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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> scale?

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scale? - 5/21/2006 10:56:40 AM

Cyanide

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Joined: 2/1/2006
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Well, I've been thinking about something lately. What is the exact scale of SPWAW? I read somewhere 50 meters a hex, but that seems way too big. I know a tank, which take up about half a hex, isn't 75 feet long, but the infantry seem too bunched together to be realistic. Is it just a game thing, where it doesn't really matter?

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RE: scale? - 5/21/2006 2:07:09 PM

264rifle

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I think, Cyanide, that it is a game thing. To get the ranged weapons to work ( or show the effects of range) the designers went with the 50yds/mtrs scale. With the 800X600 resolutuon tank and infantry icons would be too small to see clearly if made to the same scale as the hex... IS that a MK III or a TIGER

It is the time scale that drives most players nuts. Is a turn 2 min, 3 min, 5 min or 30 min????? Driving a tank down a paved road at full speed it seems to be a 2 min turn. Rate of fire seems to be on a sliding scale (small guns shoot slower and large guns shoot faster.) Unloading and setting up a cannon is also independant of the size of the gun. Small 37mm ATG takes just as long to set up and fire as a 155mm cannon.

Carping aside, it is what it is,which is the best war game of it's type available.

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RE: scale? - 5/21/2006 3:24:52 PM

forgorin

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quote:

ORIGINAL: 264rifle
Carping aside, it is what it is,which is the best war game of it's type available.

Hear yea! hear yea!

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RE: scale? - 5/21/2006 3:43:34 PM

FlashfyreSP

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From: Combat Information Center
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Think of this: there are 50 pixels in one hex, from one side to the other. Each pixel is therefore 1 meter in size. To make the icons to scale, a tank would be 2-3 pixels wide and 4-6 pixels long. A Tiger tank, for example, is 8.45 meters long and 3.73 meters wide. So it's icon would be 4 pixels x 9 pixels. Too small for much detail. And smaller units would be worse. Infantry would literally disappear, replaced by a generic marker.

So the icons are made in order for us humans to see them, and to make them identifiable.

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RE: scale? - 5/21/2006 6:52:40 PM

Wild Bill

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Joined: 4/7/2000
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Precisely, FlashFyre. Actually the tank (and most other units) fit into a small corner of the hex as far as scale is concerned. This is a subjective thing where one must imagine the tank being smaller than is represented.

Take a look at the attached picture to see how these units would more or less "really" look in a hex.

Okay, I don't know how to include a picture here so I'll put it in a new post.

I think you'll find it illuminating. I've taken this from my SPWAW tutorial on Scenario building. Do you have it?

WB

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(in reply to FlashfyreSP)

Post #: 5

RE: scale? - 5/22/2006 3:13:55 AM

KG Erwin

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Joined: 7/25/2000
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SPWaW is full of abstractions, and unit size as you see it vs the game scale is just one part of it. The time scale of turns has been argued for years. This is by no means an expression of real-time combat -- it is a compressed version of it. What happens in 90 minutes of game time could in reality take days -- no one sleeps in this game. So many things are abstracted, but the overall result gives one an impression of WWII combat --that's all it was meant to be.

Given all this, I fully believe that designer Mike Wood and everyone who has contributed to this game have made the most of it, and they have given us one of the best tactical games that ever existed.

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