Defending a river line

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

As for your post in general, notice that most of your arguments depend upon the scale being one day or less.

Why? I talked mainly about these scales because of the example you chose to use (Meuse 40).

Go to larger scales and they become considerably less convincing. At half a week or a week, the 'crossing' is not just the physical act of getting into assault boats, etc -- it's the whole window of defensive vulnerability opened when a force engages in such an operation.

But again, crossing doesn't eat up the whole clock, that vulnerability can be expressed in other ways without abstracting it in this manner. Your arguments seem to be shifting away from the Meuse example, who was it who said...

It does get a bit strange at the larger scales

It wasn't me that said this, yet now larger scales are your line in the sand.

I see this as critical to the argument. OPART tries to model a wide range of situations and scales. What matters is not what is best for one particular situation at one particular scale -- but what works best overall.

agreed, but if something doesn't work regardless of the scale, then we should fix it...right? You've said larger scales are indeed strange and you've said I have a point at smaller scales (albeit in separate sentences).

In general, though, I'd point out that OPART is trying to simulate warfare from an operational -- not a tactical -- perspective. Sure, from a tactical perspective your argument is on sound ground: you're either on one bank or the other -- not half way across. Operationally, though, river crossings are primarily a period of vulnerability -- in this connection, see the German concern with promply smashing Soviet bridgeheads. It wasn't their phyisically getting troops across that was to be feared -- it was allowing them to consolidate and expand their bridgehead -- in other words, get off that river hex.

Okay, so (operationally speaking) why when you are in a river hex but you haven't attempted to cross the river are you considered vulnerable? River crossings may be a period of vulnerability, but surely not if you're not attempting one?

Besides the bridgehead expands when further hexes are taken, it is consolidated when further troops cross the river. How is any of this represented by allowing units that have not attempted to cross be mauled by Armoured counterattack as if they had.

Besides, you smash the bridgehead in your own turn, not with some abstract pre-enemy-crossing-attempt counterattack that catches them before they have actually crossed, but inflicts casualties as if they actually have.

To me, it's all a wash -- and since I prefer the look of rivers in the middle of the hex, I'm disinclined to advocate a change.
Rivers slow you up and they confer advantages on the defender: good enough for me.

Rivers confer advantages on the defender except when the attacker is defending, at which point the rivers offer him no advantages at all, does it?

Give me game play over the "look" any day of the week. Nice if I can have both, but gameplay comes first.

The current system works reasonably well

Yes, indeed, but then if "reasonably well" is okay, the TOAW III Team are actually wasting their time are they not?

-- that can't be said for other aspects of the program. So I'd be inclined to view development time dumped into allowing for hex-side rivers as a waste. Better to come up with an improved supply model, or get some changes to flak, or maybe naval warfare that works...

Changes to flak...? The supply model is barely functional but the last two items are window dressing. I don't think Naval units actually add anything to the game and could be abstracted far more easily and removed from the map altogether.

Flak is about as tactical as it gets, yet above you told us "OPART is trying to simulate warfare from an operational -- not a tactical -- perspective." At 50 kilometres and week long turns, what difference does Flak really make? It's a ten minute action in a week's worth of fighting. The real effects of airpower are not really mimicked in the game anyway, so I think flak is just a nice to tweak, not a gamebreaker.

I fear this is all boiling down to the look, which is really disappointing.

Respect and regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

With the greatest of respect, I completely disagree, and would urge you to re-read the thread, I don't think that's about it at all.

What I mean is that is the effective difference. The way a river crossing occurs in detail will be different, but at the operational level the process of crossing a river will be basically the same; the defensive value of the river line won't have changed. However, to get to this point we have to rewrite a fair bit of code.

Incidentally, thanks for being reasonable and polite.

And to you.

I disagree about the defensive value of the river. Not having to defend bridges from the far side and not having to concede bridges would affect gameplay.

Has anyone ever approached Norm for the code rewrite he did initially? I understood the coding was done and was merely held up by the problems he was having with his publisher. In that sense, the man who envisaged the whole thing thought them an improvement.

regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
What are the official plans, I confess I haven't been here often enough to see them if they have been posted. (That's what FITE and WITP does for you).

I honestly don't think there are any. As best I can tell, whoever is making the decisions is more or less doing it on the fly. They do seem to be reasonable people subject to persuasion.

Unfortunate (except for the subject to persuasion bit, although they can't be that "subject" if work isn't ongoing on supply and formations yet [;)])

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
Has anyone ever approached Norm for the code rewrite he did initially? I understood the coding was done and was merely held up by the problems he was having with his publisher. In that sense, the man who envisaged the whole thing thought them an improvement.

