When do roads negate river costs?

[kenwolfe]

I am running TOAW III 3,2,29,27. I have come across what looks like an anomaly in the way that roads negate the cost of moving through a river hex. I understand that a road which crosses a river is understood to include a bridge and therefore movement along the road does not incur the movement cost for the river. However, this seems to happen any time the river hex contains a road, regardless of whether the road actually crosses the river. An example is hex 19,8 in the Market Garden 44 scenario (Classic TOAW folder). The hex contains a road on either side of the river, but the road does not actually cross the river. Nevertheless, a unit can cross though the hex from one side of the river to the other without penalty (in fact it should not even be possible for a unit with no ferry capability since it is a Super River). Furthermore, a unit in the hex is given the option to Destroy Bridges, and doing so will remove the roads from both sides of the river... the hex then has normal cost for movement across rivers. Is this working as designed, and does it mean that a hex will never incur a river movement penalty if there is any road in the hex? Thanks.

[kenwolfe]

I forgot to add the picture...

[Boonierat]

This is a known anomaly of TOAW, and one of the drawbacks of having rivers running in the middle of hexes. Note that you can cross super rivers this way only if you enter the hex via a road.

[Curtis Lemay]

Technically, there is a bridge in the hex, despite the graphic, since you can blow it. If the designer didn't want one there, he should have run the road differently.

[Silvanski]

some designers advice a houserule: not to blow bridges in hexes where they don't cross a river

[Erik2]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

some designers advice a houserule: not to blow bridges in hexes where they don't cross a river

In addition I always add various bridge characters like # or )*( to the map with the proper explanation of wich symbols denote bridges that can be blown etc.

[ColinWright]

For what it's worth, demolitions aren't necessarily confined to bridges anyway -- any section of road that passes across a steep hillside or whatever is quite vulnerable.

Point is, the program could be refined to allow 'bridges' to be blown only where there actually is a bridge -- but the simulation still wouldn't be all that great. Really, I'd say it's up to the designer to route the road and decide what's a river so as to achieve the desired result. For example, it would be pretty dubious to have the Dyle River on a map and a road running down it: a defending player could achieve quite unreasonable effects by blowing all the 'bridges.' Conversely, if a road crosses a deep wadi I'd think about making the hex a river -- quite unimportant that there's no water there.

[Boonierat]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Really, I'd say it's up to the designer to route the road and decide what's a river so as to achieve the desired result.

Unfortunately it's not always that simple, map scale constraints sometimes give you no other choice but to have a super river and a road running alongside in the same hex(es).

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

For what it's worth, demolitions aren't necessarily confined to bridges anyway -- any section of road that passes across a steep hillside or whatever is quite vulnerable.

And if the road runs through a forest, one can blow down trees across it.

There's also the issue of meandering. A road running down the length of a river hex may, in reality, require multiple bridges to do so.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Boonierat

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Really, I'd say it's up to the designer to route the road and decide what's a river so as to achieve the desired result.

Unfortunately it's not always that simple, map scale constraints sometimes give you no other choice but to have a super river and a road running alongside in the same hex(es).

It is true that sometimes compromises have to be made. But then, that's why us designers get the big bucks.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

For what it's worth, demolitions aren't necessarily confined to bridges anyway -- any section of road that passes across a steep hillside or whatever is quite vulnerable.

And if the road runs through a forest, one can blow down trees across it.

Yeah. One has to consider issues of scale, and also consider just how efficacious the demolitions are likely to be.

For example, your trees. Well, if we're talking about a road through a jungle, and the scale is half-day turns, indeed and it would be desirable to simulate the effect somehow.

On the other hand, if we're talking half-week turns and the locale is Northwest Europe -- well, there's that famous picture of an Allied demolition in Belgium in 1940. The German truck columns are simply detouring through the field alongside of it.

There's also the issue of meandering. A road running down the length of a river hex may, in reality, require multiple bridges to do so.

I tend to keep roads off of rivers unless I want a road crossing to actually be possible. Of course, sometimes this puts the road someplace ridiculous, or someplace where it causes other problems. Then an executive decision has to be made.

A lot of times, the best solution is simply to omit the river. I've a suspicion -- in fact, a certainty -- that a lot of designers mindlessly put in every river the atlas shows. They never ask themselves what the actual military significance of that particular stream in the particular scale they're operating at would be.

To quote General Schlieffen when an aide called his attention to the beauty of the sunrise over the River Priegel: 'an insignificant military obstacle.' A lot of rivers in a lot of situations just aren't very important.