A River Runs Through It (QB Wish)

[Hundminen]

I saw a post by Blackwood back in July, requesting rivers be added to QB's in a future patch. My prefered mode of PBEM play is QB, and a river feature with one or more crossings would add immense realism to the QB experience. We all know that rivers were used extensively as natural defensive barriers, and crossings created an opportunity for inferior forces to bottle up and concentrate fire power upon the enemy. I think this would be a MAJOR enhancement to the QB generator. The tactical possibilities are astounding.

So I am curious if BTS has any plans to implement such a patch in the future?

By the way, I am in awe of the QB generator as it stands today, and the brilliant code that is behind it. If Steve and Charles could eliminate all those little pyramids , surely they could add rivers as well.

[This message has been edited by Hundminen (edited 09-05-2000).]

[Hundminen]

BUMP

[Jarmo]

Would be cool.

Might throw a QB a bit off balance, if the attacker would have

a river to cross, but no bridges.

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Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of

our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir?

[Guest Madmatt]

Been aasked and answered before but here is the gist of it.

Both Bocage and Rivers would take considerable programing to make look 'right' in game. As such they were not included.

Bocage would be the harder of the two to code but since they could both in essence create unpassable terrain for the AI they were left out.

Charles has said that Rivers may be added to Auto-generated maps in the future, but it is doubtful that this would be in CM-1.

This is one of the 'On the List' features...

Madmatt

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[Mark IV]

Viewing the map after an experimental QB, I noticed the AI had placed a Hetzer in a boxed-in area near one corner of the map. It was a fairly good-sized area, maybe 60-80m square, but surrounded by trees on 3 sides, with the enemy map edge to its rear. The Hetzer never could have been committed to battle unless it's little square was attacked. Since the action was elsewhere, it never got used, even though it was desperately needed.

That would be an example of what could happen with rivers, I suppose. AI would have to make sure you got assault boats, etc., if it didn't come with bridges, and would have to route the river realistically. And can you hear the crying from opponents who find the AI-placed river tactically advantageous to the other side!

Would be nice someday....

[patboivin]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jarmo:

Would be cool.

Might throw a QB a bit off balance, if the attacker would have

a river to cross, but no bridges.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well you know if you don't come prepared, then you can't win, can you?

Everyone should have a boat or two in tow.

Never know, they could come in handy.

Maybe BTS will implement AFV snorkels.

[L.Tankersley]

Here's an opportunity for me to plug my suggestion of a week or so ago, to wit: provide an option for QBs to be played on previously-created maps. That way you could play on a known map (whether random or human-created) and still get to buy forces in secret.

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Leland J. Tankersley

[Hundminen]

Let me qualify some things:

Mark IV: True enough. I imagine rivers could be restricted to PBEM only.

Jarmo: Let's assume a random selection of either 1, 2 or 3 crossings (including at least 1 bridge).

[Razoo]

I dont know if this could work, but why not make a set of pre-designed rivers, then generate the rest of the landscape around it. There could be maybe 10 pre-designed rivers and the computer picks 1 at random then generates the rest of the land.

It seems kind of awkward to program though. Could it be done?

[Jarmo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Razoo:

I dont know if this could work, but why not make a set of pre-designed rivers...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sounds good, but.

What if the premade bridge in the premade river would happen

to point into a cliff? Or woods, or something else that's impassable.

Now, maybe it could be done in reverse direction, first

place the river, then generate terrain around it. But that would

require a lot of work, so it wouldn't be a

quick solution anymore.

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Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of

our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir?

[eba]

I second L.Tankersley's suggestion. The one thing that would add the most to CM in my view would be the ability to fight a QB on a pre-built map, either your own or a good random one.

[Hundminen]

L.Tankersly & eba:

Only problem with playing QB's on previously created maps is just that. They're previously created, and may be known to one player and not the other. Although, I agree, being able to pick battle type, size, and units on these maps would definitely be cool. And this, I think, would be relatively easy to patch.

BTS:

Care to chime in on this or the QB/river request?

[Seanachai]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hundminen:

L.Tankersly & eba:

Only problem with playing QB's on previously created maps is just that. They're previously created, and may be known to one player and not the other. Although, I agree, being able to pick battle type, size, and units on these maps would definitely be cool. And this, I think, would be relatively easy to patch.

BTS:

Care to chime in on this or the QB/river request?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like Leland's suggestion, and have before when this idea has come up. As far as knowing terrain: once you go to place units, you'll get a chance to see as much of it as the other guy. Now, a person who perhaps created the map might have a more thorough and intimate knowledge, but that's easy to get around by having some third friendly party design a map for you, then both parties in a PBEM, for example, come at it equal.

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[L.Tankersley]

I went into more detail the first time I presented the idea, but basically I was thinking that, if you played on a precreated map, you would send just the map file (i.e. a scenario file sans units) to your opponent so both could review it beforehand. This would let you both survey the terrain before purchasing forces.

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Leland J. Tankersley

[Sergei]

And going even further, this would be perfected by allowing you to preview the map, even a random, while in the buy-screen. Just as in Steel Panthers.

[Jarmo]

How about one step further into (gasp) CC direction, enabling

ready made scenarios to have a certain amount of free points, in

addition to predetermined forces.

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Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of

our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir?

[Hundminen]

I agree.

One of the best aspects of multiplayer CC2, which IMHO is superior to all subequent CC games, and perhaps the only aspect superior to CM is this:

1) The offering player would present a map with associated deployment zones, victory locations(attack/meeting/defend), and number of points for each side.

2) The second player would then have a chance to review the map to pick sides before starting. (What could be more fair?).

3) Then both players would spend their points on whatever units they wanted (not realistic but a hoot anyway), and deploy them on the map.

As a bonus, the second players' hard drive inherited the map automatically, for use in subsequent games.

I think it would be fantastic if BTS adopted something like this for CM or CM2.