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Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 8:50:55 AM   
ericdauriac

 

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Hello,

Can you tell me more than what is in the manual?

I don't understand the principle of how Equipment Transitions work.

For example, do the transitions overlap in such a way that a unit programmed to go from 72 PzII to 72 PzIII can end up with 72 PzII AND 72 PzIII?

Regards
Post #: 1
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 11:37:34 AM   
Lobster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: ericdauriac

Hello,

Can you tell me more than what is in the manual?

I don't understand the principle of how Equipment Transitions work.

For example, do the transitions overlap in such a way that a unit programmed to go from 72 PzII to 72 PzIII can end up with 72 PzII AND 72 PzIII?

Regards


Yes, someone could game the system and have 72 of each type. One way to mitigate that is to have a dummy unit with a high replacement rate that soaks up the equipment being transitioned out of units. But that's not a very good solution really.

Another way is to completely replace the unit. Again, not a really good solution because the unit in question is removed from the front lines. Although that could potentially mimic a unit being removed from combat to train on the new equipment.

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Post #: 2
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 12:00:18 PM   
nepos2

 

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Hello Eric!

Equipment transitions are managed in the replacement editor where you can decide the replacement rate and start and end date of the availability of any equipment. The original phased out equipment slot remain in the unit however, as long as it avoids losses it could have the double amount of equipment as in your example.

Regards, Henrik


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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 12:46:03 PM   
ericdauriac

 

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"Be aware that unit reconstitution is only triggered by having enough replacement equipment for the top item [known as the 'first line equipment'] in the unit’s TO&E"

does this mean that materials are only renewed if the first line material is complete?

Regards

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 1:55:49 PM   
cathar1244

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ericdauriac

"Be aware that unit reconstitution is only triggered by having enough replacement equipment for the top item [known as the 'first line equipment'] in the unit’s TO&E"

does this mean that materials are only renewed if the first line material is complete?

Regards


I think it applies in cases in which a unit has been destroyed.

Cheers

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Post #: 5
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 2:17:20 PM   
Zovs


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Another way, say your scenario is battalioned based (just bear with the crazy talk for sec...) and each hex is 5km and each turn is a day and there are 1,700 turns and it starts on Oct. 7th 1940 and ends on June 3rd 1945 (only because I forgot to set the start date to 1 Sept. 1939 for this demonstration).

Now Here is one of your (of many) Panzer Battalions:



Then in the replacement editor you Could edit the replacements to filter in as following (and note that by attrition and combat, the older types will slowly over time cease to be produced and exit, while the new ones will fill out the unit.




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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 2:22:02 PM   
Zovs


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Doing World War Two day by day wont work, since the game only lets you have 2000 turns make. I think you'll need another 74 or 75 turns to do WW2 day by day or 2075 turns total.



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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 3:13:41 PM   
Lobster


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This is what I meant by someone gaming the system. It would be entirely possible to have a super duper panzer battalion with as much armor as a division. Personally I would withdraw the unit and put out a new one with the new equipment to avoid the super duper battalions. Maybe some day the player will be able to transition equipment manually yet allow the scenario designer to keep a cap on total armor or whatever equipment was being transitioned.

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Post #: 8
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 4:24:11 PM   
Zovs


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Jack,

How is that unit a 'super duper' panzer battalion? Over time the Pz I B's will no longer be available and neither will the Pz II's and so forth.

TOAW has really only two or three ways to model equipment transfers. It has no capability to do in place transistions.

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Post #: 9
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 6:15:44 PM   
76mm


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Zovs
Jack,

How is that unit a 'super duper' panzer battalion? Over time the Pz I B's will no longer be available and neither will the Pz II's and so forth.

Can't answer for Jack, but my problem with that approach (and I think what he's talking about) is that let's say you decided to hold that battalion in reserve, so it doesn't lose its Pzkw Is...but it still starts filling up with 30 Pzkw IIs as well, so now it has both. You keep it in reserve, so pretty soon, it has 30 Pzkw Is, 30 Pzkw IIs, 30 Pzkw IIIs, and so on.

While this is kind of an extreme example, it is hard to imagine that you won't have situations where the battalion would often be significantly overstrength on a regular basis.

< Message edited by 76mm -- 12/15/2020 6:17:31 PM >

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Post #: 10
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 6:19:17 PM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Zovs

Jack,

How is that unit a 'super duper' panzer battalion? Over time the Pz I B's will no longer be available and neither will the Pz II's and so forth.


Sure- but the unit will still have their full "assigned" complement of every type unless they lose them through combat or movement attrition. Presto: your tank battalion winds up with a full strength five times over.

