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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> The Operational Art of War IV >> Mods and Scenarios >> RE: Equipment Transitions

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 2:55:28 AM

Lobster

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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?

It would seem so. Escarpment hex sides would require knowing which hex side the escarpment was on.

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Post #: 31

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 3:16:26 AM

Lobster

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I've always found the portion I've put in bold interesting and been curious about.

</FORCEVARIABLES>
<VARIABLES scenarioIsOver="0" ceaseFire="0" eventEngineVariable="0" riversAlongEdges="0" attritionDivider="10" maxRoundsPerBattle="99" AAALethalityRate="100" engineeringRate="100" hexConversionRate="100" entrenchmentRate="100" combatDensityRate="100" supplyMovementRate="100" supplyReadinessRate="100" roadCost="1" navalAttritionDivider="10" newMudRulesScalar="100" />
<MAP version="100" offsetx="0" offsety="0" minx="0" miny="0" maxx="44" maxy="43">
<CELL loc="0,0" b="/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/16/0/48/0/12/0/0/0/0/0" />
<CELL loc="0,1" b="/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/16/0/48/0/12/0/0/0/0/0" />

I've never tried giving it a value of 1.

< Message edited by Lobster -- 12/19/2020 3:17:26 AM >

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RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 4:55:24 AM

76mm

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lobster
I've always found the portion I've put in bold interesting and been curious about.

I did. Weird things happened with the game graphics; not surprising since the game doesn't have any graphics for hexside rivers. I didn't play things out to see how/if movement/combat were affected.

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Post #: 33

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 5:59:47 AM

Simon Edmonds

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Ok. So what do the values 16/0/48/0/12/etc mean? I assume that the value rivers along hexsides means that there are currently no rivers along hexsides. It is the data attached to the cell loc that is interesting. I would be interesting to see what each of the values represent.

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Post #: 34

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 12:18:13 PM

76mm

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds
Ok. So what do the values 16/0/48/0/12/etc mean? I assume that the value rivers along hexsides means that there are currently no rivers along hexsides. It is the data attached to the cell loc that is interesting. I would be interesting to see what each of the values represent.

See the thread I linked to for this kind of info, at least as much as is known. Lots of blanks to be filled in still.

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Post #: 35

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 4:36:31 PM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds

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.

A hill has nothing to do with elevation. It's about how rugged the terrain is. There's a lot of the world which is at very high altitude but very flat. Sorry this does make mapping dramatically more complicated- but it's a fact.

When I was doing a major mapping project, I set thresholds for:
- streamflow in cubic feet per second (the data was in this unit) for what's a "river" or a "super river". At your scale this might be something like 500 and 5,000, but go with something that "feels" right for a certain case and then apply it across the board. Deep canyons which contain very little water can instead be wadis or escarpments (a ferry unit won't help you cross the grand canyon)
- minimum population for "urban" or "dense urban". At your scale you'd want about 5,000 for urban and 10 or 20,000 for dense urban

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Post #: 36

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 4:38:06 PM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I did. Weird things happened with the game graphics; not surprising since the game doesn't have any graphics for hexside rivers. I didn't play things out to see how/if movement/combat were affected.

I believe hexside rivers was tried and dropped as a possible feature at some point in the past. I have a vague memory of seeing a dev screenshot with hexside rivers, but this might be my memory playing tricks.

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Post #: 37

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/19/2020 5:17:20 PM

Lobster

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A hill has everything to do with elevation. The Atacama Plateau is between 11k and 13k feet high but is flat. Except for the hills and mountains on it. Parts of the mountains in the Crimean Peninsula are flat also. There are hills on those flat parts too. So I really don't understand what you mean when you say hills have nothing to do with elevation.

It can be perplexing sometimes to figure out how to portray some terrains that could be hills or could be ravines. Lots of that in the former Soviet Union.

