Based on Atomic Games’ award-winning Close Combat series, Close Combat: Wacht am Rhein brings together the classic top-down tactical gameplay from the original series and plenty of new features, expansions, and improvements! The Wacht am Rhein remake comes with a brand new Grand Campaign including a new strategic map with 64 gorgeous hand-drawn tactical maps, over 70 scenarios, tons of new interface and unit graphics, countless engine improvements, and much more!
Sorry.
Ok cool, we can both try to grab people's attention about the issue of how to control DEFINITIVELY whether a unit, as part of the country defending the map, will dig in or not.
Well concealed ATGs set on defend should not be discovered and destroyed so easily. Are you deploying your ATGs in open fields? [:D]
I'm of the camp that says AT guns should be well-hidden...so no. anything else for a 57mm is blatant suicide. actually anything for a 57 is suicide.
A couple of notes on Digging In and AT gun placement.
Units will begin the Morning turn, or first turn of a Day dug in, if the BG was on that map the previous turn, and not in contact - the previous battle, if any, left them in sole control of the map. In all other cases, they will not be dug in at the start of the battle. I'm also about 90% certain that a team can dig in on mixed elements if the team leader, identified by the colored circle, is on an element tile that allows digging in. I hope that clarifies things....somewhat.
AT Guns have a Vehicle Size in the Vehicles.txt file. This data "size", and not the graphic that we can see, tells the game engine if a gun can fit into a buildiing or not. The more empty floor space (no coded interior walls or other clutter), the better a gun can fit. It is a function of the Vehicles.txt file Vehcile Size column and the map's Elements coding. The game engine only sees vehicles in terms of 2 meter square element tiles and the vehicle size is always square. A rectangular tank is seen by the game as a square block, not the long, skinny picture that we see. The same holds for AT guns. As far as the game engine is concerned, it is as wide as it is long, as set in the Vehicles.txt file.
A few years ago I did a CC mod that adjusted both the AT gun sizes and the Elements.txt file treatment of AT Gun movement. In the original CC
elements, almost all, if not all building elements are impassible to AT guns so that if an AT gun starts the battle inside a building, it stays inside the building, even if that building is an aircraft hanger or factory with very wide, open doors. There is a magical barrier that keeps AT guns from crossing a football field wide opening. That was easy to change on an element by element basis and AT guns could be rolled out through those openings.
Taking it one step further, I went with the premise that if those soldiers could get that gun in the building before the battle, they should damn well be able to get it out again during the battle. After all, the hole in the wall should still be there, right? So I adjusted the properties of wood and stone walls, doors and windows to allow AT guns to pass through them at a very, very slow rate such that it took several minutes to get a gun out of a building. Most of the time it wasn't worth the effort, as the battle was now far down the road, or they got pants with the barrel pointing the wrong way, but on occasion, it helped to save or even win the day.
Neil N has seen that mod (part of the No-Walks-Through-Walls elements mod). Some of that I did get into CoI, but I don't know what, if any got carried through to WaR. The point is, both the game size of the guns and the movement can be modded. Give it a go, if you want! As has been pointed out many time before, if you come up with a better solution, it may get incorporated in a patch or new release. At the least, you will have a mod that suits your interpertation.
And of course, the obligatory nag about modding things like the Elements.txt file or other of the Data\Base files: In H2H play, the Joiner plays with the Host's data files. It is always good form to make your opponent completely aware of each and every moddification to the data files that you have done. Anything less is cheating.
The leader of that squad was on "Light snowy field" terrain. According to Sr. (thanks for the reply btw), that should be enough for that squad to dig in.
Why was this team too lazy to dig in?
In this particular instance, I believe that the leader of that squad was probably on a Snowy Bush tile, rather than a Light Snowy Field tile. It is darn near impossible to get a terrain read directly under a soldier sprite without moving the team off the location, taking the reading and moving the team back. I doubt that the quadruple I formation had an effect, but that might have.
Are you positive that the leader was not on a non-entrenchable tile? Actually, I think you had a remarkable degree of luck to get that many teams to entrench in that terrain field unless you micro managed each placement. Eight out of nine was a good Vegas run (the other four were 100% gimmes).
