Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

It would, however, pick a development choice that would further restrict designers...

What?? Now, today, if you want to use bridge blowing to represent road destruction you must put a river in the hex. This would not change that at all.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

1. Bridges can only be repaired by engineers. Not so for roads.

Now (and for example, I simply to don't have the time to deal with each successive claim you make) this statement is simply and completely untrue.

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You're trying to create a distinction between bridges blown over militarily significant rivers and other forms of obstruction that simply isn't there. If I use a few sticks of dynamite to bring down a landslide on your road winding down an escarpment, you've got an engineering problem fully as formidable as if I've blasted the bridge over the Eel River at Three Forks.

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What's more, I just thought of something. You don't even know where there's a 'bridge.' What if we've got a north-south flowing river? The road comes in from the non-river hex to the southwest, runs north along the river for three hexes, and exits to the northeast.

Where's the bridge? Did the road come in, run along the west bank of the river for the first two hexes, and cross over in the third hex it shared with the river? Maybe it comes in, immediately crosses to the east bank on account of cliffs on the west bank, runs north for a bit, then crosses back over on account of cliffs on the east bank, and finally crosses back to the east bank again to make its exit.

Where's the bridge? In the first hex? The second? All three? You don't know. The 'matrix' is meaningless. The only case you can know with any certainty where the 'bridge' is or isn't is when the road shares the hex with the river for exactly one hex -- and the program already lets you blow it in that case.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

You would make it so that even if there was a river in the hex, the bridge wouldn't necessarily be destructible. That is a further restriction. No doubt.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Go ahead and count major bridges down Highway One from Newport, Oregon to San Francisco, California. You'll have to have a 'river' in each hex.

Then it sounds appropriate. What's the issue?

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

And, just to recap: Even if it were true that bridge blowing/repair was identical to road damage/clearing (which it obviously isn't), there are still these two facts:

1. The matrix fix is trivial to program. All other options are non-trivial.
2. The benefits of the matrix fix would be enjoyed by all scenarios. All other options would only affect a small fraction of scenarios.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Go ahead and count major bridges down Highway One from Newport, Oregon to San Francisco, California. You'll have to have a 'river' in each hex.

Then it sounds appropriate. What's the issue?

I want to clarify this answer. It would only be appropriate if blowing those major bridges would make the road impassable. If all it would do is keep you from doing 75mph then they wouldn't be modeled. Military columns don't do 75mph. So, if they have to shift to the grass for a bit and wallow through a ditch, that won't be a significant delay.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

You would make it so that even if there was a river in the hex, the bridge wouldn't necessarily be destructible. That is a further restriction. No doubt.

Only if the designer was an idiot. Non-idiot designers would, of course, use a river pattern that would be blowable.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

1. Bridges can only be repaired by engineers. Not so for roads.

Now (and for example, I simply to don't have the time to deal with each successive claim you make) this statement is simply and completely untrue.

It is completely true.

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You're trying to create a distinction between bridges blown over militarily significant rivers and other forms of obstruction that simply isn't there. If I use a few sticks of dynamite to bring down a landslide on your road winding down an escarpment, you've got an engineering problem fully as formidable as if I've blasted the bridge over the Eel River at Three Forks.

No. It is not even an engineering problem at all, anymore that repairing a rail line is an engineering problem (how does the game handle that? Not with engineers). It could even be solved by manual labor. But any heavy equipment or explosives would be better. Building a bridge is real engineering. Repairing a road is not.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright


What's more, I just thought of something. You don't even know where there's a 'bridge.' What if we've got a north-south flowing river? The road comes in from the non-river hex to the southwest, runs north along the river for three hexes, and exits to the northeast.

Where's the bridge? Did the road come in, run along the west bank of the river for the first two hexes, and cross over in the third hex it shared with the river? Maybe it comes in, immediately crosses to the east bank on account of cliffs on the west bank, runs north for a bit, then crosses back over on account of cliffs on the east bank, and finally crosses back to the east bank again to make its exit.

Where's the bridge? In the first hex? The second? All three? You don't know. The 'matrix' is meaningless. The only case you can know with any certainty where the 'bridge' is or isn't is when the road shares the hex with the river for exactly one hex -- and the program already lets you blow it in that case.

Take I-70 running down the Colorado. All kinds of opportunities for demolition that have nothing to do with crossing the river, but never mind that. The river comes in from the north, so at some point, you are on the south bank. Then you're running down the north bank, so you must have crossed at least once. Then a while later you're on the south bank again. Finally, you come turn away from the river at Grand Junction -- but you've been on the north bank for some time again by that point. Certainly no crossing -- on the interstate -- at Grand Junction itself.

Where are the crossings? There are at least three of them -- but where? A TOAW map wouldn't tell you -- and your 'matrix' won't detect them either. It would put at least one where it's not -- at Grand Junction -- and miss at least two of the others.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

It may well be trivial to program. However (as carefully explained) it offers no benefits whatsoever. It merely (and entirely arbitrarily) labels some road/river hexes 'bridges' and others not.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Thomas Creek, in Oregon, is short. It also, as the name implies, doesn't carry much water. I doubt if one would want to put it on the map -- not unless one wants to make every hex up and down the Oregon coast riverine.

