Roads, infrastructure and such

[aesopo123]

I think it should be possible to develop the infrastructure of a hex to simulate roads, railroads. It can give a fraction bonus to movement, improved supply, reinforcement, etc., and may negate the ill effects of partisan activity if the hex is garrisoned. also it should give the defender a slight defensive bonus. Roads & railroads played major impact in warfare. Any thoughts?

[jon_j_rambo]

I've seen "Von Ryan's Express", the train & correct track can be very valuable. But at a strategic level...we'd be clicking alot of stuff per turn.

[ev]

Most of Western Europe had a good network of roads and railways. Given the scale of the game, by and far most hexes in Germany and France would have either a major railroad or road serving them.

A completely different story takes place in Russia. There were only a very few rairoad lines and major roads. The problem is how to represent this in a game of the scale of SC2. One idea:

I dare suggest that maybe we should have a new type of hex to repreent "clear square (hex) without infrastructure". Most of this "clear squares without infrastructure" would be in Eastern Europe. A clear hex without infrastructure would differ from existing clear hexes as follows:

1. Cannot operate units into or out of "clear sqyares without infrastructure"

2. Penalize supply in those squares; say distance for calculating supply cost twice as much as would cost when traversing through regular clear hexes.

3. Motorized (non-tracked) units could be subject to some additional movement pennalty when traversing this spaces (optional in my mind).

On a separate note, there were three very important rail lines in the Eastern Front. One of these ran from Poland to Minks to Moscow. Another ran from East Prussia through the Baltic States to Leningrad. And, yet another wan ran from Rumania into the Ukraine, and once it split in the Ukrain it split north towards Kiev and south towards Odesa. These rail lines were key to the supply of German Armies operating in Russia. If Hubert is considering to represent some infrastructure in SC2 (aside from ports), these rail lines should be in the list.

There is board game called War in Europe published by SSI some 25 years ago. (I think that company no longer exists, though there is a new company with a similar name.) The main map for that game was huge (about 10 x 6 ft). Among other things, the map included the main rail lines of WWII and a great model for using rail transport, conversion of rail gauges, breaking of railines, etc. Each hex represented a 30 x 30 mile area - not far off from Hubert's map. If any of you ever have a chance, have a look at it.

That game incorporated some other interesting ideas:

* Players had to keep a balance between the number of factory centers and mining centers. Production would be penalized if your did not have an adequate balance.

* There were major and minor ports. You could embark in minor ports, but they were very poor at giving supply to units.

* Units had to be bought with several turns in advance. Low quality infantry would be ready in little time (say one month for the lowest quality russian infantry), while better quality units would take a lot longer.

* For the Russian Campaign, there was a population pool and a manufacturing pool. In order to produce a unit you needed enough population and enough manufacturing capacity. Some unit types required a lot of population but less manufacturing, say infantry units. Other units required a lot of manufacturing with little population, say air units. Reinforcements cut into both pools. Replacement of excessive infantry losses would not affect much your manufacturing pool, but could deplete the population pool.

* A player had to buy Amph Points or Air Transport points before making and Amphibious or Paradrop Landing. There was a pool for Amph Points and a pool for Air Transports. It usually took several turns before a player accumulated enough equipment to performe a major invasion. During a Landing a random percentage of these points would be lost, the remaining points would become available after a few turns of refitting.

,,.hope some of these ideas are interesting to you all.

[SeaMonkey]

This would be an easy simulation. Take SC1 feature that only allows operations into a Supply level 5 or greater city. When the USSR cities are conquered they will only allow for level 4 supply until our vaunted "Engineering" unit arrives upon the scene to aid in the expansion of the infrastructure, taking the city to the next level of supply (5). The "Engineering" unit could also be delegated with the ability to provide for minor port facilities on the "Islands of No Return" allowing disembarkation from that local. I would also like to see the "Engineering" unit have the ability to provide a limited enhancement to the supply level of any tile.

[pzgndr]

A completely different story takes place in Russia. There were only a very few rairoad lines and major roads. The problem is how to represent this in a game of the scale of SC2.

I'm thinking we can use the new weather feature here to our advantage. We can now create new weather zones, each with their unique weather effects. So, create a Russian weather zone where rain/mud (Rasputista!) has more severe movement restrictions, winter storms are a bit more severe, etc. Viola!

[ev]

Originally posted by pzgndr:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> A completely different story takes place in Russia. There were only a very few rairoad lines and major roads. The problem is how to represent this in a game of the scale of SC2.

I'm thinking we can use the new weather feature here to our advantage. We can now create new weather zones, each with their unique weather effects. So, create a Russian weather zone where rain/mud (Rasputista!) has more severe movement restrictions, winter storms are a bit more severe, etc. Viola! </font>

[aesopo123]

ditto here. Control of vital transportation lines and hubs were very essential in warfare. They were fought for viciously and targeted for major bombing campaigns (hint-hint more depth to bombing campaigns).

[Retributar]

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Originally posted by pzgndr:

[QB]

[pzgndr]

Too-Bad the Map-Size can't be doubled or tripled to aleviate that problem. This would allow for more detail and more features in the game! I think i read elsewhere that due to the choice of programming that the map was limited to 250 X 250...