Now in practice folks don't hold their panzers back and it works nicely enough, but where the model really falls down is with reconstitution. Like Hitler, the game would prefer to give you a new unit with a whacking great TO&E than refill your poor battered frontsoldaten. If there's stuff in the stockpile for multiple types, your new unit will wind up full up with everything it can get its hands on.

Like Lobster, I prefer to keep in-unit transitions to a minimum, and have a new version of the unit show up instead. Be sure to use a "disband" not a "withdraw" event, though, as the other goodies like squads and towed guns shouldn't go in the bin, as this would encourage the player to "suicide" the unit on its last turn.

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Post #: 11
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 6:34:24 PM   
Curtis Lemay


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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Like Lobster, I prefer to keep in-unit transitions to a minimum, and have a new version of the unit show up instead. Be sure to use a "disband" not a "withdraw" event, though, as the other goodies like squads and towed guns shouldn't go in the bin, as this would encourage the player to "suicide" the unit on its last turn.


But where do you have it show up? Disband it in El Alamein and have its replacement show up in El Agheila? That doesn't work very well.

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Post #: 12
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/15/2020 7:23:56 PM   
Zovs


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Good points all. I sit slightly corrected. It does seem to work well for minor tweaks like a unit that went into battle without its panther battalion (0/36) and then they get added back to the unit over time.

One of the great features of GG WitW/WitE is that you can do equipment upgrades and transitions in place, preferably when you pull the unit out of line and stick it in the rear with a HQ unit.

But alas we have never had that with TOAW.

PS That would be some scenario eh? World War II Day by Day, 2075 turns...lol

Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 12:26:30 AM   
Lobster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

But where do you have it show up? Disband it in El Alamein and have its replacement show up in El Agheila? That doesn't work very well.


As it currently stands nothing is fool proof. Everyone will do what suits them whether they are players or scenario designers.

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Post #: 14
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 12:27:12 AM   
Lobster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Zovs


PS That would be some scenario eh? World War II Day by Day, 2075 turns...lol

Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.


That would be insane.

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A: A stick.

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Post #: 15
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 11:44:55 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


But where do you have it show up? Disband it in El Alamein and have its replacement show up in El Agheila? That doesn't work very well.


One would want to design the events properly. A TO "Withdraw 1. Panzer?". Perhaps a two turn delay- then the unit is disbanded. Perhaps six weeks later you get the unit back at base bright-eyed and bushy tailed with the new TO&E: whatever delay you feel is appropriate for everyone to return to base and get used to their new gear.

Obviously there's an abstraction here still- and there's scope for this to go wrong if 1. Panzer then charges off and is surrounded by enemy units when it's disbanded. However the player isn't going to want to risk the unit being eliminated and all the equipment going to "lost" instead of "on hand". To further reduce this risk you might want to include a Range on the event so the player doesn't know exactly when the unit will go.

I'd say it's still preferable to large scale in-unit equipment transitions as they stand. Of course I'm sure (without looking) that this is on the roadmap for development and both fudges will be replaced by a proper feature in due course.

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Post #: 16
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 11:47:04 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lobster


quote:

ORIGINAL: Zovs


PS That would be some scenario eh? World War II Day by Day, 2075 turns...lol

Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.


That would be insane.


You'd need a bigger map- can't fit in all Europe at 5km/hex on a 700x700 map.... Plus more slots in the OOB so you can build it out at battalion level.

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 1:07:30 PM   
Zovs


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I can't image the size of map would would need to map out Europe, England, North Africa, South Africa, all of Russia at least to the Urals and Norway at 5 km a hex ... it really hurts to think about it. . . lol

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 1:46:02 PM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Zovs

I can't image the size of map would would need to map out Europe, England, North Africa, South Africa, all of Russia at least to the Urals and Norway at 5 km a hex ... it really hurts to think about it. . . lol


Yes one could make the scenario but to test it you'd need the resources of a small country. Maybe if we can Jeff Bezos to fund the project...?

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 2:50:41 PM   
Zovs


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Nah, the engine would would cause the Cern computers to explode and we would all die a horrible digital death from computers zapping out our eye sockets and sending in deep mind tearing RGB pixels to make mince meat of our fragile brains...and in the distance, over a loud speaker, you would hear Norm begin to laugh...

< Message edited by Zovs -- 12/16/2020 2:51:14 PM >


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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/16/2020 3:31:01 PM   
Curtis Lemay


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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


But where do you have it show up? Disband it in El Alamein and have its replacement show up in El Agheila? That doesn't work very well.


