Photography Mission: Urban Terrain In CM

[David Aitken]

A feature of King's Bridge takes me on to my next section:

3. STEPS

I think urban scenarios are much poorer for the lack of steps. Currently in CM, when a squad traverses a slope they will slow down, and a cliff is completely out of bounds. In a rural scenario this makes sense. In the city, however, there are many situations where a slope or a cliff is easily traversible thanks to a flight of steps. Moreover, when a city is constructed, constant, rolling terrain is terraced to allow for buildings and roads, creating dramatic elevation differences where steps are a necessity. CM cannot yet handle terracing, and as such, steps are not so much of a necessity. They would definitely make a difference just now, but they will really come into their own as the CM engine develops to allow for more dense and varied terrain.

Steps are very often to be found sandwiched between buildings. As with the closes featured earlier, in this case the steps pass underneath a tall building via an archway. Consider the "A Walk In Paris" scenario included with CM. Restricted to the tile system, a city becomes a grid where each large square is either a building, a road or a garden. A narrow 'alley' can be approximated by interspersing the 'heavy' tall buildings with 'light' tall buildings, which are slightly narrower with space on either side. This creates a means of passing through the row of buildings without having to enter them. This 'alley', of course, can only be flat and grassy – it cannot take you up to a higher level, and if it were sloped, it would slow infantry down, when in reality a flight of steps would allow them to move nearly as quickly as a level road. Of course, whether it would be advisable for infantry to rush around in confined spaces between buildings is another matter.

This is a nice example of terracing. Here we have two parallel roads with a row of buildings in between, but they are at different levels. I didn't check, but if the buildings have an entrance at the back, it will be a floor higher than the front entrance. A flight of steps (essentially a helical staircase) facilitates a vertical ascent to the higher level. This also illustrates how steps are not always just a ground-hugging feature, but are very often almost a building in themselves. (The blue kiosk is either Dr Who's Tardis or a Victorian police box, depending on who you ask.)

A wider, more open flight. Notice how, rather than each step being longer to follow the slope, they are of set dimensions and there are landings at regular intervals to spread them out. In tactical terms, this would provide infantry with some cover if fired upon from the top or bottom of the steps. An uninterrupted flight would offer no more cover than a road.

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[David Aitken]

An even shorter, wider flight. This seems to serve little purpose; such a feature would only be found in a location of particular value, such as leading up to an important building, or in this case, leading down from a main street (Princes Street) to adjacent Gardens. The main point of interest here is the thick stone barriers at either side. These are carved and are not solid, but are rather sturdy and would serve the same purpose as the battlements of a castle. Infantry could use the gaps as firing ports, and would be afforded considerable small-arms and shrapnel protection by the stonework. This serves as an example of how certain architectural features often carry embellishments which alter their tactical value.

This is a slightly different concept. Very steep hills might seem unsuitable even for a flight of steps. Set at an angle, in this case even a simple ramp is sufficient. Even a near-vertical cliff can be made traversible in this way. On CM's scale this would maybe be too subtle a feature; such ramps tend to be very long and thin, and cover a large area without occupying much space. This would not just apply to urban scenarios, however – a mountain trail would be done in the same way. Consider how the apparent insignificance of a mountain trail belies its importance – it may just be a little ramp cut into the side of a hill, but without it there's no way to get up unless you're a trained mountaineer, and even then it'll take you a long time.

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[David Aitken]

Lastly, some more examples of a feature which I mentioned at the beginning of the thread.

4. RAILINGS

This is actually a combination of railings and terracing, but I neglected to emphasise the latter. You can see the street below – the wall drops vertically down to the lower level. The railings here are important – from a civilian perspective, at least – and again, as such, are probably originals. From a tactical perspective the terrace would present more of an obstacle than the railings. I'm not sure how often infantry would be inclined to climb or abseil a terrace rather than going around it; the railings would provide a useful anchor for these purposes.

Here is an example of railings having been removed. In this case they were obviously unnecessary, and have not even been replaced in the post-war period. There are many examples of replacements around town, which are obvious as they do not align with the original stubs. (Tactical note: In some cases the stone base would be high enough to provide cover for infantry.)

This is a poor example of a very interesting issue. There are many buildings around town, especially in the New Town, which are set some way back from the street. The ground in between is terraced so that the base of the building is actually a floor below street level, and the front door is accessed via a bridge. I could, and should, have provided some much better examples of this, but you get the idea. From a tactical perspective, this creates something of a modern-day moat, preventing infantry from entering the building directly via the windows.

5. 'Over-the-Shoulder' Effect

This is not a section in its own right, but rather a culmination of various of the issues discussed above.

