Any River

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: GreenDestiny

I have a question, what were they thinking when they decided to put the rivers through the hex instead of the hex sides? What are the benefits of this?

Because... I just don’t get it. This game has so much detail in it I find it hard to believe they would add something like this in it without some kind of a benefit. But it seems like now no one knows what going on when it comes to defending on a river hex, let alone attacking from it or around it. Almost every wargame that I have has rivers on the hex-sides, so what’s the deal with this one. [&:]

I believe the rationale had to do with riverine units - which must travel on rivers, and bridges - which require blowing, repair, and targeting. It would have been much more complicated to shift those functions from the hex to the hexside.

I expect there was also an aesthetic aspect as well. Note that the few hexside features (minor & major escarpments) don't actually fall on the hexside, but are just within the hex. Hexside rivers would require the same - creating the same confusion. Or they would have to look like the featureless "border" to be placed actually on the hexside. Having a river feature that both looked like a winding river and actually fit on the hexside would probably have been too technically complicated - impacting tiles on both sides of the hex.

And it's debatable which mode is the more accurate. Rivers certainly do have sides to them, but they are not microscopically thin and perfectly straight. Their widths actually do take up some space, they do wind around, and have local tributaries. The river might be all over that 10km hex, and an attack that looks parallel to the river on the TOAW map may actually afford the defenders the benefit of one of its curves or tributaries.

Riverine units are the first good reason I've heard against hex-side rivers, thanks. The rest of the items that I've heard about could be dealt with. If I do hex-side rivers, I'm probably going to have to not allow riverine units in those scenarios. That feels like a reasonable compromise. The thought of trying to deal with them in a reasonable way gives me a head-ache, I'm not sure how to do it without causing confusion.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: GreenDestiny

I have a question, what were they thinking when they decided to put the rivers through the hex instead of the hex sides? What are the benefits of this?

Because... I just don’t get it. This game has so much detail in it I find it hard to believe they would add something like this in it without some kind of a benefit. But it seems like now no one knows what going on when it comes to defending on a river hex, let alone attacking from it or around it. Almost every wargame that I have has rivers on the hex-sides, so what’s the deal with this one. [&:]

I believe the rationale had to do with riverine units - which must travel on rivers, and bridges - which require blowing, repair, and targeting. It would have been much more complicated to shift those functions from the hex to the hexside.

I expect there was also an aesthetic aspect as well. Note that the few hexside features (minor & major escarpments) don't actually fall on the hexside, but are just within the hex. Hexside rivers would require the same - creating the same confusion. Or they would have to look like the featureless "border" to be placed actually on the hexside. Having a river feature that both looked like a winding river and actually fit on the hexside would probably have been too technically complicated - impacting tiles on both sides of the hex.

And it's debatable which mode is the more accurate. Rivers certainly do have sides to them, but they are not microscopically thin and perfectly straight. Their widths actually do take up some space, they do wind around, and have local tributaries. The river might be all over that 10km hex, and an attack that looks parallel to the river on the TOAW map may actually afford the defenders the benefit of one of its curves or tributaries.

Riverine units are the first good reason I've heard against hex-side rivers, thanks. The rest of the items that I've heard about could be dealt with. If I do hex-side rivers, I'm probably going to have to not allow riverine units in those scenarios. That feels like a reasonable compromise. The thought of trying to deal with them in a reasonable way gives me a head-ache, I'm not sure how to do it without causing confusion.

There are a lot of reasons why hex-side rivers are a bad idea.

They are ugly.

They create a problem in the interface for trying to designate a bombing attack against them.

They create a problem in the interface for trying to effect a bridge repair against a hexside.

They present a calculation problem for determining ferry capacity. Do you sum all engineering assets in the moving unit's hex, the target hex, both?

The aforementioned Riverine movement issue.

[GreenDestiny]

Thanks for the replies. The ones that took me by surprise are the riverine units, tributaries, and the engineering assets of the unit’s hex & target hex. I knew there had to be some kind of a reason for the rivers running through the hexes instead of having them on the hex-sides. But I just couldn’t see it. This will help out in my enjoyment of the games that I’m having right now in WGotY and TOAW II and it will help out also when TOAW III comes out, so keep them coming.

I’m still looking forward to some kind of modification that would put rivers on the hex-sides.
They may be ugly… but then again… I like ugly.[;)]

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
If I do hex-side rivers, I'm probably going to have to not allow riverine units in those scenarios.

Riverine units work so badly in TOAW as it stands that this is hardly a sacrifice.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

They are ugly.

This argument is not at all convincing. The others are fine- but even if aesthetics was a major consideration, I doubt that hexside rivers are genuinely any uglier than rivers within hexes.

[Vincenzo_Beretta]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
If I do hex-side rivers, I'm probably going to have to not allow riverine units in those scenarios.

Riverine units work so badly in TOAW as it stands that this is hardly a sacrifice.

With hexsides one could portray riverine units as units forced to stay on hexes adiacent their "original" river (so no "river jumping" if an hex is bordered by two rivers). They could freely move from the "left" to the "right" bank hexes of the river, however, to simulate the flexibility to cover mainly one side intead of another (and with the opportunity to break up if you wish to cover both banks). And maybe with a ZOC partly extending across the river hexside.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: Vincenzo Beretta

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
If I do hex-side rivers, I'm probably going to have to not allow riverine units in those scenarios.

Riverine units work so badly in TOAW as it stands that this is hardly a sacrifice.