We got whatever Norm still had. Most of the changes were undocumented, forgotten, untested, and in many cases broke as much or more than they fixed. This is not, I repeat NOT a knock against Norm, or against the vast amount of work that he did on the engine over the course of the years. However, it is what happens when someone stops tinkering on a project partway through, does not revisit it for several years, and then moves on to other things. Like it, or not, Norm is no longer involved in the development of TOAW III, and has not been, ever since turning over what patch work he had completed about two years ago. He has publically stated that he's not interested in furthering the development of the engine, and that his efforts are on what can be termed as an indirect competitor to the title. Sorry, if this disappoints anyone, but the future development of this engine, and style of game, is in the hands of TOAD Team.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

Changes to flak...? The supply model is barely functional but the last two items are window dressing. I don't think Naval units actually add anything to the game and could be abstracted far more easily and removed from the map altogether.

With regards to naval matters, the reasoning here is a bit circular. Naval warfare is 'window dressing' because there aren't many successful OPART scenarios dealing with campaigns in which naval warfare was significant in the first place...but there aren't such scenarios in the first place because OPART doesn't simulate naval warfare well. One can do the Eastern Front okay -- but one runs into real problems if one tries to do New Guinea and the Solomons, Norway, Sealion, the Eastern Mediterranean.

With regards to flak, again it's 'window dressing' if and only if the campaign you're simulating is primarily a land battle. If aerial and naval warfare enter into the mix, the shortcomings of the current model for flak become a real problem. Admittedly, not as severe a problem as those caused by the supply and naval warfare shortcomings, but certainly vastly more important than other issues. (hex-side rivers come to mind).

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

I disagree about the defensive value of the river. Not having to defend bridges from the far side and not having to concede bridges would affect gameplay.

Well, you don't have to concede bridges; it's entirely possible to defend in the river for that hex if necessary. However this implies holding a bridgehead on the other side of the river- which makes one vulnerable.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

I don't think Naval units actually add anything to the game and could be abstracted far more easily and removed from the map altogether.

Well, they're a potential future improvement- but way down the list. Incidentally, whenever I've made this point before all the naval buffs have come out guns blazing against me.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
I disagree about the defensive value of the river. Not having to defend bridges from the far side and not having to concede bridges would affect gameplay.

Perhaps, but consider the distortion that river hex-sides introduce. One side is neatly on its side of the river while the enemy is neatly on the other. There are no transverse effects because the rivers are modeled as straight lines that neatly fit into the hex sides. Again, these areas are too large for that.

TOAW models rivers as an area that has a river snakeing around in it. When you're in that area your offensive ability is debilitated. It doesn't really model the river as a boundary. At the operational scale that just isn't that significant a factor.

Neither way is perfect. But it is not as clear as you seem to think that river hexsides would be better. And, just for the record, it would be very hard to implement. Rivers, Major Rivers, Canals, & Suez Canals (Wadis?) would have to have standard and small graphic tiles generated. Then there would have to be an interface tile for each of those to mate with the non-hexside versions. And that's without writting any code for how they would work in the game. Vast number of effects would have to be re-written (engineers, bridging, combat, movement, etc.).

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
Unfortunate (except for the subject to persuasion bit, although they can't be that "subject" if work isn't ongoing on supply and formations yet [;)])

They're doing the easy things first (interface stuff). Things that actually affect game play are hard because they require vast testing.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Perhaps, but consider the distortion that river hexes introduce...

I think you meant to say hex-sides, didn't you?

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

I don't think Naval units actually add anything to the game and could be abstracted far more easily and removed from the map altogether.

Well, they're a potential future improvement- but way down the list. Incidentally, whenever I've made this point before all the naval buffs have come out guns blazing against me.

Really, they're only relevant if one happens to be modelling warfare on a planet that has large bodies of water.

The reasoning, is, as I have said, to some extent circular. OPART can't handle naval warfare very well, so most scenarios avoid subjects where naval warfare was critical to the outcome. Really, the program can only handle subjects (a) where naval warfare is absent or at least peripheral, or (b) where the same side has both air and naval supremacy.

Imagine if OPART couldn't handle large bodies of armor very well -- so scenario designers start avoiding campaigns where large bodies of armor were critical. Would we then be able to classify adequate simulation of armor as 'way down the list'?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Perhaps, but consider the distortion that river hexes introduce...

