Land-based Transport

[CEDeaton]

I'm working on a scenario for the Chaco War (Bolivia vs Paraguay, 1932-35). The problem I have is that land transport (generally trucks and buses pressed into service) were generally not organic to the units in that conflict, rather they were used to shuttle troops from the rear areas to the battle areas, bringing back the injured on their return trips.

Does anyone know if it is possible to simulate this in TOAW3 through some combination of unit characteristics/attributes?

If not, I'd sure like to see land-based (non-train) transport ability included in a future patch.

[golden delicious]

What I would suggest is- since the Chaco War didn't involve any sea movement- laying anchorages along major routes in the editor and then giving the player a sealift capacity.

This should work fairly well. I haven't seen it done myself but supposedly it has been tried and there are no weird side effects (though bear in mind that anchorages nullify the movement penalties for certain types of terrain). You may want to consider house rules on the maximum distance units can move in this way in a single turn and whether or not they are allowed to proceed into enemy territory.

Incidentally, good luck with your scenario. From what I hear the Chaco War deserves a good study.

[CEDeaton]

SOunds like a pretty workable solution. I'm just getting back into TOAW scenario design after a looong hiatus, so bear with what might be an ignorant follow-up question...

There will actually be some Riverine units that were used as transports - two Italian-built river gunboats and two armed steamers on the Paraguayan side. There will not be any actual sealift movement though. Would the approach you suggested have any adverse effect on my ability to move units via river using those units?

[ColinWright]

Alternatively -- and what does work well -- is to use rail movement for lorry movement. You can even substitute road tiles and truck noises for the rail lines and choo-choo sound. I do this in my Operation Exporter scenario. Of course, if you have real RR movement as well, the system won't be able to distinguish between the two -- but that may not be as important as it sounds. Note also that this approach will heavily bias supply towards the road/railroads -- which might also be a good thing. If it's not a good thing, you could always have a break between rail lines going to supply hexes and the 'rail lines' simulating usable roads.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: CraigDeaton

There will actually be some Riverine units that were used as transports - two Italian-built river gunboats and two armed steamers on the Paraguayan side. There will not be any actual sealift movement though. Would the approach you suggested have any adverse effect on my ability to move units via river using those units?

No. Riverine units don't allow the transport of units by river in any case, only the fording of rivers.

[Fidel_Helms]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Alternatively -- and what does work well -- is to use rail movement for lorry movement.

Rails would be good- you could lay down broken rails all over the place to simulate the trail blazing that both sides(but mainly the Paraguayans IIRC) did; the trails could be cut by fixing the rails. The main problem would be that rails wouldn't reflect the longer Bolivian supply lines properly, and would give a big advantage to them because of that.

I think there's an old TDG thread where we went on about this. I think my idea at the time was to use canals and bridges. Rails would probably work better.

[Veers]

The main problem would be that rails wouldn't reflect the longer Bolivian supply lines properly, and would give a big advantage to them because of that.

Have gaps in the rails. Have a point where there is no rail, so a player would have to detrain move, and then retrain. (If this would cover what you're refering to...)