Dense & Double Dense Locations

[stryc]

Dense locations x2 CV for Inf and x0.5 CV for Armr.
Double Dense locations x4 CV for Inf and x0.25 CV for Armr.

The manual states that Towns and Cities are not dense, but Urban and Heavy Urban are Double Dense. Shouldn't Cities be considered to be Dense locations? Seems odd to go from nothing (Towns and Cities) straight to Double Dense (Urbans) with no Dense gradation.

[Searry]

You can still make a city fortress in cities which are formidable.

[timmyab]

I agree that dense for cities is logical.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: stryc

Dense locations x2 CV for Inf and x0.5 CV for Armr.
Double Dense locations x4 CV for Inf and x0.25 CV for Armr.

The manual states that Towns and Cities are not dense, but Urban and Heavy Urban are Double Dense. Shouldn't Cities be considered to be Dense locations? Seems odd to go from nothing (Towns and Cities) straight to Double Dense (Urbans) with no Dense gradation.

Could be the devs went with towns and cities that are of mostly wooden structures but high population, so little protection, to Urban and heavy urban as being both high population and mostly brick concrete construction, dense and urban might mean either population numbers, or the possible defensive value of the structures, it looks to me they may have gone the latter, particularly if the map shows Germany being more urban orientated than Russia.

[stryc]

Every location that gets the Dense rating also has a +2 defensive modifier. Every location except Cities that is, weirdly.

Even if we are talking about largely wooden construction BUAs I would argue that such an environment would be every bit as dangerous for armour as Bocage, Woods and Swamp owing to the core principle that within such environments it is relatively easy for infantry to get close to armour and knock it out.

It would appear that Towns don't count for anything, which is almost fine.

I would suggest the following:-

Town: +1 Def.
City: +2 Def. Dense.
Urban: +6 Def. Double Dense. (no change)
Heavy Urban: +8 Def. Double Dense. (no change)

[Hanny]

Until adev explains we just guessing, i do recall TDI was looking at this years ago, Measuring what is urban terrain, on the Dupoy forum, and its outcome on Chris Lawrence mystics blog.

[RangerJoe]

Towns burn.

Call For Fire, then Fire For Effect using Willey Pete. So much for your defensive structures. [:D]

Then when the town is burning and the Willey Pete that landed on the defending troops burns holes right through them, how good is that for the defense? Just bring a whisk broom to sweep up the ashes.

[stryc]

Light Woods burn but they still get +1 Def.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: stryc

Light Woods burn but they still get +1 Def.

Only if the Smokey the Bear defense is not declared.

[Joel Billings]

Clearly this is all very subjective. In our opinion the +2 defense modifier for the city hex is the right adjustment and we didn't feel it deserved the dense modifier. The city can be quite small in a 10x10 hex, although cities usually dominate the important roads through the area and usually, eventually, must be captured. As an example, Velikie Luki appears to be less than 5 square miles in an area roughly 100 square miles.

Pavel managed to make MP costs and weather effects moddable in the editor. Unfortunately combat modifiers are not, so there's no way for you to adjust this. Ideally we'd make them moddable, but we feel good about the terrain effects as they are.

[stryc]

Cities were major battlegrounds, almost always becoming the pivotal objective in any such region despite the relatively small footprint as a proportion of a hex overall. We can spend days listing cities that had smaller or larger footprints as a proportion of hex size, and even if we did that we'd see that there were many shapes and sizes and in no way did cities suddenly jump from being 'nothing' to 'double dense' with no 'dense' in-between.

Sending armour into such locations was a seriously daunting undertaking; such short corridors of fire all but nullified the advantages armour usually afforded. The manual even describes the justification for such modifiers in those terms; and yet, arguably, one of the least armour-friendly battlegrounds that was commonly encountered throughout the period is apparently less dangerous than the Bocage (which is pretty much an earthwork city plan analogue anyway and that still gets a Dense modifier whereas Cities don't).

I understand the reasoning but the sudden jump from 'nothing' to 'double dense' on what appears to be an otherwise fairly graduated BUA size progression seems unrepresentative.