I think you meant to say hex-sides, didn't you?

Yep. A typo. I fixed it.

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
Has anyone ever approached Norm for the code rewrite he did initially? I understood the coding was done and was merely held up by the problems he was having with his publisher. In that sense, the man who envisaged the whole thing thought them an improvement.

We got whatever Norm still had. Most of the changes were undocumented, forgotten, untested, and in many cases broke as much or more than they fixed. This is not, I repeat NOT a knock against Norm, or against the vast amount of work that he did on the engine over the course of the years. However, it is what happens when someone stops tinkering on a project partway through, does not revisit it for several years, and then moves on to other things. Like it, or not, Norm is no longer involved in the development of TOAW III, and has not been, ever since turning over what patch work he had completed about two years ago. He has publically stated that he's not interested in furthering the development of the engine, and that his efforts are on what can be termed as an indirect competitor to the title. Sorry, if this disappoints anyone, but the future development of this engine, and style of game, is in the hands of TOAD Team.

It doesn't disappoint in the slightest, it's just that on some wargaming forum in the midst of a pain ridden discussion about the end of the working relationship with Talonsoft, Norm mentioned he had the code for it on his system, IIRC.

Either way, I'm not disappointed it is in the hands of people who love the title and are suitably qualified to amend it, far from it. I just wonder at how you choose what gets amended?

In recent years, my experience is that a lot of people have gravitated towards bigger scenarios, indeed they probably always did. The AAR forums are full of D-Day, FITE, DNO etc etc etc.

At any scenarios above Corp level (arguably) and Army level (certainly) the supply and formation rules in TOAW lose all sense of reality. Now, this is no one's fault, Norm designed it to do short mechanised campaigns where the current rules are simple and straight forward and functional, but things haven't evolved that way.

I have seen some comment that the simple stuff is getting fixed first, but I would suggest that at some point soon vast code rewrites can't be avoided if the game is going to evolve. Supply, formations and replacements are generally dysfunctional and whilst improvements to the combat planning dialogues and range rings for artillery have enhanced my enjoyment, I'd willingly trade the lot for formation supply or formation hierachy and formation switching functionality.

I accept this is all easy for me to say, but then I 've spent 300 dollars plus (at today's exchange rate) on the title's five different incarnations over the years and couldn't let this opportunity slip by [;)].

On the wider issue of things that are done, I would (very, very respectfully) suggest that user input and solely user input should guide what is tackled.

Regards,
IronDuke

[shunwick]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
In recent years, my experience is that a lot of people have gravitated towards bigger scenarios, indeed they probably always did. The AAR forums are full of D-Day, FITE, DNO etc etc etc.

At any scenarios above Corp level (arguably) and Army level (certainly) the supply and formation rules in TOAW lose all sense of reality. Now, this is no one's fault, Norm designed it to do short mechanised campaigns where the current rules are simple and straight forward and functional, but things haven't evolved that way.

IronDuke,

I am with you on that one. The fondness for these huge scenarios mystifies me as does the trend away from operational to strategic concerns. More than that it worries me. TOAW (in general) models the operational art very well and if it ever becomes the Strategy, Operational, Tactical mish mash that a lot of players seem to want then it will lose all cohesion.

Best wishes,

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

Changes to flak...? The supply model is barely functional but the last two items are window dressing. I don't think Naval units actually add anything to the game and could be abstracted far more easily and removed from the map altogether.

With regards to naval matters, the reasoning here is a bit circular. Naval warfare is 'window dressing' because there aren't many successful OPART scenarios dealing with campaigns in which naval warfare was significant in the first place...but there aren't such scenarios in the first place because OPART doesn't simulate naval warfare well. One can do the Eastern Front okay -- but one runs into real problems if one tries to do New Guinea and the Solomons, Norway, Sealion, the Eastern Mediterranean.

With regards to flak, again it's 'window dressing' if and only if the campaign you're simulating is primarily a land battle. If aerial and naval warfare enter into the mix, the shortcomings of the current model for flak become a real problem. Admittedly, not as severe a problem as those caused by the supply and naval warfare shortcomings, but certainly vastly more important than other issues. (hex-side rivers come to mind).

But the land combat model in the Sixth fleet boardgames was pretty dreadful, it doesn't do much more than get the job done in WITP, but that's because neither game is concerned with Land warfare.

OPART doesn't simulate naval warfare well, because it isn't at all concerned with it. The whole thing should be abstracted to save space and unit space. Use the event editor, have ships listed on counters for shore bombardment but little else.

