Comprehensive Wishlist

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

And while I'm on the subject...

How about treating wadi and river in a similar way? They do, after all, pose similar military problems -- yet one benefits from being on the wadi if one is the defender, while in the case of rivers, one benefits if the attacker is on the river.

The wadi functions like a trench. The river functions like a barrier. Nevertheless, see item 2.2 in the Wishlist.

This merely restates my point. Either treatment would be valid; using both at once creates incongruities.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

The thing is, the comparison usually isn't with Kansas. The fact remains: while the route of travel in real life is more often right along the river than not, in OPART that river constitutes an added barrier at every hex.

But, it usually should be at least some added cost. The river doesn't travel in a nice neat straight line and its sides tend to be other than dry, un-tributaried ground. Just the fact that it meanders can double the distance traveled. And, if it's going through a mountain gorge (per your example), the costs can skyrocket. But, I'll admit, the cost probably shouldn't be equivalent to crossing the river for most cases.

I didn't make it clear what I was proposing. There wouldn't be any cost for entering a river hex, or for leaving a river hex for another river hex; only for leaving the river hex for a non-river hex. It seems to me that this still imposes a cost for crossing the river without imposing one for moving along it.

Then the switch to paying the cost upon leaving is unnecessary. What you want is to just pay the cost when you enter like now, and then there would be no further cost (or a reduced cost) until the river hexes were exited and then re-entered.

...however, yeah, the branches do pose a problem. In fact, that's actually a pretty good counterargument.

Branches, bends in the river, and parallel rivers would all be issues. It's doable. But pretty tough.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

The wadi functions like a trench. The river functions like a barrier. Nevertheless, see item 2.2 in the Wishlist.

This merely restates my point. Either treatment would be valid; using both at once creates incongruities.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I meant that in real life, the wadi functions like a trench. So it should be modeled like a trench for defense. The river doesn't function like a trench in real life (unless you have a unit of frogmen). It functions like a barrier in real life. So it needs to be modeled differently - depending upon where the unit is supposed to be within the river hex. What I suggested in item 2.2 was that we might infer the unit's position from the context of how it got there.

[Panama]

Hiways follow river valleys because the river has carved a nice flat path for it. Look at I-80 along the Platte or I-29 along the Missouri. Nice and flat but go a few kilometers either way and loads of hills and valleys. Lots cheaper than cutting through hills and filling hollars. [;)]

You could do as Collin suggests and penalize units for leaving rivers. If they are moving along a river and cross a tributary charge them for leaving the tributary. Not sure how the programming would go but it's not a difficult programming problem. If the river moves through hills charge the hill rate. If it moves through woods charge the wood rate, etc.

Of course there's the problem of what to do if the unit leaves the same side of the river as they entered. They didn't cross, why a movement penalty? But then the same situation appears as things are now too. Why the movement penalty if the hex was merely entered but the river never crossed? [:D]

BTW, it's been my experience most wadis and their kin are too deep to function as trenches without alot of modification.

[Abnormalmind]

Don't shoot the messenger

Perhaps, sometime in the future, rivers could be moved to the spine of the hex instead of running through the hex. I know, major code change. The game could query the type of map to apply one set of functions and calls, and different functions and calls if a new spine-river map is used.

I don't think that spine-rivers and hex-rivers should be comingled, rather just one or the other.

I'm sure there are many pros and cons to hex-rivers, but I've always thought that spine-rivers were the way to go. Perhaps, just tossing out coding ideas, spine rivers could be an overlay.

Time to duck and run like a ninja.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

The wadi functions like a trench. The river functions like a barrier. Nevertheless, see item 2.2 in the Wishlist.

This merely restates my point. Either treatment would be valid; using both at once creates incongruities.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I meant that in real life, the wadi functions like a trench.

Definitely an assertion only you could make.

So it should be modeled like a trench for defense. The river doesn't function like a trench in real life (unless you have a unit of frogmen). It functions like a barrier in real life. So it needs to be modeled differently - depending upon where the unit is supposed to be within the river hex. What I suggested in item 2.2 was that we might infer the unit's position from the context of how it got there.

This ignores reality. Nobody gets down into the wadi to defend it.

They defend it just like they would a river. What's more, three times out of four, it's the valley the river has cut rather than the river itself that is militarily significant. BIG rivers are a different story, but even with a fair-sized stream like the Meuse at Sedan, what made it a militarily significant obstacle was that the heights along the left bank allowed the defenders to keep the attackers under fire as they attempted to cross. Fredericksburg also comes to mind. Substantially, the Rapahannock could have been a wadi. Lee would have defended it exactly the same way.

