Map changes for historical scenarios

[el cid again]

The AE map - "new" compared to the original WITP system - is remarkable and incorporates the vast majority of
things I believed were needed - and tried to achieve with Cobra in the RHS system. Things like rivers - shallow and
deep - are there. Locations in almost every case are there.

Still - some critical things fell through the cracks.

Most serious of these, probably, are the lack of trails in Papua - and the two main trail connections between the
NE Frontier of India and Burma (the Ledo Trail/Road - and the Trail/Road to Imphal - both of which were used by
both sides in two different campaigns that matter. Trail corrections can be made without any art changes - because
reveal codes should show them if a player cares.

The other really vital change is in Luzon - and it does not require any actual changes to pwhexe at all - just location
definitions. One is cosmetic - location 623 ought to be called Balinta pass - if this hex - 80,75 - is mountains - nothing else
need be done. Another is to add a location at 81,74 called Baguio City - the roads are right - giving it an airfield,
resources, supply generation in some sense - and defined as non-malarial. It is the summer capital of the Philippines,
the location of the new Philippine Military Academy (at Teacher Camp temporarily), and Fort John Hay (surrender point
of Gen Yamashita). Hex 81,73 should have a minor location called Bontc - the trails are already right - and lots of resources -
for mines - including the biggest copper mine in Asia. Possibly a road if resources won't move down a trail - a peculiar
conveyance permits movement of ore to San Fernando. These changes to locations will make possible the strategic
potential and options on Luzon clear - for players to ignore (like Mac) or use (like in part Yamashita did).

Mifune and I probably will release the stock scenarios modified in these respects with a new pwhexe to make them work.
Maybe we add 100 to the scenario number?

[chesmart]

Welcome back Cid loved your scenarios and still play them on WITP. How are you going to edit the PWhexe ? I thought that AE has removed the PWhex editor.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Still - some critical things fell through the cracks.

Most serious of these, probably, are the lack of trails in Papua - and the two main trail connections between the NE Frontier of India and Burma (the Ledo Trail/Road - and the Trail/Road to Imphal - both of which were used by both sides in two different campaigns that matter.

Those did not fall through the cracks, they were considered and left out on purpose. You have missed tons of valuable discussion, I recommend that you use Google to search the AE forums to find info on various topics. Try something like this in the Google search box:

site:matrixgames.com +"War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >>" PutYourSearchTermsHere

The first two parts (site:matrixgames.com +"War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >>") will make certain that you search specifically the AE forum at Matrix Games. Good luck.

[treespider]

Actually AE has trails, however they are not represented on map with a visual representation. Brown lines were used in the original witp to represent trails...AE uses brown lines to represent secondary roads.

[berto]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

... Balinta pass - if this hex - 80,75 - is mountains - nothing else need be done.

I humbly disagree. I think leaving it as Bayombong is more appropriate. Bayombong is the capital of Nueva Vizcaya Province (hex 80,75) and is the largest town in that area. (In any case, if it must be renamed, Balete Pass -- later named Dalton Pass after the American General who died of a sniper's bullet at the place -- is in fact the name of the mountain pass joining the Cagayan Valley proper to central Luzon. (It's actually more complicated than this, but the map scale doesn't permit entirely accurate refinements.)

Another is to add a location at 81,74 called Baguio City - the roads are right - giving it an airfield, resources, supply generation in some sense - and defined as non-malarial. It is the summer capital of the Philippines,the location of the new Philippine Military Academy (at Teacher Camp temporarily), and Fort John Hay (surrender pointof Gen Yamashita). Hex 81,73 should have a minor location called Bontc [sic] - the trails are already right - and lots of resources - for mines - including the biggest copper mine in Asia.

Sort of agree. Due to map distortions and imprecise placement of roads, this puts these places about a hex too northward. That is, Baguio actually straddles 80,75 & 81,74; and Bontoc is closer to 81,74-- definitely southwest of Tuguegarao.

As a compromise, I would say 81,74 should be Baguio (and leave out any explicit Bontoc). A glaring omission. It's definitely worth including.