If you're going to fix naval warfare in the title, I'd suggest FLAK would be the last of your worries as you set about this task, as so much that is more basic and fundamental doesn't really work either.

If you're suggesting that FLAK on ships (an aspect of the game that is largely irrelevant) is more important than correctly simulating something as important as rivers in large and smale scale land combat operations, than we are miles apart and unlikely to meet.

To my mind, the current naval combat only falls down in situations where large opposing forces might meet on the high seas in encounters directly related to a land battle. In most scenarios, the naval issues have already been decided at the scenario start.

Regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

I don't think Naval units actually add anything to the game and could be abstracted far more easily and removed from the map altogether.

Well, they're a potential future improvement- but way down the list. Incidentally, whenever I've made this point before all the naval buffs have come out guns blazing against me.

It isn't a game about naval warfare, quietly shelve it (to avoid the criticism) and get on with supply and formations.

Regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

I disagree about the defensive value of the river. Not having to defend bridges from the far side and not having to concede bridges would affect gameplay.

Well, you don't have to concede bridges; it's entirely possible to defend in the river for that hex if necessary. However this implies holding a bridgehead on the other side of the river- which makes one vulnerable.

Yes, but it implies holding a bridgehead not because you (IRL) need to hold one to defend a bridge, but because the game mechanics don't work without that assumption.

If I want a bridgehead, I'll dig in and fortify a few hexes on the other side, which is a player choice, and done for the right operational reasons.

As it stands, I dig in behind a river, and then have to have isolated garrisons defending tricky positions on river hexes to prevent the player taking and rebuilding the bridges under the noses of my heavy weapons.

At any scale, it simply (IMHO) doesn't wash.

Regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
I disagree about the defensive value of the river. Not having to defend bridges from the far side and not having to concede bridges would affect gameplay.

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Perhaps, but consider the distortion that river hex-sides introduce. One side is neatly on its side of the river while the enemy is neatly on the other.

Do I really have to provide examples to illustrate that this is not a distortion [;)].

There are no transverse effects because the rivers are modeled as straight lines that neatly fit into the hex sides. Again, these areas are too large for that.

I had to look the word transverse up but still didn't really get this. The directions you move in are essentially governed by the hex system. Whilst it would be true to say that sitting on a river hex allows you to attack of it in three different directions sometimes, that would be possible with hex sides in many circumstances as well, and more importantly, river combat crossing were not done laterally. People went across at the shortest point.

When you decide to attack, select the right hex to go from.

TOAW models rivers as an area that has a river snakeing around in it. When you're in that area your offensive ability is debilitated. It doesn't really model the river as a boundary. At the operational scale that just isn't that significant a factor.

How are rivers not a significant operational factor? If they aren't having an effect on operations, why have any rules regarding operational factors like movement and combat in relation to rivers.

By and large, everyone tried to build defensive lines where rivers could be utilised, they are as important an operational consideration as any other. The area a river is snaking around in is less important operationally than the barrier the river itself presents to further combat operations.

It is that you have to simulate correctly, regardless of your scale.

Neither way is perfect. But it is not as clear as you seem to think that river hexsides would be better.

I believe it is.

And, just for the record, it would be very hard to implement. Rivers, Major Rivers, Canals, & Suez Canals (Wadis?) would have to have standard and small graphic tiles generated. Then there would have to be an interface tile for each of those to mate with the non-hexside versions. And that's without writting any code for how they would work in the game. Vast number of effects would have to be re-written (engineers, bridging, combat, movement, etc.).

Well, this concerns me not, since we're not going to have an "updated and enhanced" version of TOAW if all we do is tinker. At some point, the "hard to implement" stuff is surely going to have to be tackled.

regards,
IronDuke

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM


. Sorry, if this disappoints anyone, but the future development of this engine, and style of game, is in the hands of TOAD Team.

..shouldn't that be flippers or something ?..

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

I don't think Naval units actually add anything to the game and could be abstracted far more easily and removed from the map altogether.

Well, they're a potential future improvement- but way down the list. Incidentally, whenever I've made this point before all the naval buffs have come out guns blazing against me.

..boats..

..any chance on another river tile, one that stops riverine movement and only riverine ?. It would be nice not to have the damn things scooting up un-navigable rivers

..and, supply and boats..

..any chance on supply tracing up major/minor rivers linked to the riverine transport present on a given river ? Currently the only way to do this is invisble rail and whilst that's fine for invading Kush s'a bugger in Indochine where they're the only way to do French road transport methods..