from his pint of black.. "Yeah, and I had to serve under that little Anglican prig. HQ my fecking arrs. Couldn't score in a bordello. By the way, where is this here church?"

[Vacillator]

I fear I've misled Paddy again.  By 'another persuasion' I actually meant 'on the opposing side'.  I realise he will not be much pleased by that either.

The location is Amfreville, in WimO's '82N01 Boots on the Ground' battle.  While we we were instructed clearly that it is US vs AI only, my good friend and opponent in the battle suggested that we try it H2H, and he has a particular fondness for the 82nd.  That left me as the Axis AI, which I hoped would mean I have more strength than I might otherwise have been given.  No comment .

[WimO]

2 hours ago, Vacillator said:

I fear I've misled Paddy again.  By 'another persuasion' I actually meant 'on the opposing side'.  I realise he will not be much pleased by that either.

The location is Amfreville, in WimO's '82N01 Boots on the Ground' battle.  While we we were instructed clearly that it is US vs AI only, my good friend and opponent in the battle suggested that we try it H2H, and he has a particular fondness for the 82nd.  That left me as the Axis AI, which I hoped would mean I have more strength than I might otherwise have been given.  No comment .

A suggestion for playing Boots on the Ground - H2H. The American player must choose each turn to give new orders to either Lt. Col. Millet's force or Lt. Col. Timmes' force, but not both. Orders already given in a previous turn but not yet completed (ie, part of the blue movement line is still showing" may continue normally.

Suggestion #2. Units of both sides must move by normal move or cautious.  Sprint and fast moves are allowed only when crossing roads or within sight of a seen or heard enemy.

[Vacillator]

1 hour ago, WimO said:

A suggestion for playing Boots on the Ground - H2H. The American player must choose each turn to give new orders to either Lt. Col. Millet's force or Lt. Col. Timmes' force, but not both. Orders already given in a previous turn but not yet completed (ie, part of the blue movement line is still showing" may continue normally.

Suggestion #2. Units of both sides must move by normal move or cautious.  Sprint and fast moves are allowed only when crossing roads or within sight of a seen or heard enemy.

Hi Wim, that's very interesting thanks.  It may be too late for our attempt (I know I've moved various units at Quick and Normal) but I'll pass on your suggestions.

[Ultradave]

By coincidence really, this is much what I've been doing (I'm the 82d in the game between @Vacillator and myself). The first force has not moved for a while and I've been concentrating on the new arrivals since they came in. I was moving fairly cautiously in general, except when I sprinted across an open area, but that was after spending the time with a scout section to check that the coast was clear. So I think I've been living to the spirit of that, if not perfectly following. Not having any idea where the Germans are or how many or what kind of equipment, I've been pretty cautious. I've also been roughly following the instructions provided in the briefing for movement. I won't state that here so as not to give anything away but @WimO will probably know what I'm getting at.

Dave

[Vacillator]

8 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

after spending the time with a scout section to check that the coast was clear.

Ah that's where I've been going wrong, I wasn't looking for you at the coast .

[WimO]

I am in the end-game of "The 507th Has a Good Drop".  While it is a long game, it has been a great deal of fun.  A lot of cat and mouse action over a large map. My opponent playing as the 82nd has secured and held both objectives so far and we are in the last 15 minutes.  It certainly has the 'feel' of the real situation with all the bocage and never knowing where your opponent is during the movement across the map. My opponent has been great at submitting multiple turns per week and sometimes per day. That really keeps a long game going smoothly.  I am looking forward to see what the 'damage' is to both sides when the game wraps up. Regardless of casualties, if the 82nd holds on to Cauquigny by scenario end, it will be a strategic victory because it would mean that the Americans are holding both sides of the la Fiere causeway on D-Day, thus allowing the 505th to move across to join the 507th on D-day and not on D+4.

 

We are planing to try my largest scenario "A Night to Forget" next.  This will be huge, and in the dark with special movement rules for the 82nd. Another 'cat and mouse'.

[RMM]

@WimO I hope you don't give up and head to your garden my friend! I've generally had a blast with this 507th Good Drop (well...when my guys actually do their jobs anyway!) and looking forward to that Night to Forget !  One can only hope that the elusive 'Steve' is made aware and chooses to take on some of these egregious bugs that remain. My biggest beef is the inability to pickup and share any and all weapons and ammo, regardless of whether it was in the unit's original TO&E!

Re the discussion about movement in these scenarios, I could ago along with the speed limit of the 'Move' command, etc.; although, I would also suggest there also be allowance for leap-frogging alluded to by @Ultradave, since that's also a valid, RL tactic when moving through enemy - send out a scout team to cautiously cross an open section, while under overwatch from the rest of the unit. Then, once they're successfully across, rush over everyone else before the situation changes. It keeps a unit's exposure to a minimum, but would have to be on the honour system between players.

I do hope 'Steve' takes notes of the Engine 5 Wishlist and things like terrain v's movement that's been pointed out herein, since some corrections and the buddy-aid fixes would dramatically improve what is already a pretty good game system. Certainly better than any other I've come across over the years.

[WimO]

I should ammend my movement suggestion. It would apply only to night time hours of total dark in bocage country. This rule's concept should really only be needed for H2H games when players have foreknowledge of opponent's strengths and deployment areas, i..e they've had a look at the game beforehand and have a divine view of the situation unlike real life when the guys walking down the narrow lanes are wondering "golly where are we?".

