Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Would like to see an assault class of ships added. Unlike the purely cargo class, the assault class would be able to disembark (land) troops on the same turn that it arrived in a coastal hex. Landing, of course, would require that a minimum amount of movement points be available to conduct the maneuver. There might also be limitations on the terrain and troops that can conduct such an assault.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I was just thinking about a way of simulating minefields -- won't work, but it could easily be made to work.

The genesis of the idea came from my observations of the effects of 'contaminated' hexes. There's a huge movement penalty, and units will supposedly lose readiness if they sit in the hexes.

So...one could 'lay mines' by having a nuclear attack on vacant hexes.

The problem, of course, is that the effect is permanent, and randomly affects nearby hexes. Also, it would be nice if engineer units could 'lay' the mines rather than having some specialized bomber unit governed by house rules flying about to do the job. Then too, one wants engineers to be able to clean them up, or if one wants to reduce the bookkeeping, just have them evaporate once no unit is adjacent or within some given radius. Probably the latter, as minefields that aren't supported by defenders lose most of their military value. Not necessarily desireable to have your combat engineers diligently tidying up minefields long after the war has moved on.

However, the main point is that it strikes me that much of the programming must already be in place to permit 'minefields' if they are approached in this way.

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ORIGINAL: fogger

Some ideas for future updates

The ability to assign air units to a recon role and the ability to assign an area for that unit to recon.

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Air units to be able to bomb an empty hex or airfield. (I think that there is an enemy unit hiding there)

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The ability to assign artillery units to counter battery fire only.  

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ORIGINAL: fogger

Sorry for appearing stupid, but when you say see items 8.1, 8.28 & 8.8 they do not relate to my copy of the game manual so I am unsure where you want me to look.
Thanks for your help to date.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: fogger

Sorry for appearing stupid, but when you say see items 8.1, 8.28 & 8.8 they do not relate to my copy of the game manual so I am unsure where you want me to look.
Thanks for your help to date.

I'm referring to the "Comprehensive Wishlist". See post #1 of this thread.

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You can bomb the empty airfield now (but only if there is a hidden air unit in it - that's a fog-of-war leak). Just bombing an empty hex might be ok provided there was no combat report (to preserve fog-of-war).

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

I would really like to see the dig in feature being dependent on the time scale and strongly dependent on the amount of movement points left. As it is, I can move until 1MP left on a half-day scenario and still have the chance to get entrenched. That would mean getting entrenched in 2 or 3 hours.

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ORIGINAL:  sPzAbt653

From Ralph's blog, for 3.4 :

The chance of engineering and rail repair are now modified by the movement left.

Maybe that's one thing you are looking for. Maybe some others are there too, I only remembered this one. But in a one week turn, with 30 movement points, that would be 7 days by 24 hours = 168 hours, divided by 30 = 5.6 hours for each 1 movement point. That seems reasonable to dig in.

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I hope that this chance of engineering will apply to 'dig in' too.

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

I would really like to see the dig in feature being dependent on the time scale and strongly dependent on the amount of movement points left. As it is, I can move until 1MP left on a half-day scenario and still have the chance to get entrenched. That would mean getting entrenched in 2 or 3 hours.

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HQ influence based on distance would be nice...

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...also and the cancellation of movement penalty adjacent to enemy units when the size of a SPOTTED unit is very small in relation to the moving unit.

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I imagine that those aren't very difficult features to implement...

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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I hope that this chance of engineering will apply to 'dig in' too.

I'm guessing it does because digging in is considered engineering??

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

The complaints about digging in gave me an idea.

Shouldn't leaving fortified/entrenched/defending status cost something?

After all, it's one thing to resume marching the next day if everyone just found a suitable peasant hut and got some zzz's -- it's another if the regiment spread itself out over 10 km, set up all its machine guns, unlimbered its artillery, etc.

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Obviously, the cost shouldn't be as great to leave a defensive deployment as it cost to get into it -- but if it cost 10-25% of the unit's MP's the next turn to get back on the road again, people would only dig in units that they seriously expected to come under attack in their opponent's turn. Units that were really just interested in going from point A to point B or that were standing by as a fire brigade would remain in 'mobile' deployement -- which in the real world is where they would be.

Aside from everything else, this would help to avoid the 'instantaneous spring' effect in OPART, where (unlike as in the real world) it makes no difference whether a unit is standing by to make a move or not -- it alertly leaps up and marches off at full speed with no delay at all.

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Opart has other flaws in this area -- like armies really can't reverse the direction of their movement without complications in reality -- but the change I suggest might at least improve matters.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

I would really like to see the dig in feature being dependent on the time scale and strongly dependent on the amount of movement points left. As it is, I can move until 1MP left on a half-day scenario and still have the chance to get entrenched. That would mean getting entrenched in 2 or 3 hours.

I'm not sure whether it isn't already somewhat time-scale dependent, but, regardless, it doesn't seem to be dependent enough. And, it needs to be period dependent too. What Ralph is trying to do now is implement 12.25.4 so that designers can set the scenario entrenchment rate themselves.

Making it dependent on remaining movement is item 7.4.

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HQ influence based on distance would be nice...

Too vague. What do you mean?

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...also and the cancellation of movement penalty adjacent to enemy units when the size of a SPOTTED unit is very small in relation to the moving unit.

See item 7.7.

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I imagine that those aren't very difficult features to implement...