I would leave 81,73 unnamed, sans base. There is no road from Bontoc directly to Vigan. 81,73 is northwest of Tuguegarao, and there is no city or town in the mountainous interior of any significance on the road northwest of Tuguegarao leading to Vigan/Laoag.

I lived in northern Luzon's Cagayan Valley for six years (in Tuguegarao for 5+ years, and Ilagan for one year), and have visited all of these places, travelling over the very roads (more or less) depicted in game.

The current map is not bad, pretty good actually; but yes, it could be slightly improved upon.

[Andrew Brown]

When I was making the AE map I took a good look a Baguio (a hangover from the discussions about this location in the old CHS days). It is actually in the rightmost part of hex 80,74, so it didn't get a hex of its own for AE. Just another effect of scale and the application of a hex grid.

Regarding trails - this has been explained before, but there are no on-map trails in AE. They are assumed to exist in all hexes (as they largely did) and were taken into consideration when working out movement costs and - more importantly - supply path costs, for the game. So just assume that trails exist in all hexes. That is the map designer's assumption. There is one exception, however, which was added late in the design process: railways that do not have adjacent roads were given the old "trail" attribute - the only such hexes in AE to get it - to represent the ability for forces to "walk" along railway routes more quickly. The movement rates are not as fast as along secondary roads, however.

Andrew

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Still - some critical things fell through the cracks.

Most serious of these, probably, are the lack of trails in Papua - and the two main trail connections between the NE Frontier of India and Burma (the Ledo Trail/Road - and the Trail/Road to Imphal - both of which were used by both sides in two different campaigns that matter.

Those did not fall through the cracks, they were considered and left out on purpose. You have missed tons of valuable discussion, I recommend that you use Google to search the AE forums to find info on various topics. Try something like this in the Google search box:

site:matrixgames.com +"War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >>" PutYourSearchTermsHere

The first two parts (site:matrixgames.com +"War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >>") will make certain that you search specifically the AE forum at Matrix Games. Good luck.

I did slightly participate in the discussion when the pre release map showed removal of trails at PM. I have several times reviewed the matter - including this week - and cannot reconcile the removal with how the historical campaign was done - or the options players ought to face. There are AIRFIELDS in the area that the Allies used - so it is not just the trails - it is the possibility of airlift. See the official Army history Victory in Papua. And how did the British Army leave Burma? Why attack toward Imphal with zero supply support? Or toward Ledo? In all these cases we are talking about one lane roads with - with the single exception of one section of the Kokota Trail. The word "trail" is misleading - these are not deer paths - they are pack and vehicle roads - of economic import to the local economy - and of military value and significance. Without them, players have no incentive to use historical routes - and are deprived of the real logistical options actually present. I may have lost the argument, but not for reasons that make sense to me, and I am sure at least some people will prefer to have more historically correct options.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

When I was making the AE map I took a good look a Baguio (a hangover from the discussions about this location in the old CHS days). It is actually in the rightmost part of hex 80,74, so it didn't get a hex of its own for AE. Just another effect of scale and the application of a hex grid.

Regarding trails - this has been explained before, but there are no on-map trails in AE. They are assumed to exist in all hexes (as they largely did) and were taken into consideration when working out movement costs and - more importantly - supply path costs, for the game. So just assume that trails exist in all hexes. That is the map designer's assumption. There is one exception, however, which was added late in the design process: railways that do not have adjacent roads were given the old "trail" attribute - the only such hexes in AE to get it - to represent the ability for forces to "walk" along railway routes more quickly. The movement rates are not as fast as along secondary roads, however.

Andrew

I read something like this years ago. I cannot reconcile it with the pwhex file. Nor do I think it reflects the way supplies and resources move. Not that it is easy to grasp such matters - even if you look at code. Joe once said that analysis based on testing was as good a way as reading to try to grasp how things actually work in the program. It certainly appears there are trails in the pwhexe file system. And it certainly seems to matter when units cross the areas in question.

