Fortifications and their value

[Markus86]

I just played a quick battle, where I was defending an objective, approachable by 3 bridges. So I thought, hey spend some points on defense structures and make only 1 approach passable. With barbed wire, antitank-obstacles and mines I tried to achieve it.

And now guess what. It doesn't work. All the obstacles are a waste of points. I tried it 5 times to place them in all kind of positions. But no chance. With this strange tile placement system it's impossible. And when you think, hey this could work, the infantry is just walking through the sidewalls of the bridge.

To make this game even more fun, my only antitank peace is suddenly in a house and can't be moved anywhere.

When I immobilised a tank on the bridge, I was so happy and thought "what a nice obstacle". But the infantry is just walking through the tank.

The game has some interesting aspects and sometimes some great moments. But on the whole it plays like an alpha build. It's like Battlefront has interesting ideas (i.e. defense structures) but you can't implement them in a working way. After the first "patch" I'm really sad I spent money on this one.

But maybe someone can proove me wrong and I just suck at placing these structures.

[siffo998]

When I immobilised a tank on the bridge, I was so happy and thought "what a nice obstacle". But the infantry is just walking through the tank.

this is some kind of game abstraction... but seriously do you expect that a immobilized tank standing on a bridge is a real obstacle for infantry ? in reality they would simply climb over that tank or squeeze their body through tank and the handrail, or crawl under the tank. i think with this kind of game abstraction it is solved much better than in other games where infantry runs against a tank like stupid and cannot pass through instead of simply climbing over it etc.

[YankeeDog]

this is some kind of game abstraction... but seriously do you expect that a immobilized tank standing on a bridge is a real obstacle for infantry ? in reality they would simply climb over that tank or squeeze their body through tank and the handrail, or crawl under the tank. i think with this kind of game abstraction it is solved much better than in other games where infantry runs against a tank like stupid and cannot pass through instead of simply climbing over it etc.

Yep. Ditto for the obstacles at the end of the bridge. IRL, it would take a lot of wire to completely prevent infantry from passing through the end of a bridge -- the infantry could hop over the railing close to the end of the bridge and drop down onto the ground nearby, etc. So it doesn't bother me in the slightest that it's difficult to create a completely impassable wire barrier at the end of a bridge.

The AT gun in the building thing, however, my be a bug... I think I recall someone else having a similar issue a while back.

[Sgt Schultz]

There is nothing really wrong with your deployment or the game engine. It looks like you want "impassable" and that is not an option even in real life unless you bulldozed a rubbled building to the bridge end.

While I may have played around more with obstacle deployment in that particular case, what you should realistically expect is a SLOWING and CHANNELING of the enemy into your kill zone.

Less obstacles and spend the difference on two LMG teams and a 'schrek team covering that bridge, and you have a death trap.

Place obstacles at edges and leave center open in a small slot. The TacAI will choose point of least resistance and then try to squeeze everyone through the gap, to their deaths.

[Markus86]

this is some kind of game abstraction... but seriously do you expect that a immobilized tank standing on a bridge is a real obstacle for infantry ? in reality they would simply climb over that tank or squeeze their body through tank and the handrail, or crawl under the tank.

in principle you are right. but you have to admit:

1. it takes way more time to get from A to B, if you have to climb over an obstacle

2. the amount of persons, to get from A to B in a specific time,is lower. 10 people can't climb over the tank at the same time.

3. being on top of a tank, makes infantry a lot more vulnerable

and the game addresses none of these issues. so I doubt that it is a good designed abstraction.

There is nothing really wrong with your deployment or the game engine.

In my opinion there is. The tile setup system works fine with units, but not with objects.

I can agree, that an impassible bridge is maybe unrealistic. but the barbed wire and stuff almost doesn't slow down or hinder infantry in their movement at all. and you have to think about how expensive these obstacles are. I won't buy them anymore. one barbed wire element is worth a heavy machine gun.

Place obstacles at edges and leave center open in a small slot. The TacAI will choose point of least resistance and then try to squeeze everyone through the gap, to their deaths.

sounds fair, but a bridge is already a gap.

[MOSwas71331]

On another thread, I asked some questions about foxholes and trenches, and I believe we need some serious answers.

In real life, we can see exactly where a foxhole is, how deep it is, and so on. We can get in it and see what a soldier can and can't see when he's using it. (And we'd have a fair idea of the foxhole's value to a basketball player or a circus midget, the tallest and shortest guys likely to occupy it.)