One would want to design the events properly. A TO "Withdraw 1. Panzer?". Perhaps a two turn delay- then the unit is disbanded. Perhaps six weeks later you get the unit back at base bright-eyed and bushy tailed with the new TO&E: whatever delay you feel is appropriate for everyone to return to base and get used to their new gear.

Obviously there's an abstraction here still- and there's scope for this to go wrong if 1. Panzer then charges off and is surrounded by enemy units when it's disbanded. However the player isn't going to want to risk the unit being eliminated and all the equipment going to "lost" instead of "on hand". To further reduce this risk you might want to include a Range on the event so the player doesn't know exactly when the unit will go.

I'd say it's still preferable to large scale in-unit equipment transitions as they stand. Of course I'm sure (without looking) that this is on the roadmap for development and both fudges will be replaced by a proper feature in due course.

So...1000 TOs? And that assumes the units are pulled out to be refitted (maybe 1000 miles away!), not just delivered new stuff and told to do their best with it.

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/17/2020 12:04:58 AM   
Simon Edmonds

 

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"You'd need a bigger map- can't fit in all Europe at 5km/hex on a 700x700 map....
Plus more slots in the OOB so you can build it out at battalion level."
I am working my way through creating a 5km map of Europe at the moment. (About 350k hexes in so far) The map goes from Iceland and Agadir(Morocco) in the West to Kostanay (Ussr), Tehran(Iraq) and Kuwait in the East. From above Tromso(Norway in the north to Luxor(Egypt in the south). To accomplish this I am using four scenario maps. Like Norm once said "way too much time on my hands". Hopefully one day, maybe TOAW 5 the scenario map will be big enough for it all to fit. It's a sort of "if you build it they will come" attitude.

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/17/2020 9:10:15 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

So...1000 TOs? And that assumes the units are pulled out to be refitted (maybe 1000 miles away!), not just delivered new stuff and told to do their best with it.


If you have 1,000 units which you want to individually handle transitions on then no, this isn't the solution for you.

An example of where this is used well is Fall Grau, which is 90 full-week turns long at division scale. The Axis player gets a TO for each of 9 (I think) panzerkorps. The TO actually removes the whole formation of four or five divisions (I know a corps doesn't have five divisions but this is besides the point) and then returns it after six weeks or something.

Anyway, if you're thinking of Campaign for North Africa I would expect this to be handled at the division level: I wouldn't want to withdraw a particular panzer regiment, but the whole division in one go. So that's one TO per division- and only for those divisions where the changed equipment is a major part of the TO&E, i.e. armour. I wouldn't expect you to use this mechanism to swap out e.g. a 37mm AT gun for a 50mm AT gun.

Like I said, neither approach is perfect- however for a major transition where the big line items in the unit need to get swapped out I think removing the unit entirely in this way produces a better result in the game than having the new equipment dribble in from replacements.

< Message edited by golden delicious -- 12/17/2020 9:54:44 AM >


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Post #: 23
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/17/2020 9:14:45 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds

"You'd need a bigger map- can't fit in all Europe at 5km/hex on a 700x700 map....
Plus more slots in the OOB so you can build it out at battalion level."
I am working my way through creating a 5km map of Europe at the moment. (About 350k hexes in so far) The map goes from Iceland and Agadir(Morocco) in the West to Kostanay (Ussr), Tehran(Iraq) and Kuwait in the East. From above Tromso(Norway in the north to Luxor(Egypt in the south). To accomplish this I am using four scenario maps. Like Norm once said "way too much time on my hands". Hopefully one day, maybe TOAW 5 the scenario map will be big enough for it all to fit. It's a sort of "if you build it they will come" attitude.


I'd see such a map as more of a resource for pulling out local segments, particularly for a campaign of linked scenarios. The whole thing would be basically unplayable because, in the game, one doesn't have a large staff of officers to keep track of goings-on on minor fronts.

If you're being really rigorous about it- using Bob's latlong to plot out the locations of key points, being consistent about what you mean by "river", "hills", "light woods" etc. then it would be a great resource for other designers. However from experience even on a mid-sized map it's extremely hard to apply a consistent standard. One keeps wanting to make a slight bump into a hill simply because there's flat terrain all around.

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/17/2020 4:43:54 PM   
Lobster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Like I said, neither approach is perfect- however for a major transition where the big line items in the unit need to get swapped out I think removing the unit entirely in this way produces a better result in the game than having the new equipment dribble in from replacements.