In short, wadis and rivers tend to present a similar problem. The attacker is delayed while crossing and is exposed to fire from the heights or the opposite bank or whatever. I'll also note that just as with rivers, wadis have to be bridged, and those bridges can be blown up -- except in OPART.

As matters stand, TOAW treats the two as if they were opposites -- when in fact they are closely similar. Indeed, they segue into each other. Consider the sequence Somme-Colorado-Litani-Wadi whatever. It's not all the same thing -- but the problem is similar. Get across while under fire. It doesn't work to draw a line somewhere and declare that at some point the whole situation reverses 180 degrees.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: Abnormalmind

Don't shoot the messenger

Perhaps, sometime in the future, rivers could be moved to the spine of the hex instead of running through the hex. I know, major code change. The game could query the type of map to apply one set of functions and calls, and different functions and calls if a new spine-river map is used.

I don't think that spine-rivers and hex-rivers should be comingled, rather just one or the other.

I'm sure there are many pros and cons to hex-rivers, but I've always thought that spine-rivers were the way to go. Perhaps, just tossing out coding ideas, spine rivers could be an overlay.

Time to duck and run like a ninja.

Ninjas don't run, they attack!

There's code in there for hex-side features like escarpments, so I don't think that it's an extreme effort to add in spine-rivers too into the main code. I'm not sure whether it needs to be an either or or whether they could co-exist but couldn't touch each other without adding a lot more graphics and code than it's probably worth. Riverine units probably couldn't travel on spine rivers initially.

The major problem would be modifying the editor. The editor is more complicated than it should be, and I've tried very hard not to modify it, so I have no idea how long adding it into the editor would take.

Ralph

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

ORIGINAL: Abnormalmind

Don't shoot the messenger

Perhaps, sometime in the future, rivers could be moved to the spine of the hex instead of running through the hex. I know, major code change. The game could query the type of map to apply one set of functions and calls, and different functions and calls if a new spine-river map is used.

I don't think that spine-rivers and hex-rivers should be comingled, rather just one or the other.

I'm sure there are many pros and cons to hex-rivers, but I've always thought that spine-rivers were the way to go. Perhaps, just tossing out coding ideas, spine rivers could be an overlay.

Time to duck and run like a ninja.

Ninjas don't run, they attack!

There's code in there for hex-side features like escarpments, so I don't think that it's an extreme effort to add in spine-rivers too into the main code. I'm not sure whether it needs to be an either or or whether they could co-exist but couldn't touch each other without adding a lot more graphics and code than it's probably worth. Riverine units probably couldn't travel on spine rivers initially.

The major problem would be modifying the editor. The editor is more complicated than it should be, and I've tried very hard not to modify it, so I have no idea how long adding it into the editor would take.

Ralph

One could tell the computer that the 'river' is a double-sided escarpement and add tiles. Obviously, designers would run into problems if they attempted to include both old-style and new-style rivers in a scenario...but they can just control themselves if they want the hex-side rivers.

In fact, and sometimes, I already do use double-sided escarpments to represent mountain streams. Visually, it sucks, but otherwise, it's often the best available way to represent the situation.

However, this does little to address the phenomenon that I noticed -- that in real life, the river valley tends to provide the best route, but in OPART-land, one wants to stay at lest 2.5-50 km away from that water...not at all the same thing.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

One could tell the computer that the 'river' is a double-sided escarpement and add tiles. Obviously, designers would run into problems if they attempted to include both old-style and new-style rivers in a scenario...but they can just control themselves if they want the hex-side rivers.

In fact, and sometimes, I already do use double-sided escarpments to represent mountain streams. Visually, it sucks, but otherwise, it's often the best available way to represent the situation.

However, this does little to address the phenomenon that I noticed -- that in real life, the river valley tends to provide the best route, but in OPART-land, one wants to stay at lest 2.5-50 km away from that water...not at all the same thing.

There are alot of rivers that could use escarpments on either or both sides. They don't need to be in mountains for that. The Missouri where I live has tall bluffs on either side of a wide valley. Escarpments could model that easily. No way anything but infantry could get up either side without a cut or road. No one seems to do it though.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Panama

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

One could tell the computer that the 'river' is a double-sided escarpement and add tiles. Obviously, designers would run into problems if they attempted to include both old-style and new-style rivers in a scenario...but they can just control themselves if they want the hex-side rivers.

In fact, and sometimes, I already do use double-sided escarpments to represent mountain streams. Visually, it sucks, but otherwise, it's often the best available way to represent the situation.

