Locked Fortifications

[PzKpfwIII]

One suggestion I would offer for the final version of CM:C would be the ability, if not already present, for map designers to include fortifications as padlocked terrain features on the maps during the map design process (ie before any tactical battles are setup or played). For example, fortified buildings can be simulated by setting up and padlocking pillboxes onto terrain, then overwriting that terrain tile with a building. One could simulate not just fortified buildings such as in Stalingrad by this method, but also coastal batteries and emplaced fortifications; perhaps not so crucial in CMBB but with an eye to the evolution of a CMAK version where such fortresses were in existence at Tobruch, or even NW Europe.

Other workarounds that could make use of padlocked fortifications in the design process would include the use of barbed wire to simulate wire fences that may have historically been present, to name just one.

[Peterk]

Fortified buildings in Stalingrad were often several stories tall making a pillbox a bad choice for simulation purposes as well as esthetic purposes (sorry, streets full of pillboxes just wouldn't evoke Stalingrad for most players). I'd much rather have the big building than a pillbox as a defender in a city. You can squeeze more guys in; you have LOS in all directions and you can retreat when it's no longer tenable.

CMC should probably be able to do both - allow a designer to fix locations, as well as allow user placement. If it doesn't do the latter, people will definitely ask for it.

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by Peterk:

Fortified buildings in Stalingrad were often several stories tall making a pillbox a bad choice for simulation purposes as well as esthetic purposes

Yes, quite. I was of course referring to those cases in which they weren't.

(sorry, streets full of pillboxes just wouldn't evoke Stalingrad for most players).

Quite. Which is why I was suggesting the ability to put them inside the buildings rather than "in the streets". They would also be harder to spot, and much harder to flank, especially when located in a set of rowhouses where passage between walls is not possible.

However, my suggestion wasn't intended to start an argument about the best way to defend a city, it was a suggestion for being able to padlock terrain during the design process; consider my bunker suggestion just one example of this in action. You may want to discuss fortified buildings and the best way to simulate them in the Tips and Techniques section, as it would almost certainly be more appropriate there.

CMC should probably be able to do both - allow a designer to fix locations, as well as allow user placement. If it doesn't do the latter, people will definitely ask for it.

So your informed....guess...would be that we will either be able to do this...

... or we won't?

Thank you for your replies. I stand by my feeling that padlocking fortifications in the map design process will allow a little more flexibility for map designers, and do hope that it will be possible in the finished product.

Thanks.

[Peterk]

My guess is that definitely they will fix heavy fortifications as well as possibly trenches, minefields, barbed wire at both campaign design level and at game play level for stuff built/placed while the game is in progress. But that's only a guess based on what I would try to do.

Your suggestion of placing a pillbox inside a building is intriguing but that would be a Combat Mission change and that looks like it almost certainly would not be done. CMBB unfortunately doesn't really have any way of simulating an extra heavily fortified building (other than barbed wire /mines on the outside of it) which has always been bad news for those of us trying to simulate Pavlov's House.

[Bruce70]

As for trenches, if a player "digs" these for one battle then they should still be there for (some number of?) subsequent battles.

So it's not just a campaign designer issue, it's something that needs to be part of gameplay as well.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Bruce70:

As for trenches, if a player "digs" these for one battle then they should still be there for (some number of?) subsequent battles.

So it's not just a campaign designer issue, it's something that needs to be part of gameplay as well.

I'm confident that trenches, craters and battle damage remain on the map.