A combination of tall buildings and sharp elevation changes gives occupants of the top levels of some buildings LOS over the rooves of other buildings. This illustrates how urban battlefields must always be thought of in three dimensions, and how two-dimensional games such as Close Combat cannot hope to realistically simulate the nature of urban combat. On a two-dimensional map, you would never guess that I have LOS from this sloped close, over the rooves of four-storey buildings to the top floors of those beyond.

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[David Aitken]

CONCLUSION

The nature of urban terrain is extremely complex and unpredictable, and would be very difficult even to approximate in a computer game, especially where the terrain is only supposed to provide a backdrop for the action. Moreover, the impact of the surroundings only really hits you when you are in amongst them, rather than hovering above the rooftops. As I have mentioned previously, maybe accurately simulating ancient cities in CM would not actually have a significant effect on the gameplay. If it were a first-person or a squad-orientated game, this would be far more important than in the platoon- or company-orientated game that CM is. But in a situation where people on this forum are inclined to very closely analyse the actions of their digital infantry, it is important to consider the circumstances their soldiers might, in reality, be facing; and each enhancement BTS programs will bring greater understanding of what is actually happening on the ground, more imaginative tactics to account for this, and a more realistic and absorbing experience.

I have no intention of telling BTS how to code their games, but I have a few ideas about how CM's modelling of the features I have discussed might be enhanced.

• Earlier in the thread, we came to the conclusion that making the tiles smaller would be the best thing to do. On further thought, I see the main problem being that everything is tied to tiles. Roads, buildings, even walls must occupy a single tile each, and all are restricted to four axes. I think the biggest single enhancement would be to divorce objects from tiles, and allow them to be placed independently. Buildings could be arranged in a more irregular and realistic pattern. Roads and walls could be plotted as lines rather than objects; this way they need not occupy an entire tile, and could trace a curving path to follow the terrain.

• Steps or ramps could be treated as something between roads and walls – a narrow band which would allow infantry to traverse even the steepest cliffs.

• You could specify the elevation of a building, allowing it to be set into the ground so that the terrain need not be level all around. The accessible sides could also be specified, and infantry would enter on the floor closest to their access point.

• The elevation of a road could also be specified at intervals; for example, you could place a 'pier' which would hold the road a specific distance above the ground (the road would be straight in between piers). This would replace bridges, as the current system is very limited.

• In the editor, locations could be specified where infantry are able to leave bridges to access adjacent buildings. The buildings would be right next to the road anyway, but the engine obviously could not be expected to recognise this, so I imagine a line would be drawn from the edge of the bridge into the building to indicate that there is an entrance. This would allow for buildings fronting onto different streets at different levels.

• Terracing is probably one of the most fundamental improvements which could be made to the engine, but I have left it until last because I can't immediately think of a way to implement it. In the context of the CM editor, it would be a matter of a line where the ground was level at either end, but on one side it rises while on the other it falls, creating a vertical drop in the middle. The least difficult solution would maybe be reducing the tile size, allowing for sharper elevation changes; this would not create true terracing, but I don't know whether that is feasible.

Thanks for reading – let me know what you think, or of any other ideas you might have. =)

Next up: European Weather Patterns To Make Game Programmers Weep!

David

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[Steve P]

David,

Nice pics and an interesting read, How did you manage to get Rab C Nesbit to appear in one of the photo's on page 2 :.}

[M. Bates]

It would be a good idea to have buildings only entered from certain sides. Dunno how that would "look" in 3D in CM2 tho.

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by David Aitken:

This is a slightly different concept. Very steep hills might seem unsuitable even for a flight of steps. Set at an angle, in this case even a simple ramp is sufficient. Even a near-vertical cliff can be made traversible in this way. On CM's scale this would maybe be too subtle a feature; such ramps tend to be very long and thin, and cover a large area without occupying much space. This would not just apply to urban scenarios, however – a mountain trail would be done in the same way. Consider how the apparent insignificance of a mountain trail belies its importance – it may just be a little ramp cut into the side of a hill, but without it there's no way to get up unless you're a trained mountaineer, and even then it'll take you a long time.

As someone who spent several years walking the hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, I can attest to this. The majority of trails were created by the meanderings of livestock who invariably chose the line of least resistance. This might take a much longer path, but the effort at each point was less.

On the subject of terrain, I am still in the dark as to whether the CM engine accounts for military crests and whether units moving on a skyline are particularly vulnerable to spotting and fire.

Michael

[David Aitken]

Michael emrys wrote:

> On the subject of terrain, I am still in the dark as to whether the CM engine accounts for military crests and whether units moving on a skyline are particularly vulnerable to spotting and fire.