With hexsides one could portray riverine units as units forced to stay on hexes adiacent their "original" river (so no "river jumping" if an hex is bordered by two rivers). They could freely move from the "left" to the "right" bank hexes of the river, however, to simulate the flexibility to cover mainly one side intead of another (and with the opportunity to break up if you wish to cover both banks). And maybe with a ZOC partly extending across the river hexside.

To me, it just feels too complicated. It's also going to affect combat, you're going to have to worry about retreats, and whether retreat from a riverine unit is different from a retreate from a non-riverine unit. (non-riverine could just retreat across the river)

I'm not convinved that the added complexity to the gameplay is worth adding in riverine units.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Vincenzo Beretta

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
If I do hex-side rivers, I'm probably going to have to not allow riverine units in those scenarios.

Riverine units work so badly in TOAW as it stands that this is hardly a sacrifice.

With hexsides one could portray riverine units as units forced to stay on hexes adiacent their "original" river (so no "river jumping" if an hex is bordered by two rivers). They could freely move from the "left" to the "right" bank hexes of the river, however, to simulate the flexibility to cover mainly one side intead of another (and with the opportunity to break up if you wish to cover both banks). And maybe with a ZOC partly extending across the river hexside.

How do you know which hexside the unit is in? There would have to be an arrow (on the unit, since there could be multiple units in multiple hexsides) showing which hexside the unit was in.

[Vincenzo_Beretta]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
How do you know which hexside the unit is in? There would have to be an arrow (on the unit, since there could be multiple units in multiple hexsides) showing which hexside the unit was in.

Yeah. Or the opportunity of "rotating" the counter to show on which river hexside it is positioned.

I gess that some rules are more easily implemented in tabletop wargames [:)]

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Vincenzo Beretta

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
How do you know which hexside the unit is in? There would have to be an arrow (on the unit, since there could be multiple units in multiple hexsides) showing which hexside the unit was in.

Yeah. Or the opportunity of "rotating" the counter to show on which river hexside it is positioned.

I gess that some rules are more easily implemented in tabletop wargames [:)]

In fact, I left out some complexity. How would you move from hexside to hexside? The old hex-to-hex movement algorithms wouldn't work. And then there is the problem of targeting a unit that is actually existing in a hexside rather than a hex.

[rhinobones]

Think at some future date (assuming it is financially viable) we need two TOAWs. Each optimized for one of the two types of river. Would be nice to have a choice!

Regards, RhinoBones

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Think at some future date (assuming it is financially viable) we need two TOAWs. Each optimized for one of the two types of river. Would be nice to have a choice!

Well, one could just allow rivers both in hexes and on hexsides.

I don't see the riverine unit thing as an issue since riverine units don't work properly in TOAW as it stands.

[GreenDestiny]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Think at some future date (assuming it is financially viable) we need two TOAWs. Each optimized for one of the two types of river. Would be nice to have a choice!

I like this idea.
It may also be something that Matrix may want to consider as an expansion pack. After they get some sales from TOAW III going. They could set it up like Opart & Opart300 was with two different exe.files so people can play either version whenever they want.

As I see it... this is the best and last chance for something like this to happen.

[GreenDestiny]

Last question... I wonder what Norm Koger would think about rivers on the hex-sides. (come on Norm… I know you want this also.) Please turn a classic to a masterpiece.

And also what are the yellow and blue stars in the telescope.
Hmm…?
I think they may be around Orion somewhere… near Trapezium.
A binaries star… that is.


BTW… I’m not a fanatic… I just sound like one.[;)]

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: GreenDestiny

Last question... I wonder what Norm Koger would think about rivers on the hex-sides. (come on Norm… I know you want this also.) Please turn a classic to a masterpiece.

Norm no longer has anything to do with the development of TOAW, so he says. But FWIW I don't think he's particularly averse to hexside rivers.

[*Lava*]

Ya think?

If he had wanted them that way I would assume that's the way the game would have been designed.

Seems to me if the riverine stuff doesn't work well, then fix the feature. Changing the map...

[:@]

Ray (alias Lava)

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Lava

Ya think?

If he had wanted them that way I would assume that's the way the game would have been designed.

I think he designed the game the way it is for simplicity.

I guess to you it sounded like I was just postulating, but the reason I think Norm wouldn't mind hexside rivers is that I recall at one point he posted a screenshot of some version of TOAW which he was working on which had hexside rivers on it. At a guess these were the modified escarpments mentioned earlier in this thread.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: GreenDestiny

Last question... I wonder what Norm Koger would think about rivers on the hex-sides. (come on Norm… I know you want this also.) Please turn a classic to a masterpiece.

Norm no longer has anything to do with the development of TOAW, so he says. But FWIW I don't think he's particularly averse to hexside rivers.

He did some very preliminary work to include hex-side rivers, so I don't think he's opposed to them.

Ralph

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: Lava
Seems to me if the riverine stuff doesn't work well, then fix the feature. Changing the map...

[:@]

Ray (alias Lava)

I think the intent, at least my intent, is to first fix the problems with the original TOAW (including riverine units). Second would be to port the original TOAW to a version designed with hex side rivers.

It has never been suggested that the original TOAW be abandon for a hex side river version. I see a hex side river version as a compliment, rather than a replacement of the original TOAW. At scales of 2.5 and 5 Km/Hex the hex side river might be appropriate, while at higher scales the original TOAW might be the designer’s choice.

Of course a hex side version is far in the future, so this becomes an exercise in speculation. But the future does look good!

Regards, RhinoBones

[*Lava*]

Hey,

I don't have any problems with hex sided rivers included as a new feature. Don't see why you can't have both in the same game.

That gives the player the option to play or create whatever scenarios he wants. And the more options the merrier.

Just don't want to see one superceed the other.

Ray (alias Lava)