In the game, all we can do is try to place a group of foxholes in a useful position. If we know that the foxholes and trenches depicted on the map visually represent a small area in which soldiers have somewhat better protection and a somewhat degraded view, we won't spend a lot of time trying to place them in exact spots. [Which CM:BN doesn't let me do anyway. No matter how carefully I try to position foxholes, their map pictures appear yards away from where the positioning cursor was pointing.]

As a related thought, in real life you can spend hours digging a foxhole or just a few minutes. Could the point cost of a foxhole or other fortification be a range rather than a single number, with the value in the game of the fortification increasing with the points "invested" in it?

[Sgt Schultz]

In the interest of my own edification, I did a quick and dirty test.

1 tank with a SLOW mover order, one platoon with various speed orders and combos of orders to cross yonder bridge.

They ALL decided to walk 1.5 Km around to the ford down the valley, rather than attempt that.

Now granted I overdid it on the hedgehogs, but that is only three pieces of wire.

--

[MikeyD]

Placing a small V shaped barbed wire like the top photos looks to have more of a police crowd control function than any tactical combat value. You can imagine Gestapo guards standing at the ends checking the papers of civilians as they try to cross the bridge. You need to think in real world scale for barbed wire to be of any real utility. Remember the scene from 'The Great Escape', Steve McQueen jumping a line of barbed wire on his motorcycle? Remember how that double barbed wire line stretched for miles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ccVu992CYE

[Sgt Schultz]

OK, 2nd test. This time I made sure everyone had a movement order right to the opposite bridge edge before moving on... just in case.

Orders Phase -

- here we go ...

Next turn Orders Phase - still more or less on track, though the Sherman is looking iffy.

Everyone decides it's not worth it. The Sherman drives into the river and pops back up, and even the crawling troops turn around and crawl away.

3rd orders Phase - Still on track according to that ...

[Spindry69]

The AT gun in the building thing, however, my be a bug... I think I recall someone else having a similar issue a while back.

I've experienced this too. In setup IIRC I moved some units as a group close to the desired positions for them to be placed. The AT gun was placed just outside the setup zone and I was unable to change it's position any further during setup. It was beside a road not in a building. The map did have an unusual setup zone with part of it being a long thin strip, following a road which may have caused the gun to be placed outside the setup zone.

[The_Capt]

Gents,

You have to remember that obstacles are designed to augment other weapon systems by slowing or channeling enemy manoeuvre units where you want them to and hindering their movement to keep them their or break up their cohesion.

In short their are are a piece of the defensive puzzle, not a total blockage of all movement. Engineers can create total blockages but they usually take an enormous amount of effort or have to leverage a natural existing obstacle (ie blwoing a bridge over a river).

You cannot measure an obstacles worth by how well it stops an enemy force or how many enemy units are killed by the obstacle. The worth of an obstacle is the extra 60 seconds it slows down an enemy platoon (in the case of wire by going around it, with mines it is the pinning of the troops after getting hit) while mortars are dropping on their heads or MGs are firing at them.

This makes obstacles, particularly in QBs tricky. You need to carefully look at the terrain and use obstacles to reinforce the overall defensive plan where you think they can be used to best effect. You need to anticipate your opponents actions and approaches and combine all of your weapon systems to defeating them; direct fire, indirect fire and obstacles.

[JasonC]

Capt - yes obstacles should be covered by fire, used to form kill sacks or to deter movement by making it too dangerous because the men would be caught out of cover for too long, etc.

And the previous post showed the right way in the game to cover a bridge, with a V of wire off the bridge, "capping" it.

But it is still a game issue and very annoying that you cannot place obstacles in ways that collide with or overlap buildings, bridges, walls, and other such structures. This is purely an engine limit and does not reflect military placement of obstacles.

What the system should ideally do in those cases is let the obstacle be placed in any orientation desired, and then "crop" the obstacle size to the area that doesn't overlap the building, wall, etc.

This would allow e.g. one strand of wire right across the middle of a bridge. Or a field of AT mines along a road, clear to the buildings on either side, with no gaps on the sidewalks or what have you.

As for true impassable engineering obstacles, those exist in the game as roadblocks - but they can't be placed usefully due to the engine limitations above.

It is a legitimate point, and if it is possible for a code change to address it, it would be a meaningful improvement in the game engine. Doesn't mean it is highest priority, and it is useful that other players have suggested practical workarounds. But there is a pure coding issue here and it is a fair beef to point it out.