I believe the conclusion was 'no' in both cases. You've seen the threads I have in mind, but I reckoned they were pretty conclusive.

BTS PLEASE COMMENT ON TOPIC "ARE HILL CREASTS COVER"

Simon's site (scroll to bottom for LOS issues)

Does your background 'hide' you?

David

[Black Five]

Stop posting pretty pictures. I'm stuck at 29 Palms and these pictures are killing me. In case your wondering, 29 Palms is in the middle of the Southern Cali desert. I'm from the East Coast and aside from great sunsets the desert is rather blah.

[David Aitken]

Black Five wrote:

> I'm from the East Coast and aside from great sunsets the desert is rather blah.

You've got a company of tanks, don't you? You can do us an illustrated dissertation on armour tactics and the way the command structure in CM can be improved. =D

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by David Aitken:

Michael emrys wrote:

> On the subject of terrain, I am still in the dark as to whether the CM engine accounts for military crests and whether units moving on a skyline are particularly vulnerable to spotting and fire.

I believe the conclusion was 'no' in both cases. You've seen the threads I have in mind, but I reckoned they were pretty conclusive.

BTS PLEASE COMMENT ON TOPIC "ARE HILL CREASTS COVER"

Simon's site (scroll to bottom for LOS issues)

Does your background 'hide' you?

David

This is a classic example of why I hate having people refer me to other threads. Half an hour of reading and the only post that came remotely close to the questions I was raising was Iggi's:

"Are units moving along hill crests easier to spot because of thier outline with the sky?"

and it never got replied to.

Michael

[Simon Fox]

All good stuff and grist for the CM2 mill. As Andreas pointed out earlier many of these issues could be improved with a greater variety of tiles. Which brings me to:

However, there are fundamental ways in which CM maps are much more suited to rural landscapes than cityscapes.

With the exception of bocage. I have yet to see a bocage map which evokes the claustrophobia and isolation of the real thing. The main reason is the absence of tiles in which the bocage runs along the edge of the tile and road tiles with bocage close on either side of the road. The same applies to hedges and walls. More tiles are needed I fink.

BTW looks cold. The closest we have to that white stuff is beach sand hehe.

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"Stand to your glasses steady,

This world is a world of lies,

Here's a toast to the dead already,

And here's to the next man to die."

-hymn of the "Double Reds"

[David Aitken]

Michael emrys wrote:

> This is a classic example of why I hate having people refer me to other threads.

Sorry, you've posted in both the threads I linked to so I assumed you'd remember them. Your quote from iggi was in the first thread, which I believed was relevant to your comment about military crests. iggi was a main contributor to the second thread, which was all about whether a unit's background affects its visibility. Skylining obviously fits into this category, doesn't it? In other words, his question was answered, but not in the first thread.

Would you prefer just being told to "do a search"? =)

David

[crepitis]

David you dont by any chance work for the Scottish Tourist Board,do you?You've somehow managed to make the east coast look attractive,some lovely pics of Scotlands "other" city!.Seriously though I have been very impressed by your posts in this thread,with excellent accompanying pictures,presented in a thought-provoking and articulate way.Keep up the good work.(As a by-product i'm sure you've got a lot of people looking out their passports and heading for Scotland!)Cheers,Bob.

[ropey]

I'd go for divorcing objects from the tiles. Wouldn't it be nice to pick a Bocage 'pen' and draw the line of bocage exactly where we wanted it? Or barbed wire, or high walls, or even building walls.

First place your underlying terrain and elevations, then draw away.

Aah, but dreams are free. Only 100 more barbed wires to place in my Cassino map...

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Never leave your mind so open your brains fall out.

[David Aitken]

crepitis wrote:

> You've somehow managed to make the east coast look attractive,some lovely pics of Scotlands "other" city!

I might actually be moving west depending on how my career works out. I haven't seen enough of Glasgow, and there's plenty of it to see!

ropey wrote:

> Wouldn't it be nice to pick a Bocage 'pen' and draw the line of bocage exactly where we wanted it?

The way I see it, Charles has effectively created ready-made tiles with a building or a wall already placed onto them. Presumably the modelling of these features cannot be done on-the-fly within the game engine – it has to be hard-coded, and as such Charles is forced to provide a limited number of ready-made examples. I've no idea what it would take to allow object placement to be done on-the-fly, but this is what I am suggesting, if it were ever likely to be possible. =)

David

[Guest Germanboy]

Excellent stuff David. I think you have a really good eye for this kind of stuff. Thanks for the pitures of the model of Victoria Street. I really hope BTS manages to do more tiles for CM2.

