Roads?

[Gallo Rojo]

Cheers,
I'm new to WITE and after have tried my first "road to..." scenarios there is something that suddenly pop up in my mind: "where are the roads?"
The game includes and nicely models railroad for unit's strategic movement and supply network, but controlling main roads was key issue both for fast advances and exploitation after breaks were open in the front-lines. So where are the roads and why are they missing in the game?

[elmo3]

They are not missing. It was a design decision to leave them out. I'm sure the Germans asked the same question when they invaded: "Where are the roads?!".

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

The scale of HEXes is too big for roads to be explicitly shown... the roads are approximated in terrain type...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Mehring]

This is an issue I raised and argued at considerable length. Yes, it is an inexcusable omission. Those who defend a no roads map have a terribly narrow conception of what a road is, and remain unable to expalin why, for all their alleged non-existance or, absolutely agreed inadequacy, the Germans followed Russian roads at almost every turn.

Complimenting the cliche "the Russians didn't have roads" is the cliche "the Russian landscape is devoid of terrain features and armies needn't follow roads." Both are incorrect. Fundamental to an adequate understanding of roads is their uncanny habit of allowing traverse of abrupt elevation changes including, but not limited to, water obstacles and generally following a delineated path of ground traversable by wheeled vehicles. They also go from one destination to another.

To change the terrain feature of a hex to show the existance of a road would completely overstate the tactical impact of their presence. Not to represent them at all would be imbalanced in the opposite direction. Map scale is not an excuse for failing to depict roads either. You can abstract the presence of the road net for logistical purposes, where their absence is most keenly felt, by including a road net overlay which alters the hex's supply throughput capacity.

In general, WitE currently pays inadequate attention to logistics. In passing, I disagree that the rail net is adequately represented. Supply throughput is not modelled at all and the strategic value of double as opposed to single track lines is ignored. Don't start me on port capacities.

On a brighter note, it does appear that many if not all these issues are being addressed in WitW and an all Europe map is in the works. Though we may not end up with a visual representation of roads at any level, (I'm a lowly critic and not 'in' on game design), the vastly improved weather system (another of my pet peeves in WitE) depicted on 2 by 3 website alludes to a road netwwork. I'm intrigued.

[jaw]

I think you missed Leo's point above. The reason roads aren't shown on the map is that at this scale there are roads in every hex on the map. There was no place in the Soviet Union covering approximately 100 square miles where a road of some sort did not exist. The movement point costs of the terrain simulate the relative density of the road network.

[Mehring]

There was a loooooooooong discussion about this. The map doesn't assume roads in every WitE hex so much as assume their absence. Neither does it differentiate between the relative road density and quality of the west vs scarcity and poor quality of the east.

It was frequently stated, as above, that roads are represented by changing terrain type. So, if the Moscow-Smolensk highway (a road generally considered of aproximately European quality) runs through a hex that would otherwise be considered wood, that hex becomes clear. That's my understanding anyway. This gives a tactical value to the road that it shouldn't have, in my view. If the same principle were applied to western Europe of the time, virtually the whole map is going to be clear hexes.

The point I've always argued is that though sparse and bad, there were Russian equivalents to roads that served some of a road's universal function, primarily in crossing obstacles for and accelerating in all but the worst weather conditions, wheeled transport. They would not be considered present in every hex though.

I would accept that a ten mile hex may be too large a scale to represent pictorially, all roads that might deserve represntation. In the west, that would make the map a mess. That doesn't mean that they can't be represented though. The issue is to differentiate tactical from logistical use and represent roads in such a way that compliments a new and overdue representation of logistics. It has been shown that the absence of logistical representation leads to all number of historically impossible situations, such as ridiculous unit concentrations. Even old War in Europe had major and minor ports. We just have ports.

I advocate a new map layer which models maximum supply throughput and infrastructure deterioration through use, in every hex. Logistics is where roads really come in to the game, or should do. All those road construction battalions that are currently used to repair rail lines will then be put to their proper use, repairing, maintaining and building roads. That's what they did historically, because that's what the armies needed.

Players would then have to think carefully about how many divisions they sent to an area, and how they would be supplied. Advances would then tend to follow routes that could be supplied. Stockpiles would need revisiting.

[elmo3]

No doubt logistics will be getting a lot of attention in the upcoming games including WitE 2. But there are not going to be major changes for WitE as has been stated many times already.

[Mehring]

Yup. I'm resigned to that and waiting for the new games.