[RMM]

14 minutes ago, WimO said:

I should ammend my movement suggestion. It would apply only to night time hours of total dark in bocage country. This rule's concept should really only be needed for H2H games when players have foreknowledge of opponent's strengths and deployment areas, i..e they've had a look at the game beforehand and have a divine view of the situation unlike real life when the guys walking down the narrow lanes are wondering "golly where are we?".

Good points

[Dr.Fusselpulli]

How did you do this slope in the first place? It is just every assigned square next to each other? Can we see an editor view of this test map? I'm interested in how you created this slopes. Also, terrain changes can get very hardware hungry, how did you manage to keep a larg mountainous map playable? I have a SF2 map which really lets me struggle a lot.

[WimO]

1 hour ago, Dr.Fusselpulli said:

How did you do this slope in the first place? It is just every assigned square next to each other? Can we see an editor view of this test map? I'm interested in how you created this slopes. Also, terrain changes can get very hardware hungry, how did you manage to keep a larg mountainous map playable? I have a SF2 map which really lets me struggle a lot.

Hello Dr.Fusselpulli: The screen grabs above are taken from the Editory.

How did I make the slopes?

For the non-cliff slope I increased 'every' square 3 metres vertical.

For the cliff slope I increased every square 5 metres vertical. This is the point at which the game automatically creates non-scalable cliffs.

For the steep cliff I increased every square 8 metres vertical and then added the linear features which transform cliff to non-cliff.

The very flat sides to the cliffs were created by pressing the CONTROL key at the same time as entering the height number along the edge of the cliff. In the Editor 2D view these numbers are highlighted in a blue outline. I learned this from another modder's example of how to create steep river banks when placing bridges.

Does that answer your question?

As for playability: I have made some very large 4 km x 4 km maps in the past (Les Haut Vents et Pont Hebert as well as Amfreville to la Fiere) which are covered in bocage and many features. They have all proven to be playable on my desktop and laptop but my computers are medium to high end (at least they were 5 - 8 years ago).

Edited June 9, 2022 by WimO
addition.

[Warts 'n' all]

Julie Andrews only had to spread her arms out and start warbling badly to be able to climb every mountain. 

[Vacillator]

6 hours ago, WimO said:

Regardless of casualties, if the 82nd holds on to Cauquigny by scenario end, it will be a strategic victory because it would mean that the Americans are holding both sides of the la Fiere causeway on D-Day, thus allowing the 505th to move across to join the 507th on D-day and not on D+4.

Wim, in the 'Good Drop' version I assume this is obvious to both sides? 

In the 'Boots on the ground' version, playing as the German AI (against instruction) this is of course not immediately obvious to the hapless German 'AI' player, except arguably for those in the 'historical know'.  Undertaking this role, I had assumed that an active defense was the way to go, but capturing Cauquigny would require an active offense.  My gentlemanly opponent Dave has also just informed me that he has another VP location that I know nothing about.  Does that mean whatever I achieve is hobbled by the strategic victory you describe, plus other unknown VPs?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining as it was clearly described as US vs AI only, just wondering whether to keep going as German...

 

21 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

Julie Andrews only had to spread her arms out and start warbling badly to be able to climb every mountain. 

I'm personally not a big fan, but the in-law side of the family seem to enjoy Julie spreading her arms.

[RMM]

7 hours ago, WimO said:

Regardless of casualties, if the 82nd holds on to Cauquigny by scenario end, it will be a strategic victory

Wasn't really aware of that, I must admit, or is that just an historical note? The scenario's VP only makes mention of the VP values for the Amfreville and Cauquigny VP areas. Would have sent more stuff onwards to Cauquigny if this is true in the scenario!

[Vacillator]

6 minutes ago, RMM said:

Wasn't really aware of that, I must admit, or is that just an historical note? The scenario's VP only makes mention of the VP values for the Amfreville and Cauquigny VP areas. Would have sent more stuff onwards to Cauquigny if this is true in the scenario!

Michael, please ask more, there's some useful intel for me here .

[RMM]

16 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Michael, please ask more, there's some useful intel for me here .

[Warts 'n' all]

27 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

I'm personally not a big fan, but the in-law side of the family seem to enjoy Julie spreading her arms.

No, I'm not a big fan either. Dreadful music, and the movie completely ignores the fact that von Trapp was a supporter of the clerical fascist regime. Oh hang on, that comment might be a tad too political.

[Ultradave]

In the real invasion, that causeway was a major exit point from the beach areas into the interior countryside, so holding the interior end of the causeway was a key objective. In real life they weren't able to and were forced away, which resulted in having to later force the causeway, which is a pretty famous action in the history of the 82d. Regardless of game VP costs, the end of that causeway was pretty important. 

For Amfreville (sp?) I'm assuming but don't know for sure that it's the first village/town with road intersections that would allow easier dispersal of forces into the interior (kind of guessing on this one but looking at the game map it makes sense).

Dave

[RMM]

1 minute ago, Ultradave said:

In the real invasion, that causeway was a major exit point from the beach areas into the interior countryside, so holding the interior end of the causeway was a key objective. In real life they weren't able to and were forced away, which resulted in having to later force the causeway, which is a pretty famous action in the history of the 82d. Regardless of game VP costs, the end of that causeway was pretty important. 

For Amfreville (sp?) I'm assuming but don't know for sure that it's the first village/town with road intersections that would allow easier dispersal of forces into the interior (kind of guessing on this one but looking at the game map it makes sense).

Dave

That certainly makes sense, and I'm finding out my history is pretty incomplete on this, since I thought the 82nd were able to continue to hold that end of it after the attack with Renault tanks. In terms of the scenario VP, I'm not sure if Cauquigny is an immediate total win or not though.