And also thanks for the great cartoon of our trip to Hastings. Excellent work! I am still chuckling when I look at it.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[David Aitken]

Germanboy wrote:

> And also thanks for the great cartoon of our trip to Hastings.

Glad you like it, Peter had to sell most of his sheep to pay me. =)

[chrisl]

Originally posted by Black Five:

Stop posting pretty pictures. I'm stuck at 29 Palms and these pictures are killing me. In case your wondering, 29 Palms is in the middle of the Southern Cali desert. I'm from the East Coast and aside from great sunsets the desert is rather blah.

The desert is awesome. I'm from the midwest, and (now that I live in CA) I love going out there. You just have to look around more-- especially down at the ground, where there's all sorts of stuff going on. The rock formations are really cool too.

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"If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and ketchup on a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough aquavit to be ready for lutefisk." (stolen from some web page about lutefisk)

[Cos]

Originally posted by David Aitken:

Aye, that's what I would have thought. I still think railings would be an interesting addition to the game. They can't be any scarcer than Jagdtigers. =D

David

Make an interting barrier, infantry can fire through them fairly easy, but when that Jagdtiger takes a shot and the round hits the railing and sends the round flying who knows where (if it doesn't just blow up on contact).

[David Aitken]

Cos wrote:

> but when that Jagdtiger takes a shot and the round hits the railing and sends the round flying who knows where (if it doesn't just blow up on contact).

I suspect an explosive round would usually detonate, although if it were far enough off centre it might just bounce slightly off course. Small-arms fire is where you'd get all the ricochets. It would be interesting to hear from a veteran on whether railings present a severe health hazard under fire.

David

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by David Aitken:

Michael emrys wrote:

> This is a classic example of why I hate having people refer me to other threads.

Sorry, you've posted in both the threads I linked to so I assumed you'd remember them. Your quote from iggi was in the first thread, which I believed was relevant to your comment about military crests. iggi was a main contributor to the second thread, which was all about whether a unit's background affects its visibility. Skylining obviously fits into this category, doesn't it? In other words, his question was answered, but not in the first thread.

Would you prefer just being told to "do a search"?

Nooooo!!! [shrieks; recoils in horror] How can you even speak of such a thing?

And I don't mean to sound disagreeable either. Most of the missed communication was my own fault.

What I am trying to say is that the military crest of a hill or ridge is not necessarily its highest point but the point at which the curve of the hill/ridge becomes silhouetted against the sky when viewed from below. An illustration would be far simpler than trying to explain it in words, but alas I have no way to provide one here.

The point being that savvy troops would try to avoid crests like the plague, especially moving along or even across one, because it would greatly multiply your likelihood of being spotted. On the face of it, this is a significant enough feature to warrant inclusion in the game...BUT...I expect that it would be a real ball-buster for the computer to have to calculate the LOS to determine whether any specific unit is silhouetted from the point of view of any other specific unit.

Just thinking out loud...

Michael

[David Aitken]

I think things were going pretty quickly over the holiday weekend, so I'll knock this back to the top for the benefit of those who read the forum from work. =)

[Sig]

Originally posted by David Aitken:

(snip) I think the biggest single enhancement would be to divorce objects from tiles, and allow them to be placed independently. (snip)

Agree *entirely* with this one. It would be a major improvement and help to create realistic (as close as possible) urbanised (incl. villages) European areas. Just to add to the topic of European villages: farms are often not isolated in the middle of the countryside, but integrated close to each other in a village. They can even be tightly linked together: in the village where I lived, the main road was limited on one side by "solid" row of 7 linked farms. We just hoped no fire would start when the north wind was blowing...the row was oriented N-S... .

Complex and "anarchic" village structures are quite difficult to properly model with the 20m-tile system.

BTW, very nice pictures David. Visited Scotland (and Edinburgh) few years ago. Aaah..souvenirs. Mmh, were did I put my passport again?

Sig

[David Aitken]

Sig wrote:

> farms are often not isolated in the middle of the countryside, but integrated close to each other in a village.

Good point. In America farmsteads have always been out in the middle of nowhere, and I think that's the norm here nowadays, but in Britain at least farming used to take place in the fields surrounding small villages. By the old system (before it was overhauled, I think, in the 19th Century), rather than having large areas to themselves, farmers were allocated strips of land spread out over the good and bad areas. This was fair, but it was also inefficient. The point is that a group of farmers worked and lived in close proximity, rather than having their own discrete farms. While this of course predated the Second World War, the villages and farms in question would continue to be used.

David