As for how to edit pwhexe, there is an editor out there. If you want it, send me an email address using a message - do not post email addresses on the forum because crawlers will find them and attack you.

[witpqs]

Sid,

There is no need to "reconcile" anything regarding trails. What Andrew is telling you is that ALL HEXES have trails IN ALL DIRECTIONS. The presence of the trails is built into both the unit movement speeds and the supply movement algorithms.

The things you see when you use the "r" hot key are:

1) Railroad beds with no road alongside them. Units move along these a bit faster than along the built-in trails. In some places in the manual or on the forum sometimes these railroad beds are referred to as "trails". Do not let that confuse the issue.
2) Secondary roads, along which movement is even faster.
3) Primary roads, along which movement is faster still. Primary roads can also support strategic road movement for units that can do it.

When you use the "y" hot key you see the 3 different kinds of railroads, which have different speeds. Railroads support strategic rail movement.

Good luck.

-
Regarding sending people the pwhex editor, maybe you shouldn't. At least twice over the past 6 to 8 months your email address sent me spam and was obviously compromised. You didn't respond when I emailed to report that to you. If you have not disinfected or reloaded your PC then you might be spreading viruses when you send people executable files. Caution would be prudent.

BTW, a pwhex editor for AE was linked to here on the forums a while back.

[el cid again]

Road: 00 = None
01 = Trail (The manual says that trails underlie all rail lines where there is no Road (“walking on railway tracks”). There are however some hexes with trails only and it seems they are independent. That is, you can have Railroads with no underlying road/trail and a trail without a rail line.
02 = Minor Road (developed areas supposed to have them in all directions)
03 = Major Road (urban areas supposed to have them in all directions)

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Road: 00 = None
01 = Trail (The manual says that trails underlie all rail lines where there is no Road (“walking on railway tracks”). There are however some hexes with trails only and it seems they are independent. That is, you can have Railroads with no underlying road/trail and a trail without a rail line.
02 = Minor Road (developed areas supposed to have them in all directions)
03 = Major Road (urban areas supposed to have them in all directions)

The standard AE map should only have "trails" co-existing with rail lines. I believe modded maps have used them elsewhere.

Map and pwhexe editing is available for anyone who wants a different map so go for it.

Taking PNG as an example, the Kokoda track was not unique. Such trails existed, and still exist, all over the place in PNG. The map would look like a spiders web is they were all added. I thought it was better to make supply paths longer for all terrain types instead, as a kind of "default" (as opposed to the old game, where as soon as you stepped off a road/trail you were often at the end of your supply line).

Andrew

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

When I was making the AE map I took a good look a Baguio (a hangover from the discussions about this location in the old CHS days). It is actually in the rightmost part of hex 80,74, so it didn't get a hex of its own for AE. Just another effect of scale and the application of a hex grid.

Yes, but placing Baquio in its own hex at 81,74 is consistent with slight misplacements and map distortions elsewhere on the map. There it would conform to the road network, too.

I agree with el cid again that Baquio really should be included. Baguio is a sprawlingly large place just as important as any other base in Northern Luzon, maybe even more so.

Whatever, it's still a pretty good map. And what a feast for the eyes!

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Road: 00 = None
01 = Trail (The manual says that trails underlie all rail lines where there is no Road (“walking on railway tracks”). There are however some hexes with trails only and it seems they are independent. That is, you can have Railroads with no underlying road/trail and a trail without a rail line.
02 = Minor Road (developed areas supposed to have them in all directions)
03 = Major Road (urban areas supposed to have them in all directions)

The standard AE map should only have "trails" co-existing with rail lines. I believe modded maps have used them elsewhere.

Map and pwhexe editing is available for anyone who wants a different map so go for it.

Taking PNG as an example, the Kokoda track was not unique. Such trails existed, and still exist, all over the place in PNG. The map would look like a spiders web is they were all added. I thought it was better to make supply paths longer for all terrain types instead, as a kind of "default" (as opposed to the old game, where as soon as you stepped off a road/trail you were often at the end of your supply line).