Thanks. The squad leader, to me, seems like he's on light snowy field (his torso at least). You might be right though, adjacent to him are "snowy brush" and "big conifer tree."
I might go make the elements file amenable to digging in in those terrains for ease of digging in. Why wouldn't a soldier be able to dig-in brush? These are trained killers!
Thanks. The squad leader, to me, seems like he's on light snowy field (his torso at least). You might be right though, adjacent to him are "snowy brush" and "big conifer tree."
I might go make the elements file amenable to digging in in those terrains for ease of digging in. Why wouldn't a soldier be able to dig-in brush? These are trained killers!
The ground was frozen and not exactly the best for digging in....although I'm not sure that was taken into account in the elements file...or, maybe it was
In the Ardennes, most of the Ami troops were virgin, amature trained killers.....as well as cooks, mechanics, clerks, supply pukes and other assorted REMFs press ganged into trying to be line infantry.
Sure, mod it. Balance game play, document and show your work and testing, and then make your case to the Ohm Watt Amps (the powers that be) to have it considered for updates, patches or whatever. Just remember the caveat about using it H2H on the unaware.
In the Ardennes, most of the Ami troops were virgin, amature trained killers.....as well as cooks, mechanics, clerks, supply pukes and other assorted REMFs press ganged into trying to be line infantry.
Point taken - when referring to units like the 106th (as I was using in south eiffel) and the 99th divisions. The 2nd, 82nd, and 101st, of course, knew a little bit about what they were doing.
But anyway, thanks for the help.
Btw, what do you mean by documenting and showing my work?
Reminds me of a story of L company, from the 112th regiment of the 28th infantry division. Their kitchen trucks were overrun by the germans on the first day of the bulge (dec 16th.) The Germans helped themselves to some american food. Mortar teams from L and M company saw this from a distance and gave them a shalacking. After a few minutes, a hundred dead Germans, with hot dogs in their mouths...
the chefs got the last laugh, FTW.
On an unrelated note:
It's a little more minor, but:
3) From my idea of mortars, I think they travel way too fast. That is, almost immediately after you hear your mortar crew fire off a round, its already landed 400m away at its blast site. This is too fast! Is there a way to adjust the speed of the projectile?
I'd love to hear the thunk of the mortar leaving its tube, followed by a 10 second pause, then a CRASH!
And also, is there any progress, for the next patch, for fixing the HE graphical explosion animation for humungous (151mm+) weapons?
I think the current OB arty explosions are pretty nice, and would like to see the next level up!
In the Ardennes, most of the Ami troops were virgin, amature trained killers.....as well as cooks, mechanics, clerks, supply pukes and other assorted REMFs press ganged into trying to be line infantry.
Point taken - when referring to units like the 106th (as I was using in south eiffel) and the 99th divisions. The 2nd, 82nd, and 101st, of course, knew a little bit about what they were doing.
But anyway, thanks for the help.
Btw, what do you mean by documenting and showing my work?
I think what he means is that you said in your last post that you changed the values for digging in brush so digging in will be more reliable. Now when you test your changes you could let us know what you did and with useful results maybe the changes could be incorporated in a new patch or mod.
I once read a book by Mark Zuelke titled "Ortona", in that book this discussion comes up. The men were deciding whether or not to place a howitzer inside a building. Since the builing was intact, they would of had to take the gun apart to set it up. Once inside, the building would obviously become a target for the enemy. Once the building took hits the cieling and walls would probably cave in on the gun, as well they estimated the recoil from the gun would also shake the house apart.
So I think guns in buildings is a tough one to implement properly. At the very most they should only be allowed to go into one story buildings.
the light infantry guns and AT were deployable in or next to buildings and ideally with rubble stacked around them for explosion/shrapnel protection. Much bigger than that seems unrealistic except in very rare circumstances.
The reason why the fortifications at the French border were so feared is that they allowed long range guns to be used with direct line of sight (and overlapping at that) of advancing units and protection from anything less than a direct hit from heavy weapons.
Hard work is a good way to succeed. There is less competition that way...