However, this does little to address the phenomenon that I noticed -- that in real life, the river valley tends to provide the best route, but in OPART-land, one wants to stay at lest 2.5-50 km away from that water...not at all the same thing.

There are alot of rivers that could use escarpments on either or both sides. They don't need to be in mountains for that. The Missouri where I live has tall bluffs on either side of a wide valley. Escarpments could model that easily. No way anything but infantry could get up either side without a cut or road. No one seems to do it though.

I tend to see a certain amount of escarpment as factored into the 'river.' As I say, the actual flow of water is only one consideration.

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
. . . in real life, the river valley tends to provide the best route, but in OPART-land, one wants to stay at lest 2.5-50 km away from that water...not at all the same thing.

Sounds like what you need is to define a new terrain type. Maybe 3.4 will make that option available and the resident graphics wizard can draw the appropriate terrains. In the mean time, you could try plotting secondary roads along the river . . . this mimics what you propose but we both know that it creates secondary problems. However, depending on your intended application, maybe the secondary problems are not significant.

Regards, RhinoBones

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Definitely an assertion only you could make.

And I'll keep making it because it's true. That's the only defensive benefit the wadi can provide. It's not a serious barrier to an assault. And it does shelter the defenders just like a trench.

Substantially, the Rapahannock could have been a wadi. Lee would have defended it exactly the same way.

Pure rubbish! Burnside lost so many bridging engineers bridging the Rapahannock that he was told that he practically had a bridge made of bridging engineer bodies. Had the Rapahannock been a wadi there would have been no such issue. The fact that heights beyond the Rapahannock also provided a powerful defense was independent of the location of the Rapahannock.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Definitely an assertion only you could make.

And I'll keep making it because it's true. That's the only defensive benefit the wadi can provide. It's not a serious barrier to an assault. And it does shelter the defenders just like a trench.

[/quote]

Beautiful. I think I can just let that stand without comment.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



Pure rubbish! Burnside lost so many bridging engineers bridging the Rapahannock that he was told that he practically had a bridge made of bridging engineer bodies. Had the Rapahannock been a wadi there would have been no such issue. The fact that heights beyond the Rapahannock also provided a powerful defense was independent of the location of the Rapahannock.

Why don't you dig up the figures for us, Curt? How many men were lost in the actual crossing and how many in storming the heights?

As to Lee's deployment, that is how one is supposed to defend a river -- or for that matter, a wadi, or a wadi with a little water at the bottom, or a modest river in a canyon with steep sides, or any one of the possible combinations of what are all variations on the same theme.

If there aren't heights of some kind, then either (a) the river is not militarily significant in the first place, or (b) it's pretty damned big. But generally, rivers flow at the bottom of something (go figure), and that means there's higher ground along either bank, and that's where one defends.

There are exceptions, of course, but that's the general rule. Read any discussion you like of the issue. It's practically a platitude. Generally, one doesn't defend a river from the bank -- and one certainly doesn't defend a wadi from the bottom.

In other words, the presence of water doesn't really affect how the defender approaches the situation except in the sense that if there isn't a substantial flow of water, the obstacle may no longer be militarily significant -- in which case it shouldn't be on the map at all. However, if it remains militarily significant, it will defended exactly as if it was a river -- from the heights opposite the crossing.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

[Why don't you dig up the figures for us, Curt? How many men were lost in the actual crossing and how many in storming the heights?

I don't know what the exact numbers were, but it is a fact that the Rapahannock had to be bridged and that resulted in a slaughter. Burnside really was told what I said about a bridge of bridging engineer bodies. Had it been a wadi, the Union would have simply swarmed across. A wadi doesn't provide a barrier defense. It does provide a depression that forces can shelter in. In contrast, what defensive benefits are accrued from the river are due to the target that crossers make as they attempt to cross.

As to Lee's deployment, that is how one is supposed to defend a river -- or for that matter, a wadi, or a wadi with a little water at the bottom, or a modest river in a canyon with steep sides, or any one of the possible combinations of what are all variations on the same theme.

If there aren't heights of some kind, then either (a) the river is not militarily significant in the first place, or (b) it's pretty damned big. But generally, rivers flow at the bottom of something (go figure), and that means there's higher ground along either bank, and that's where one defends.

There are exceptions, of course, but that's the general rule. Read any discussion you like of the issue. It's practically a platitude. Generally, one doesn't defend a river from the bank -- and one certainly doesn't defend a wadi from the bottom.

In other words, the presence of water doesn't really affect how the defender approaches the situation except in the sense that if there isn't a substantial flow of water, the obstacle may no longer be militarily significant -- in which case it shouldn't be on the map at all. However, if it remains militarily significant, it will defended exactly as if it was a river -- from the heights opposite the crossing.