Andrew

In Papua NG there are only two significant ways to cross.
There are also trails and trails - the ones big enough for trucks - with actual bridges - in places with nothing better - really matter in terms of routing
and supply. Players ought to play on a map that causes them to think the way actual staffs had to think. There are indeed two ways across the Owen Stanley range - plus the possibility of using small airfields in the pennensula. The 144th Regimental Combat Team shows that the Kokota Trail is (barely) a possibility - and done soon enough might have worked.

It does not appear the pwhexe file is uniformly done - with trails (or roads) in all directions - and if it was - this should be changed in places like Papua or the NW frontier of Burma. There are not trails everywhere of military value - and there are reasons the real campaigns took the routes they did (or considered the routes they didn't).

Is it true pwhexe is only used at game start - that we cannot change it thereafter because it is part of the save game file?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: berto

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

When I was making the AE map I took a good look a Baguio (a hangover from the discussions about this location in the old CHS days). It is actually in the rightmost part of hex 80,74, so it didn't get a hex of its own for AE. Just another effect of scale and the application of a hex grid.

Yes, but placing Baquio in its own hex at 81,74 is consistent with slight misplacements and map distortions elsewhere on the map. There it would conform to the road network, too.

I agree with el cid again that Baquio really should be included. Baguio is a sprawlingly large place just as important as any other base in Northern Luzon, maybe even more so.

Whatever, it's still a pretty good map. And what a feast for the eyes!

Baguio is one of the center squares of the chessboard - or potentially ought to be. As an airfield, in mountians, with lots of food, timber and water, and with vital resources - and because it is not malarial - it matters big time. It is defensible, a whole lot more so than Bataan is. The Manila Bay forts close the bay alone - the Concrete Battleship (Fort Drum) considered not surrendering when Corregedor fell - and did so ONLY because of lack of FOOD. Give em food they will hold out a long time. Let the Philippine Army fall back on the interior - not risk the destruction of Manila in battle - or vice versa- do what Yamashita did. Without Baguio his logic does not make game sense.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
In Papua NG there are only two significant ways to cross.
There are also trails and trails - the ones big enough for trucks - with actual bridges - in places with nothing better - really matter in terms of routing
and supply. Players ought to play on a map that causes them to think the way actual staffs had to think. There are indeed two ways across the Owen Stanley range - plus the possibility of using small airfields in the pennensula. The 144th Regimental Combat Team shows that the Kokota Trail is (barely) a possibility - and done soon enough might have worked.

It does not appear the pwhexe file is uniformly done - with trails (or roads) in all directions - and if it was - this should be changed in places like Papua or the NW frontier of Burma. There are not trails everywhere of military value - and there are reasons the real campaigns took the routes they did (or considered the routes they didn't).

Is it true pwhexe is only used at game start - that we cannot change it thereafter because it is part of the save game file?

The inherent trails are in the code, not pwhexe. Moving off road in jungle (on the inherent trails) is extremely slow and exhausting for troops. If you add secondary roads in NG, you will dramatically speed up the movement of units over historical rates.

I'm pretty sure pwhexe is not in the save file. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure it isn't.

Bill

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
The inherent trails are in the code, not pwhexe. Moving off road in jungle (on the inherent trails) is extremely slow and exhausting for troops. If you add secondary roads in NG, you will dramatically speed up the movement of units over historical rates.

Sort of - the type of route called a "trail" still exists (road attribute value of 1), but is only currently used for railway line movement as I mentioned above. Someone wanting to add explicit "trails" to the map, in addition to the implicit ones that are already considered to exist, can do so using that road type, which is slower than secondary roads.

Andrew

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: el cid again
In Papua NG there are only two significant ways to cross.
There are also trails and trails - the ones big enough for trucks - with actual bridges - in places with nothing better - really matter in terms of routing
and supply. Players ought to play on a map that causes them to think the way actual staffs had to think. There are indeed two ways across the Owen Stanley range - plus the possibility of using small airfields in the pennensula. The 144th Regimental Combat Team shows that the Kokota Trail is (barely) a possibility - and done soon enough might have worked.