< Message edited by Lobster -- 12/19/2020 5:19:48 PM >

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Post #: 38

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 2:21:13 AM

Simon Edmonds

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Hi 76mm. Had look at that thread you recommended. Very informative. Big thanks to you and Cathar. I cringe at the thought of some of the suggestions I have made without understanding the limitations of the system.
First Rivers on hexsides. My immediate thought reading the thread was "we can use Field 47 as a hexside river" But then what would we use for major rivers, canals and so on. Yeah you could use the earlier water course Fields to generate the picture on hexes; but this stuffs up all of the previous scenarios. Not an option! You could have multiple values for a single terrain field. You could have multiple values for a number of terrain fields to get that overlay effect that Toaw does so well. Field 1 for terrain base. ie. Default, Sea, Arid, Swamp, Rocky etc. Field 2 for terrain type hills, mountains, etc. Field 3 for terrain coverage, Forest, Woods, intermittent lakes etc. Field 4 for artificial improvements. Then you could have multiple values for multiple sets of hexsides. One set for coast and rivers. One set for water courses. One for roads. One for rail. (this gives you different gauges, weight limits and number of tracks like that other mob has. And one for borders. But this would take a Toaw 5 level of change and require modifications to every scenario as per Toaw 4. Way too big an ask at this point in time.
The only way I can see the change being done is to add on extra terrain Fields at the end. (49 to 58). Maybe more... So that there isn't any requirement for major program changes you can do a graphics mod for the existing watercourse graphics so that it doesn't show the river. Place one of these hexes on either side of the river. Then you have one field to show the watercourse and another to render the effects. That way this wont effect any scenarios already in existence. Note that this will probably only work for scales up to 10km.
Just a thought.

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Post #: 39

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 2:41:28 AM

76mm

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I'm not holding my breath for any changes to terrain or map stuff, that's for sure. If you really want to try hexside rivers, here's an idea: repurpose escarpments as rivers. If you changed the graphics, this would almost work, except for the observation and combat effects of escarpments (which differ from rivers in limited but significant ways, such as mountain troops have an advantage, etc).

Now that I think about it, it sure seems like it would be easy for the devs to add hexside rivers for use with new scenarios, just by tweaking the escarpment rules and providing new graphics. Actually, given that there is that "hexside river" switch in the existing XML, I wouldn't be surprised it it were all done but the graphics. I propose that some brave (and bored) soul start tinkering with the map XML to see what they come up with!

< Message edited by 76mm -- 12/20/2020 2:42:28 AM >

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Post #: 40

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 5:11:46 AM

cathar1244

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I did. Weird things happened with the game graphics; not surprising since the game doesn't have any graphics for hexside rivers. I didn't play things out to see how/if movement/combat were affected.

I believe hexside rivers was tried and dropped as a possible feature at some point in the past. I have a vague memory of seeing a dev screenshot with hexside rivers, but this might be my memory playing tricks.

Screenshot can be seen at https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3899655&mpage=4

Cheers

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Post #: 41

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 5:27:11 AM

Simon Edmonds

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From your link I think I have worked out an answer to another question. Map size. So the underlying data for the map is stored in a xml spreadsheet. What are the row limitations on an xml spreadsheet? Excel has a limit of 1,048,000 rows. There are ways around that which actually speeds up the program and reduces ram usage. I will have to look for my notes.

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Post #: 42

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 5:36:23 AM

Simon Edmonds

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Hi Lobster. I probably communicated my thoughts on hills poorly. The relevant part of a hills elevation; or a mountain for that matter, is how high it is above the surrounding terrain. A hill might be 300m high but if the surrounding terrain is 280m then it's not so much of a hill after all. When used at 5km scale or less the open topo map clearly shows the contours to enable you to interpret the hill.
At 5km scale I would reckon the grand canyon would be adjacent hexes with opposing impassible escarpments.

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Post #: 43

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 12:38:53 PM

76mm

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds
Map size. So the underlying data for the map is stored in a xml spreadsheet. What are the row limitations on an xml spreadsheet?