+1

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/17/2020 10:44:42 PM   
Simon Edmonds

 

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Any thoughts on how terrain should be interpreted would be greatly appreciated. Before I started this particular project I had a hard and fast rule that over 300 meters and under 1000 meters would be considered hilly. Greater and more experienced minds than mine convinced me that wouldn't work for 10 and 5 km scales. Now I use a thing called "open topo map" https://opentopomap.org/#map=11/68.6169/27.6433 to see just how pronounced the hill is.

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/18/2020 2:00:04 AM   
Lobster


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On the west side of the Molochna River in Ukraine is a bluff. It's 40 to 60 meters high and about 70km long north to south. That doesn't sound like much of a height. But east of the Molochna River is a plain as flat as a billiard table. That low bluff, part of the Woton-Panther (or is it Panther-Wotan ) fortified line, has a commanding view for several kilometers to the east. It was a hard nut for the Soviets to crack. So you can't really say a hill is any particular height without considering everything around a height.

Not everyone will interpret a map the same. Sometimes it depends on what a scenario designer is trying to accomplish. This probably sounds corny but a map is as much a work of art as it is part of a scenario. It's the canvas the scenario is painted on. It's only natural that everyone has their own style. So what someone says you should do may not be what you should do. That's the only advice I can give anyone.

Military heights:
1. Better view. You can see a greater distance and thus can see better what the enemy is doing.

2. Ballistics. You can shoot a lot farther if your bowmen, riflemen, cannons are up on a hill vs down in a valley. In fact, it is possible for the guys on the hill to fire stuff down onto those in the valley and the guys in the valley may not be able to shoot back and hit the guys on the hill.

3. Defense. For the enemy to attack you, they are going to have to charge up the hill. By the time they hit the top of the hill, they are very tired out. And as they come up, you can throw stuff down or just roll rocks down the hill. If you do decide to attack them, you get to go down hill and that is a whole lot less work than going up hill.

4. Secrecy. You can do stuff high up that the other side can not see. But if you are down in the valley, the other guy can pretty much see what you are doing.

5. Weather. When was the last time you ever heard of a hill top being flooded out? Tanks and artillery on top of a hill can move without a lot of worry about mud. Down in the valley where the water runs, you may have your entire unit flooded and your tanks totally bogged down.

6. Sun. No matter where the sun is, the guys on the hill are looking down at the valley and enemy. Whereas the guys down in the valley sometimes are looking up into the sun trying to see what you are doing. Nothing ruins your vision faster than looking into the sun. In fact, the guys on the hill could use the sun to their advantage, such as attacking the enemy in the valley with the sun at their back.

< Message edited by Lobster -- 12/18/2020 2:05:26 AM >


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A: A stick.

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Post #: 27
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/18/2020 6:36:36 AM   
cathar1244

 

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quote:

Any thoughts on how terrain should be interpreted would be greatly appreciated.


As you've no doubt grasped, at times it is more art than science.

Suggestion: Do all of the obvious hexes first -- clearly mountains, rivers, lakes, etc. Water is important because it shows the lay of the lower ground (rivers shouldn't flow from low ground through hills to low ground again unless there is a chasm of some kind, etc.)

Some of the elevated areas may be better represented by an escarpment hexside than a hills tile -- like the sudden rise of elevation in some areas of the Baltic coastline.

Consider repurposing terrain like crops, light woods, and rocky to terrain more useful for your scale -- stuff like the old paper wargames called "broken" or "mixed". Check the terrain effects of the repurposed terrain to be sure it matches your intent. Likewise, jungle tiles can serve as trackless primitive forest in the European setting.

Use one primary tile for each hex; keep it simple. In other words, you don't need "forested mountains". Make it a mountain hex and call it done.

Once the obvious tiles are finished then make the judgment calls on things like hills and escarpments. If you have repurposed some of the other tiles, you may be able to use them for localized areas of elevation ("broken") instead of a hills tile. Besides elevation, what might distinguish hills and mountains is how many options the terrain offers for maneuver. Mountains are typically very channelized for vehicular movement, while hills are more navigable.

Cheers

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 1:36:15 AM   
Simon Edmonds

 

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Question. In Toaw the hexmap is a mosaic of hexes with each hex having its own terrain code. Do the hexsides have their own code too? Such as for a border?

(in reply to cathar1244)
Post #: 29
RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 1:58:53 AM   
76mm


Posts: 4688
Joined: 5/2/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds
Question. In Toaw the hexmap is a mosaic of hexes with each hex having its own terrain code. Do the hexsides have their own code too? Such as for a border?

Hi Simon! I don't know the answer to your question, but there is a thread which serves as the knowledge base (such as it is) for TOAW XML map data:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4576819

Might be best to look there...

(in reply to Simon Edmonds)
Post #: 30
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