Arnhem14 map

[patboivin]

I've been working on a map of Arnhem too, only to discover after a while that I lost track of the directions, part of my map is twisted. Now I have to start over!

I'm going to use a grid for sure, this time.

I love the map for Arnhem14, apart from the railroad track being level with the town, the designer did a great job with lining up the buildings. There are hardly any straight roads in Arnhem!

Compromise, compromise. Why do we always have to compromise?

But he kept the flavour of the place better than I managed to do it, I think. I tried to stick too closely to the strategic map.

[Pak40]

Many thanks for the complements.

It was tough judging distances with the few sources that I had. But there were two sources that had great high altitude aerial photos of the city which allowed me to layout the basic street system. I think I quoted the titles of these books in the briefings.

But, like you said, compromise compromise. I had to make lots of them. Some of the blocks are bigger or narrower than I'd like them to be and obviously the streets were very hard to do because of all the odd angles. Also most of the smaller streets in Arnhem are very narrow which tends to distort the city blocks in the editor.

and to put my two cents in on about the railroad tracks- it is on an embankment one elevation higher than the surrounding terrain- if that's what you were refering to when you said "being level with the town"

[patboivin]

Not sure, all I have is a military strategic map like they sell at the Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek and black and white pictures in an old book.

I am looking at an aerial picture taken on 6 Sept. 1944 and at one point, the tracks were much lower than surrounding terrain, and this in effect created "walls" on either side, perfect for an ambush. It's where the train yard is, before the bridge that goes above the train yard if you are heading toward Arnhem. Looks something like this:

___.................................._____

......|............................|

......|_______________|

I don't know if this is going to show up properly when posted to the forum.

(no it didn't, the engine truncates blank spaces! I am using dots instead, maybe that will work).

It may not seem high but remember in that "trough" there are at least three train tracks side by side. So the gully if I can call it that is very wide, and the walls look like a major obstacle to overcome, if people wanted to try climbing them.

Then, after the train yard, the train tracks appear to rise as they turn a little away from the river, and soon there is a road going under them. It looks like you were correct to place them higher than surrounding terrain, they look like if they were on an ASL map they would be one level higher than surrounding terrain.

I haven't been there, I wish I could. I imagine things must have changed a lot, though.

I wish there was a way to model a vertical surface in the map editor, i.e. tell the editor "OK between this square and that one, there is a 3 level difference, but that difference is not a slope, it is vertical." We could model all sorts of walls, ditches, dikes, etc. with that.

I have to say again you did well with the placement of the houses, because when I look at the photos, some blocks had at least twenty houses on each side of the narrow streets, all packed together. I am reminded of pictures I saw of houses in the Netherlands that had a beam sticking out of their front façade, so people could hoist their furniture to the second floor. The houses were too narrow to bring the furniture upstairs from the inside.

Anyway, long post, but I spent hours peering over these aerial photos and the strategic map, it's not easy to model a city that doesn't have any straight roads using an editor that wants everything to fit on a square grid.

[This message has been edited by patboivin (edited 08-30-2000).]

[This message has been edited by patboivin (edited 08-30-2000).]

[ironcross]

i must admit that im an arnhem buff as they say, im off there in a couple of weeks, now the operation arnhem 14 is good but one thing still gets me is, after finishing the battle no matter how much of arnhem ive taken i get forced into a tiny enclave.

i have a photo of the railway cuttings near the museum where the south staffs got forced back. this cutting is rather deep and wide, also a lot of trees in the area.

the road from arnhem runs downhill towards oosterbeek, it then joins another road running uphill from the river. 1 para approached along this road and received hvy

fire from the embankment/slope overlooking the river,they also came under fire from across the river.

if i can get my scanner working i,ll send you some pics, i got them from the public records office here in uk. Also the reports by the south staffs

SORT OF SPOILER

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so far in 3 days of battle after inital routing of german blocking force i have come up against 1 squad and 3 halftracks?. 2 halftracks do not move and the other suicidally attacked me.

thats fine, i dont mind that what i do mind is being forced back and lossing 4-5 city blocks for no reason.

is there anyway of altering this???can u decrease the no mans land?

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[Pak40]

Ironcross,

Unfortunately, there is not much I can do about how much the computer AI attacks the British. The real problem lies in the scenario editor: battles have objective flags but operations do not (I HOPE YOU'RE LISTENING, STEVE). The German AI doesn't know to attack towards the bridge because I can't put an Objective Flag on it. The German AI is only concered with moving south(towards the river) and once units hit the river, they basically don't move any more. I found all of this out by playing the opertaion with the fog of war off.

BTW, no mans land is already set to 0 meters. Another fault of CM system is that the defender usually gets pushed back or his front lines get straigtened out between battles. Usually you will see a white set up zone with no units in it - another fault of the system. There's nothing I can do unless BTS fixes these problems.

This version may end up being a multi-player version only and I may make a totally newer version with a smaller map for the single person play.

[ironcross]

just keep the map as it is,set it up for single player mode,victory flag on embankment

after the bridge. a couple for the houses either side and one say half way down.

it really is an excellent map youve done.

[Pak40]

Thank you very much for the map complements,

The single player version will be an operation as well so I can't but objective flags in the game. I will make the map much smaller so that the germans will have much more contact with the British (hopefully)

Unfortunately, if I choose to make a battle or series of battles(as opposed to an operation) then I wont be able to simply copy the operation map into a battle map. I'll have to recreate the entire map from scratch. Therefore I wont want to or need to remake the entire map. The west approach is largely irrelevent to the battle for the bridge, therefore I will not remake it.