So blowing the bridge over the creek, of course, wouldn't make the road impassable. Fortunately, since in TOAW, except at the smallest scales, one would hardly want to make the entire hex a river.

But that's okay, because, since there's no river to represent, there's no bridge.

Gentlemen, I give you the highest highway bridge in America.



Go ahead. Shift to the grass for a bit and wallow through that ditch.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Read any detailed campaign history. It is indeed the engineers who clear obstructions -- of any kind.

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Bridges that have been blown over rivers that are otherwise significant military obstacles.

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Bridges over rivers that aren't.

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Bridges that cross after the road has already been running along the bank for twenty kilometers.

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Mined roads.

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Roads that have had the cliff side under them blown out. Roads that have been artificially flooded.

If a road winds its way down a cliff side, and I blow a chunk out of it, you're going to need an engineer. No foolin'.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

Going from Sioux City, Iowa to St. Joseph, Missouri on I-29 you parallel the Missouri River for 228 miles. All on the east bank. The highway never crosses the river. If this were portrayed on a TOAW map every hex along the entire 228 miles could be blown up. Why? There are some small bridges over creeks and small rivers but all 50 yards or less. Not an engineering problem. All can be bridged in an hour easily. This is one of the problems with the way TOAW portrays rivers and bridge blowing.

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ORIGINAL: macgregor

This argument is fascinating, mostly because of it's length. Cannot scenario designers decide what can get blown or not by choosing to place bridges or not? Is that what the argument is about? Not enough detail on something as already detailed as this is? But the focus expended is really incredible! I'm laughing until I cry.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: Panama

Going from Sioux City, Iowa to St. Joseph, Missouri on I-29 you parallel the Missouri River for 228 miles. All on the east bank. The highway never crosses the river. If this were portrayed on a TOAW map every hex along the entire 228 miles could be blown up. Why? There are some small bridges over creeks and small rivers but all 50 yards or less. Not an engineering problem. All can be bridged in an hour easily. This is one of the problems with the way TOAW portrays rivers and bridge blowing.

Just what the matrix would fix.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Yeah. I think I'll declare victory and leave.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

I don't know about the matrix.

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Why not just code the game so if a road or rail did not have a bridge it can't be blown up?

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But supply trucks and tracked vehicles do a wonderful job of destroying roads.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: Panama

I don't know about the matrix.

See my post #1394.

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Why not just code the game so if a road or rail did not have a bridge it can't be blown up?

Exactly what the Matrix would do.

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But supply trucks and tracked vehicles do a wonderful job of destroying roads.

I said as much in post #1418.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Yeah. I think I'll declare victory and leave.

I would too, but I thought of another devastating argument against amalgamating bridge destruction/repair with road obstruction/clearing:

Bridge Attacks!

Currently, if you've got enough bombers you can blow bridges practically at will. Well, if roads are treated like bridges, then those bombers can do the same to roads as well. Roads will be obliterated from the sky all over the place. And that, of course, is absurd. The amount of bombs necessary to obliterate a 10km section of road is astronomical. hundreds if not thousands of times what it takes to bring down a bridge. This (along with all the other differences pointed out) has to put a stake in the heart of this bad idea. Clearly, these two different things need to be treated separately.

Of course, that means that people wanting official road obstruction ability are going to have to wait - just like those waiting for hundreds of other features. They will still have the bridge kluge to use, but clearly that should not be officially amalgamated.

So, now that we know that bridges are going to remain bridges and not be expected to pretend to be anything else, the Matrix idea is perfect:

First, it fixes existing scenarios in the most rational way (the only alternative is to keep them like they are, with every road-river combo blowable).

Second, if designers do edit any of those scenarios, or create new ones, they will be fully empowered to make any river-road hex blowable as they desire, simply by complying with the Matrix rule (road crosses river = blowable). And that is best for players, since it will clearly show them which hexes can be blown.

Finally, even if made optional, the Matrix is the simplest programming option.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

Why screw with a matrix? Just code the game and be done with it! (brilliant )

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I'll leave aside your attempt to resuscitate 'the Matrix' and deal with the 'devastating argument.'

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First, airpower has always made it hard to use roads as well as rails. The concept of a non-river road being 'blown' isn't exactly ideal but pending interdiction being reformed, it wouldn't be the worst outcome in the world. After all, (as pointed out) there are all kinds of vulnerable points on roads even when they aren't crossing a river that is a meaningful defensive obstacle. Bombers go after any old thing on a road -- culverts, tunnels, bridges over otherwise meaningless creeks...in some parts of the world, it would be a rare road that could run for a whole TOAW hex without having at least one point that could be thoroughly wrecked with a thoughtfully placed bomb.

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Finally, bridge attacks could only be mounted against destructible roads/rails that were on rivers. Like now.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


So many differences have been identified that attaching them together makes a much sense as trying to amalgamate guerrillas and submarines.

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There is a routine in place that can tell whether or not a road crosses a river.