Arid Terrain

[Panama]

For the life of me, I can't remember what arid terrain does and can't find a thing in the manual. Isn't it a hit on supply or something?

[Oberst_Klink]

Thank god there's the Oberst to help out even the grognards lads... *see attached* Terrain effect sheet by Kevin Peltz *rename it to .ZIP* Arid is basically treated like open terrain, but a tad more dry and dusty, aye?

kLiNk, Oberst

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

Thank god there's the Oberst to help out even the grognards lads... *see attached* Terrain effect sheet by Kevin Peltz *rename it to .ZIP* Arid is basically treated like open terrain, but a tad more dry and dusty, aye?

kLiNk, Oberst

*sigh*

Now there's a wasted tile. Little wonder I couldn't find any effects. It needs to be reassigned and given a purpose in life. [;)]

Thanks for kicking at the cob webs.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Panama

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

Thank god there's the Oberst to help out even the grognards lads... *see attached* Terrain effect sheet by Kevin Peltz *rename it to .ZIP* Arid is basically treated like open terrain, but a tad more dry and dusty, aye?

kLiNk, Oberst

*sigh*

Now there's a wasted tile. Little wonder I couldn't find any effects. It needs to be reassigned and given a purpose in life. [;)]

Thanks for kicking at the cob webs.

On second thought I guess the visual it provides works ok. Instead, change the 'Evergreen Forest' to something useful. Forest is forest, don't see why two are needed.

[ColinWright]

'Arid' is less likely to become muddy -- or so I've heard.

However, it is basically eye candy -- but perhaps necessary eye candy. Does one really want the Western Desert to be a green sward, visually indistinguishable from Illinois?

I wonder if the only reason we have 'evergreen forest' is that Norm may have entertained some idea of having normal forest change color in the fall and winter? It's possible -- various elements in TOAW seem to have been placed there with an eye to future developments.

Another fairly useless tile is 'bocage.' Farmland that offers the defensive advantages and barriers to movement that 'bocage' does is actually quite rare. 'Suez Canal' and 'Super river,' 'canal' and 'river' are redundant. Then 'dunes' and 'badlands' share about the same effects, as do alpine and unplayable.

If it was seen as necessary to free up slots (I suspect there are actually empty slots -- but my query about the evidence I saw for that went unanswered) then I'd vote for dropping 'Suez Canal.' 'Super River' looks okay in its place -- and there aren't that many Suez Canals. 'Dunes' really are quite rare -- and you can get about the same effect and a visually satisfactory solution by combining 'sandy' with 'badlands.'

Evergreen forest I'd rather keep. Arid I'd definitely want to keep. I really don't want a green north Africa.

So, if things must go, I'd rank my preferences in this order.

1. Suez Canal. Rare, and eminently replaceable.

2. Dune. Also rare, and fairly replaceable.

3. Evergreen forest. I like it, but I have to admit: if it wasn't there, I never would have noticed.

4. Canal. Like 'arid,' basically eye candy. Unlike Arid, there's a visually satisfactory replacement.

'Bocage' and 'Wadi' aren't superfluous so much as they have the wrong effects. 'Bocage' should be toned down. 'Wadis' are watercourses that lack water -- and should have similar effects to rivers. One digs in behind the wadi, the attacker has difficulty crossing it and is exposed to fire, etc -- militarily, like a river. Instead, they have about the opposite effects. As matters stand, I don't use either much -- my 'canal' has been edited so that it uses the 'wadi' tile, and I've only used 'bocage' on about six (6) of the 20,000 or so hexes I've mapped. However, that's a function of how inappropriate the effects are, not evidence that the tile is superfluous. Like 'arid,' a changed wadi might be functionally superfluous, but visually it would be nice. One doesn't want Lebanon or Palestine laced with rivers.

What I'd like to get would be...

1. A 'super clear' terrain type that reflects the extreme vulnerability of unentrenched infantry to armor in such genuinely featureless terrain as North Africa and the Don Steppe. The current 'clear' seems to about model the situation as it exists in such 'clear' terrain as eastern Nebraska and parts of Europe -- quite open, but treelines, ridgelines, clusters of farm buildings, etc.

2. 'Destroyable' roads. The discussion's too recent to bear repeating. Would this actually take a separate tile? I suspect not.