It does not appear the pwhexe file is uniformly done - with trails (or roads) in all directions - and if it was - this should be changed in places like Papua or the NW frontier of Burma. There are not trails everywhere of military value - and there are reasons the real campaigns took the routes they did (or considered the routes they didn't).

Is it true pwhexe is only used at game start - that we cannot change it thereafter because it is part of the save game file?

The inherent trails are in the code, not pwhexe. Moving off road in jungle (on the inherent trails) is extremely slow and exhausting for troops. If you add secondary roads in NG, you will dramatically speed up the movement of units over historical rates.

I'm pretty sure pwhexe is not in the save file. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure it isn't.

Bill

Before the game was released, it was announced pwhexe was going to be part of the save game file. Not sure if it ended up that way. Hope not - if not - we can modify the file DURING a game - which has some applications. [See RHS]

The "trails" I speak of are secondary roads - with ten ton bridges - and actual foundations. There is a picture of the Kappa Kappa trail at a river crossing in Victory in Papua (the US Army history). This isn't a trail as you think of it. It is a truck road.

I am a graduate of the US Army Jungle Warfare School - when it was in Panama. Granted that jungle in Central America is a lot worse than in SE Asia - I also made it to the Philippines and Viet Nam - cross country movement can be from 200 to 2000 meters per day! The "trails" on NG are not like that. And the good ones are NOT in every direction in every hex.

If we do not put these in as secondary roads, players have no incentive to use the few historical routes - there or in Burma - and so won't most of the time. The games won't be good simulations of history.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: wdolson
The inherent trails are in the code, not pwhexe. Moving off road in jungle (on the inherent trails) is extremely slow and exhausting for troops. If you add secondary roads in NG, you will dramatically speed up the movement of units over historical rates.

Sort of - the type of route called a "trail" still exists (road attribute value of 1), but is only currently used for railway line movement as I mentioned above. Someone wanting to add explicit "trails" to the map, in addition to the implicit ones that are already considered to exist, can do so using that road type, which is slower than secondary roads.

Andrew

This is explicitly stated in the PWHEXE Editor Manual - and the codes I posted above show Andrew (as usual) knows his stuff - 1 is indeed the value for a trail.
However - it appears - both from the manual and from looking at the stock file - that indeed there are "trails" without RR - and even RR without trails. It might be errors, of course. But it is possible. And I do not think "trails" ought to exist in places like the Owen Stanley Range - with rare exceptions - so if they exist in the file where they do not belong - I suggest taking them out!

[treespider]

Perhaps the Japanese chose to use the Kokoda trail because it is the direct trail from Buna to Port Moresby, as opposed to the trail further east through Jaure that comes to the coast at Kappa Kappa or the trail even further east through Fasari or the trail even further east that reached the PNG southern coast at Abau. Of course they could have used they trail further west at Yodda that reaches the PNG coast NW of Pt. Moresby.

Or perhaps when they got to Kokoda they could have turned NW or SE and used the trail running along the Owen Stanley range that passes through Yodda to Kokoda to Jaure to Fasari.


If anything you might want to add a dotbase for Kokoda, Jaure and/or Fasari.

ORIGINAL: el cid again



The "trails" I speak of are secondary roads - with ten ton bridges - and actual foundations. There is a picture of the Kappa Kappa trail at a river crossing in Victory in Papua (the US Army history). This isn't a trail as you think of it. It is a truck road.

And if you read the history you will also know that:

The Kokoda Trail

The best overland route to Port Moresby passed through Kokoda, a point about fifty miles from Buna and more than one hundred miles from Port Moresby. At Wairopi, about thirty miles southwest of Buna, a wire-rope bridge, from which the place took its name, spanned the immense gorge of the Kumusi River, a broad turbulent stream subject to dangerous undertows and flash floods. Between Buna and Wairopi the country is gentle and rolling. Past Wairopi it suddenly becomes steep and rocky. Kokoda itself is set on a little plateau between the foothills of the Ajura Kijala and Owen Stanley Ranges. On this plateau, which is about 1,200 feet above sea level, there was a small airfield, suitable only for use by light commercial planes and the smaller types of military transport aircraft.