You need to bear in mind that the XML is just an export of game data (which can then be re-imported). That doesn't mean that whatever you put in the XML will work in the game, because the game might disregard it, have "hard" limits, etc. Even if the game allows it, you could easily bump into constraints on memory, etc.

XML files are simply text files. AFAIK they can be of virtually unlimited size--certainly in the range of gigabits. As stated above, whether the game could handle XML files of that size is a completely different matter. Only one way to find out, eh?

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Post #: 44

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 3:06:39 PM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lobster

A hill has everything to do with elevation. The Atacama Plateau is between 11k and 13k feet high but is flat. Except for the hills and mountains on it. Parts of the mountains in the Crimean Peninsula are flat also. There are hills on those flat parts too. So I really don't understand what you mean when you say hills have nothing to do with elevation.

I thought we were talking about TOAW. A hill;
1) reduces the movement speed of non-mountain troops
2) adds to the defence strength of units in the hex
3) increases the number of hits armoured vehicles will receive

So given all this, flat ground at 10,000 feet is absolutely not a "hill"- not in TOAW.

quote:

It can be perplexing sometimes to figure out how to portray some terrains that could be hills or could be ravines. Lots of that in the former Soviet Union.

The big question is, does it obstruct movement in every direction, or only along a given axis (e.g. north/south)? If it's the former, it's a hill. If it's the latter, it's an escarpment.

Naturally if it obstructs movements in every direction, but particularly in one direction, it's both hills and escarpment.

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Post #: 45

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 3:22:38 PM

golden delicious

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This is the way I see it:

Lower middle, hills
Upper left, escarpments
In between, neither

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by golden delicious -- 12/20/2020 3:23:08 PM >

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Post #: 46

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 4:09:16 PM

Curtis Lemay

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The term you are all searching for is: Relief: Variation in altitude. A location can be high altitude but low relief, or low altitude and high relief. It's the level of relief that matters.

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Post #: 47

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 4:16:46 PM

Lobster

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lobster

A hill has everything to do with elevation. The Atacama Plateau is between 11k and 13k feet high but is flat. Except for the hills and mountains on it. Parts of the mountains in the Crimean Peninsula are flat also. There are hills on those flat parts too. So I really don't understand what you mean when you say hills have nothing to do with elevation.

I thought we were talking about TOAW. A hill;
1) reduces the movement speed of non-mountain troops
2) adds to the defence strength of units in the hex
3) increases the number of hits armoured vehicles will receive

So given all this, flat ground at 10,000 feet is absolutely not a "hill"- not in TOAW.

quote:

It can be perplexing sometimes to figure out how to portray some terrains that could be hills or could be ravines. Lots of that in the former Soviet Union.

The big question is, does it obstruct movement in every direction, or only along a given axis (e.g. north/south)? If it's the former, it's a hill. If it's the latter, it's an escarpment.

Naturally if it obstructs movements in every direction, but particularly in one direction, it's both hills and escarpment.

Aye. The southern part of the Crimea is a good example. A few flat spots at elevations that would not be considered flat if elevation were the only criteria.

Attachment (1)

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Post #: 48

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/20/2020 4:19:43 PM

Lobster

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

This is the way I see it:

Lower middle, hills
Upper left, escarpments
In between, neither

And scale matters. That 'flat' valley is not flat by any means. At large scales those elevation variations in the valley wouldn't matter. At smaller scales they would make a great difference. At Gettysburg the hills and ridges were not all that high. But they were commanding elevations none the less.

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Post #: 49

RE: Equipment Transitions - 12/21/2020 11:10:56 AM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lobster

And scale matters. That 'flat' valley is not flat by any means. At large scales those elevation variations in the valley wouldn't matter. At smaller scales they would make a great difference. At Gettysburg the hills and ridges were not all that high. But they were commanding elevations none the less.

Agreed. This is why mapping is a nightmare and why you use someone else's map at your peril.

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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
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Post #: 50

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RE: Equipment Transitions