[Panama]

Completely agree with arid. Evergreen and Forest are all the same. Don't know the logic for having two things that have the exact same effect. Suez and canal I don't care about, same reason as Evergreen. Dunes, I'm doing the area around the Caspian. Lots of dunes there.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Completely agree with arid. Evergreen and Forest are all the same. Don't know the logic for having two things that have the exact same effect. Suez and canal I don't care about, same reason as Evergreen. Dunes, I'm doing the area around the Caspian. Lots of dunes there.

Yeah. Now that you mention it, I have quite a few dunes thereabouts myself.

'Suez Canal' would probably be the winner. People just don't pointlessly make massive canals. In fact, I can think of precisely three significant applications -- there are probably more, but it's not a common terrain feature, and 'super river' is entirely adequate as a substitute.

First question really is -- are there blank slots? Failing that, how much work would it really be to add them? In fact, the ideal would be four or six editable slots that those with the energy could set up to meet their needs. About the only request I have here is that it prove possible to divide values as well as multiply them -- see my theories about 'super clear' terrain.

[Panama]

Can't go with the Google Earth version for that area. With all the irrigation they do now it's not real accurate. When you do a fly over on Google Earth you realize that someone took all the crap terrain on the planet, shook it up in a cup and threw it on the ground and left it as it fell. Fairly impossible to be accurate. Much more grass than I imagined.

Come to think of it, you can have grasslands and they can be arid. And at the same time they can be sand dunes. Enough to cover the entire state of West Virginia with some left over. [:D]

About the empty slots. If there were any would Ralph confess? Maybe we could bribe him. I have a spare nickle in my pocket.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Can't go with the Google Earth version for that area. With all the irrigation they do now it's not real accurate.

Yeah. When it comes to some place like Iraq, the current image is barely relevant to what used to be there -- and elsewhere there's deforestation.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html has a fairly complete set of US Army Topos of the USSR done in the fifties and based on 1943 Wehrmacht maps (specific link is http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/eastern_europe/ ). I use these in conjunction with Google Earth for the USSR. There's one railroad that I had to decide just couldn't have been there, and in fact the Russians were furiously building railroads while the war was underway, but in general, the above combination seems satisfactory.

No airfields, though. I've yet to find decent information on Russian airfields in World War Two. Probably there is none -- the Russians were pretty secretive.

[Panama]

I think the airfields were just that. Fields. Carve a passable runway and presto, airfield. I've not come up with a way to do that in the game. Maybe land based aircraft carriers. [:D]

BTW, I had already downloaded all the maps from the site you mentioned last winter. Then yesterday, after wondering if the topo lines would be a mountain or a hill started using Google Earth too. I sometimes even check out the photos for help. Now, to dertermine if something is arid or not, I've gone to looking up weather data. This is getting to be more and more involved. [:'(]

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Panama

I think the airfields were just that. Fields. Carve a passable runway and presto, airfield. I've not come up with a way to do that in the game. Maybe land based aircraft carriers. [:D]

Land carriers actually work. I run mine on 'rail lines' -- and since the 'rail lines' are actually any serviceable major road, we're more or less there. The actual carrier is fixed equipment, and is lost as soon as the 'airfield' takes off down the rail line. Then it is replaced once the 'airfield' settles down in its new home, and we're in business.

One reason to use a RR icon is that you want the unit to stay on rail lines. It has the naval movement rate, and will go haring off half way across the map otherwise.

However, I prefer medium bombers and such to be restricted to more developed sites, and so I would like to know what established airfields there were in Southern Russia in 1942. Somewhat ironically, the data is more or less available -- but only for fields the Germans made use of at some point. I've located a couple of major Russian airbases -- but only by passing reference. Points Lend-Lease aircraft were ferried to and such.

[Panama]

I'm about to give up on airfields and use the old GDW rule. In the GDW Europa series large cities get to stack more than small cities. So I thought give large cities two airfields and small cities one. But then I end up with airfields all over the place. But I don't want to severly restrict people to where the concentrate air assets. I don't know. Just working on the map right now anyway.

With arid I wasn't thinking correctly about it. It does affect the number of mud hexes. So actually it should be used in arid and semi arid climates. That would be about 12" of precip or less per year I would think.