From Kokoda, the trail leads southward along the western side of a huge canyon or chasm, the so-called Eora Creek Gorge. It passes through the native villages of Deniki and Isurava to a trail junction at Alola, where a cross-country trail from Ilimo, a point southwest of Wairopi, joins the main track via Kobara, Fila, Missima, and Abuari, a short-cut which makes it possible to bypass Kokoda. From Alola, the trail crosses to the eastern side of Eora Creek and climbs to Templeton's Crossing, where the immense spurs of the main range are met for the first time at an elevation of 7,000 feet.

Just past Templeton's Crossing is the Gap, the mountain pass that leads across the range. The Gap, which is only twenty miles south of Kokoda, is a broken, jungle covered saddle in the main range, about 7,500 feet high at its central point. The saddle is about five miles wide, with high mountains on either side. The trail runs about six miles through the Gap over a rocky, broken track, on which there is not enough level space to pitch a tent, and room enough for only one man to pass. From the Gap, the trail plunges downward to Myola, Kagi, Efogi, Menari, Nauro,Ioribaiwa, the Imita Range, and Uberi, traversing in its course mountain peaks 5,000 and 6,000 feet high, and sharp, eastwest ridges whose altitude is from 3,000 to 4,000 feet. The southern edge of the range is at Koitaki, about thirty miles from Port Moresby by road, where the elevation is 2,000 feet.

From Kokoda to Templeton's Crossing the trail climbs 6,000 feet in less than twenty miles as it crosses a series of knife-edged ridges. The peaks in the area rise as high as 9,000 feet, and the valleys, whose sides slope as much as 60 percent from the horizontal, descend as low as 1,000 feet. Ridges rising from creeks and river beds are 1,500 to 2,000 feet high, and the soil in the valleys has up to thirty feet of humus and leaf mold. The area is perpetually wet, the rainfall at 3,000 feet being 200 and 300 inches a year.

The situation is only slightly better between Myola and Uberi. There are still knife-edges and razorbacks, but now they are not as precipitous as before. The gorges, though deeper and with denser undergrowth, are less frequent, but they are still extremely hard to cross. Not till the trail reaches Koitaki does the going moderate. It was a moot point whether a large, fully equipped force could complete the difficult march from Kokoda to Koitaki, in the face of determined opposition, and still be in condition to launch an effective attack on Port Moresby when it got there. Yet it was by an advance over this trail that the Japanese proposed to take Port Moresby.2

The March to Jaure

On the Kapa Kapa trail, meanwhile, Captain Boice and a small party were advancing toward Jaure and Major Baetcke, in command at "Kalamazoo," was building a forward supply base at Arapara, about thirty miles away by trail. Though the road was still unfinished, it was possible by this time for jeeps to travel over it as far as Nepeana, a distance of about fourteen miles. Over the remaining sixteen miles the track was so steep and so rough that native carriers had to be used to do the job. Supervised by ANGAU officers the natives were hard at work moving the supplies forward on their backs.26

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Perhaps the Japanese chose to use the Kokoda trail because it is the direct trail from Buna to Port Moresby, as opposed to the trail further east through Jaure that comes to the coast at Kappa Kappa or the trail even further east through Fasari or the trail even further east that reached the PNG southern coast at Abau. Of course they could have used they trail further west at Yodda that reaches the PNG coast NW of Pt. Moresby.

Or perhaps when they got to Kokoda they could have turned NW or SE and used the trail running along the Owen Stanley range that passes through Yodda to Kokoda to Jaure to Fasari.

There is also the Bulldog track which goes up to Wau, which is further West. In reality, wherever there were people living, which would be a significant part of PNG, there would be tracks/trails. I expect the Kokoda track was one of the tracks that saw more traffic, though, given it connected the North Coast directly to Port Moresby. But it was still a trail.

Andrew