If and where there are escarpments or heights near a river, TOAW is already capable of modeling them - in addition to the defensive benefit that the river itself provides. An assumption of escarpments or heights is not built into the river bonus, nor should it be.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



If and where there are escarpments or heights near a river, TOAW is already capable of modeling them - in addition to the defensive benefit that the river itself provides. An assumption of escarpments or heights is not built into the river bonus, nor should it be.

A river -- by itself -- either may or may not merit representation in a given scenario.

To quote Schleiffen when an aide called his attention to the beauty of the sunrise over the River Pregel when they were on maneuvers: 'an insignificant military obstacle.'

Obviously if we're talking about the Rhine, the water's significant regardless. But generally the 'river' symbol reflects a number of factors. The banks. How deeply cut the canyon is. How common bridges and fords are. What the scale of the scenario is. What kind of capabilities the average unit in the scenario has. How exposed are units attempting to cross? Etc.

As with wadis.

The two points are that (1) whether a given hex should contain a river is the product of a number of factors, of which the volume of water is only one, and (2) militarily, a wadi functions in about the same way as a river. What I was originally noting -- before we got hauled off into that notion that troops use wadis as trenches -- is that in OPART, rivers and wadis are treated completely differently, and they shouldn't be.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Obviously if we're talking about the Rhine, the water's significant regardless. But generally the 'river' symbol reflects a number of factors. The banks. How deeply cut the canyon is. How common bridges and fords are. What the scale of the scenario is. What kind of capabilities the average unit in the scenario has. How exposed are units attempting to cross? Etc.

Nope. Defensively it represents one thing and one thing only: The exposure units incur as they attempt to cross the body of water in it. Escarpments, heights, gorges, etc. are not built into the river's tiny defense factor. In the rare cases where those factors are present, they need to be added along with the river. The Fredricksburg crossing of the Rapahannock is a splendid example. See how I modeled it in "Killer Angels 1863".

As with wadis.

The two points are that (1) whether a given hex should contain a river is the product of a number of factors, of which the volume of water is only one, and (2) militarily, a wadi functions in about the same way as a river. What I was originally noting -- before we got hauled off into that notion that troops use wadis as trenches -- is that in OPART, rivers and wadis are treated completely differently, and they shouldn't be.

And you are completely and totally wrong. In and of itself, the only benefit the wadi could possibly apply is to shelter units inside it. There are no heights, escarpments, gorges, etc. built into the wadi any more than they are in river hexes. Defending on the far side of a wadi absent such other features would make no more sense than defending on the "far" side of a trench. As such, the wadi can only provide its small defensive benefit to units located in its hex - like a trench.

Not so for rivers. But, as I suggested in 2.2, given the right context, the defenders can be assumed to be "behind" the river while being in its hex (and, similarly, the attackers can be assumed to be "across" the river, in some cases). So, there is some room for some refinement to the river hex.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

...Escarpments, heights, gorges, etc. are not built into the river's tiny defense factor. In the rare cases where those factors are present, they need to be added along with the river...

'tiny defense factor,' and 'rare cases' particularly stand out.

...And you are completely and totally wrong. In and of itself, the only benefit the wadi could possibly apply is to shelter units inside it...

Are you parodying yourself? Given this theory (which is remarkable even by your standards), how do you explain the fact that wadis double the strength of defending infantry?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

the river's tiny defense factor.

Hmm? Doesn't a river multiply the attacker's strength by 0.7? That's pretty serious.

Anyway, go to Google Images and put in "Wadi". One or two of them look like trenches. The rest look like rivers without the water (but still with nice clear fields of fire).

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


The rest look like rivers without the water...

Not surprisingly. That's what a 'wadi' is. Or conversely, a river is a wadi that actually has some significant amount of water in it.

Of course, past a certain point, the water alone becomes a significant obstacle. The Rhine is the Rhine is the Rhine, and you're not going to find a place to wade across. But generally the water itself is only one of a complex of elements that might lead one to make a hex 'river' -- and most of those elements are present in a 'wadi' and continue to exert their effect. So rivers and wadis should be treated similarly, rather than as opposites.

Practically speaking, one often wants to segue from one to the other. For example, the Orontes is without doubt a river rather than a wadi. Something similar would happen if you mapped the Colorado.

Many or most of the tributaries are better portrayed as wadis. It's damned odd to have the nature of the terrain reverse itself once the tributary joins the mainstem. You did want to be on the hex. Now you want to be behind it. It makes no sense at all.