You'd be surprised.

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

A zone of influence, so that in scenarios with small distance hexes, the supply bonus could have a radio with decreasing benefit.

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In fact, even if this isn't exactly a negative characteristic of the game, I think that it would be better if some concepts weren't based in hexes adjacency, but in real distance. One example I think is really illustrative is intelligence in open terrain. A unit in flat arid terrain, for example, should be able to sight enemy much further than 2.5km...

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...(not to mention naval units in open seas),

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Exactly, but also applying to the penalties for moving from an adjacent hex to another.

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My intention wasn't to undervalue the amount of work put in this kind of things. We can see it by those changes proposed by the new path and how much work seems to be involved. I only wanted to mean that it could be object of a patch and not a complete rethinking of the engine.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

A zone of influence, so that in scenarios with small distance hexes, the supply bonus could have a radio with decreasing benefit.

Ok, just the supply, as opposed to command (see 4.14). That's what wasn't clear.

I'm not sure that the above will amount to much. Usually, the benefit to the unit for being adjacent to the HQ is only a couple of points. Trying to effect an exponential decay radiation of that may be close to pointless. And those scenarios with small-scale hexes are supposed to have small-scale HQs to go with it. In other words, at 2.5km, the HQs are battalion scale, whereas at 50km they're army-group scale, etc. (That was the theory, anyway).

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In fact, even if this isn't exactly a negative characteristic of the game, I think that it would be better if some concepts weren't based in hexes adjacency, but in real distance. One example I think is really illustrative is intelligence in open terrain. A unit in flat arid terrain, for example, should be able to sight enemy much further than 2.5km...

I think this is a misconception about open terrain. It isn't a billiard table. It just isn't hilly or wooded enough to rate a hill or forest tile. You still can't detect properly cammo'ed defenders dug into it. And we don't want to get into line-of-sight issues. (However, see item 2.6 "Steppe").

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Exactly, but also applying to the penalties for moving from an adjacent hex to another.

It says that. ("Leaving/crossing").

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

That`s why I used the word flat. Ok, open terrain in the game is generic, so we can`t know how exactly the topography is, but for sure units were able to spot other units once in a while in distances much greater than 2.5 km, even in hilly terrain, mainly when moving, and in the game, even when moving, those units won`t be seen by the enemy. You just can move around back and forth in a desert plain and don`t be spotted.

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Perhaps a simplified line of sight... not cumulative, using only the most obstructive terrain type on the path between units. And, if that is expensive in computational terms, just give the player the option to check for enemies using a specific unit and some MPs (for detachments going to the higher spots, etc). Ok, this seems too complicated for a patch, but maybe there is another solution. The fact is that it`s weird to come suddenly across a unit in a desert plain, mainly when this unit has recently moved to a near position.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Line-of-sight requires elevations. That's different from terrain type. TOAW is not designed for that, and adding it would be a huge change.

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ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Would like to see a designer setting for “Retreat” and “Reorganization”. The existing propensity to retreat or go into reorganization would a default value of 5 and it would be adjustable by the designer from “1” all the time, to “10” never. The setting mechanics would be similar to what we already have for Attrition Divider.

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

I thought about a much simpler solution...

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Didn't sound that simple. That would be a lot of effort to get an effect that's about as random and arbitrary as now (since you still don't model elevations).

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I still think that in most cases, operational scale units shouldn't detect enemy units beyond the operational hex-scale - that means adjacent. And that method would not give the designer any choice about it.

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I think my mod of the peak hex would be best - the designer would control whether the location should have sight beyond adjacent - and how far beyond. Lots simpler, too. In effect, the peak hex is the only modeling of elevations that TOAW does - let's just expand on that.

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ORIGINAL: damezzi

When I said simple, I wasn`t trying to compete with your idea;

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I meant simpler than having to simulate elevation.

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I have to disagree that it would be as arbitrary as now.

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I don't know if I expressed myself clearly, but the formula by itself shows that a unit having 3 open hexes between itself and the enemy would have a greater chance of seeing the enemy than a unit which had a hill hex on the middle. If a mountain hex was present, sight would be blocked.

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And the designer could have control simply by changing the 'm' variable of the formula, for example.

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....and yours is the last word.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Not much simpler - line-of-sight paths from/to each unit must be determined. That's most of the line-of-sight process. It just leaves out the elevations - making it bogus.

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It will definitely be random and definitely be arbitrary. We have that now with the Theater Recon - that also is affected by the terrain type, among other things.

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You are confusing relief with altitude. The tiles in TOAW are only modeling relief (how "wrinkled" the terrain is). Terrain can be low in altitude and high in relief or vice-versa. There is no basis to assume that an open hex is lower or higher in altitude than any other open hex, or a hill or mountain hex, etc. There is one exception: The peak hex. That's the only feature in TOAW that models altitude in any fashion.

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...noticed reconnaissance issues was when I was playing Kasserine...

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Kasserine has fairly low recon levels, 15 for the Axis, 5 for the Allies. You might want to try setting them a little higher for yourself to see if you get a more desired effect.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
I think TOAW handles this via the hex conversion charges. Units in the rear move much more efficiently than units moving through enemy territory.

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Opart has other flaws in this area -- like armies really can't reverse the direction of their movement without complications in reality -- but the change I suggest might at least improve matters.

For logistical reasons - and TOAW somewhat represents that via the supply penalty for units that have moved.