Let's think about this. The SC2 limit is 256x256, which would provide a grand total of about 65,536 tiles. Now, just how many unit activities does one consider to be an ideal number in order to play a game turn in a reasonable amount of time? Do you really want to be scrolling all over the map moving hundreds of units each turn?

FWIW, my other gaming passion is Schwerpunkt's Russo-German War with 10-mile hexes, division units and 1-week turns. Full front scenarios with a lot of activity going on, like Barbarossa, take a couple of HOURS to get through a complete game turn. Anglo-German War will go to 7.5-mile hexes and cover most of Europe. If you want more detail and more features, there are other games that provide it.

The SC2 map is only about 120x38, which makes it manageable for a game of this scale. If you want to create a custom game with more detail then the SC2 editor will allow it, but understand what the impact on gameplay is likely to be. I just don't consider the currrent scale and scope of SC1/SC2 to be a "problem." Being able to play a full campaign game in about 20 hours or so is about right.

[J P Wagner]

Agree Bill...some people's eyes are bigger than their stomachs....

[Arthur Krupp]

You could have an auto feature for it-saves button clicking, you just set start and finish destinations and let the corps of engineers do the legwork.

[ev]

Originally posted by aesopo123:

I think it should be possible to develop the infrastructure of a hex to simulate roads, railroads. It can give a fraction bonus to movement, improved supply, reinforcement, etc., and may negate the ill effects of partisan activity if the hex is garrisoned. also it should give the defender a slight defensive bonus. Roads & railroads played major impact in warfare. Any thoughts?

Perhaps it would be easier for Hubert if we look at this from the other side of the coin. I mean, most of Western Europe had good infrastructure. That is most terrain was well connected to the road and rail network...

However, there were huge areas of land in Russia (and North Africa, northernmost Scandinavia, Turkey, etc.) which did not have this kind of infrastucture. We can think of this tiles as "unconnected" from the infrastructure grid...

Units should not be allowed to operate in or out of "unconnected" tiles.

Supply through "unconnected" tiles should be more difficult, i.e. cost more movement points, hence reducing the effective supply range of units located in or on the other side of unconnected territory.

Finally, we could allow players to use engineers to connect an unconnected hex to the infrastructure grid - at some cost. Conceivably, this could become important for the Germans as they try to advance ever deeper into Russia.

[Red Fleet]

Railroad lines were vital in supplying the huge armies in all theaters.

Especially the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union was dependent on supply by rail. The lorries just could not take all the distance, just the last miles from railroad stations. The problem was that the Russians were using other track widths than the Germans. And tried everything to destroy or evacuate all trains. So engineers had to widen the track after the German forces controlled the area. In SC2 engineer units would do these widening, may be one or two tracks per turn?

Of course railroad tracks were prime targets for partisans and fighter bombers...

In the West the infrastructure was indeed much better. But the "strangling" by the British and US airfleets hindered their supply after D-Day.

Overall infrastructure is difficult to depict on such large scale maps, but railroad tracks just might add a lot of spice to SC2.

[Retributar]

You Know .... it the Germans were smart about the Russian Railroad track width's...they should have modified some of their train-sets...to use the Russian tracks...as well as use something like containers...so that transfering cargo from one train to another would not have been too burdersome.

Seems to me to be a lot less trouble than trying to re-track the entire Soviet Union.

Hindsight is always 20-20!.

[ June 01, 2004, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Retributar ]

[ev]

Originally posted by pzgndr:

Let me do some math:

120 tiles is 6,000 miles. The distance from the Caspian Sea to the Great Lakes is about 5800 miles.

38 tiles is 1900 miles. The distance between the Suez Canal and the northernmost tip of Finland is around 2900 miles. But 48 tiles would be 2900... are you sure the correct map size is not 120 x 48?

Now bear with me for a second:

From the tip of Africa to the tip of Scandinavia we have 7500 miles or 150 tiles. From New York to Madrid to Seul to San Francisco we have just under 15000 miles or 300 tiles. Add a few more tiles if you measure at the equator...

Elsewhere someone mentioned that it may become necessary to alter the scale of the tiles at sea. i.e. make sea tiles represent a larger area and reduce movement of sea units. This makes perfect sense... now.

I don't think SC3 needs to include all of the U.S. It is enough to show the east coast and one end of the map and the west coast on the other side of the map. And we can also skip Chile and Peru. That's why I did not measure the whole globe all around but only from NY to Madrid to Seul to San Francisco. This way can make a pretty good map for SC3 with 256 x 256 tiles. We would be 44 tiles short but hey Siberia, the Pacific and even the Atlantic are huge. No one will notice if you take a few bites here and there.

You have my full and unconditional endorsement for SC3 2005.

Postdatum 1: ...regarding scale: Whenever you flatten the surface of the earth into a two dimensional map, you are stretching the northern and southernmost territories and shrinking the ecuatorial countires. So when you move your units in North Africa you are actually covering much more space per tile than in Finland. SC3 could (should?) address this by including a scale factor that reduces or increases AP's as a unit moves closer or farther away from the equator. I would call this a lattitude scale factor.

Postdatum 2: This thread is about "Roads, Infrastructure and such". I hope you all don't mind my stretching the "such" part a bit. :cool: