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Well, my poor effort does not begin to compare with those being created using the beta of mapmaker posted elsewhere.

However, this example does illustrate that significant changes can be made to a map (In this case, Winter Storm L6.

Goal:

Create an environment where the AI can take defense and have a chance against the human player's attack. In this regard, I have placed Soviet defenders in a portion of the village shown. Note that the buildings are much more dense than we are used to seeing in PCK. The reason is I want to provide the AI defender with the opportunity to conduct close assaults upon Germans panzers as they attempt to support infantry.

Note that I have joined a lot of buildings together in an attempt to represent workers dwellings. Also some buildings not touching are close enough that a squad can dismount and mount in the next building during the same turn. This doesn't seem to create problems since PCK "remembers" how the unit mounted the building in the first place.

The line of train cars now has a break between cars so units can pass through rather than having to go around.

Unseen in the screenshots, there is a substantial amount of "Heavy Forest" which provides both defenders and attacker some additional cover. This forest also slows tracked vehicles and infantry while NOT allowing wheeled vehicles to pass through.

IMO, the quality of infantry fighting improves each time I add more cover to the map. However, the AI cannot attack well with this sort of defensive terrain. The AI insists on moving Inf Guns, ATR, and 5cm mortars to doom.... not to mention armor. So this strong defensive area is to be the domain of the AI when I finish this scenario.

It has been many months (years) since I posted graphics to this forum so I hope this shows up ok.

This is merely another view of the same terrain which I hope provides a chance to see the housing and buildings added. Note that there are other buildings not seen.

My computer is 2 years old with 2 gigs of ram and no decent video card. Seems to handle this well until a lot of smoke accumulates.

This is an attempt to embed one of the pictures within the text.

This way works.
 
If you want the pic in your post, use the orange "post reply" button, then click the "embed picture in post"

This is the second of the views attached above.
If all goes well, I am going to play this battle and provide some sort of an AAR which I hope will illustrate some tough infantry fighting.

I have created some Soviet SMG and Pioneers armed with RPGs to tighten German spincter muscles.[;)]

Thanks for giving me some of your time. Thanks to Matrix for the forum.

Hey, that looks great. How did you place the railway tracks? I couldn't get that to work.

The Russian towns I have spent time in looked quite a bit like that. Add some banya!

This is a map *alteration* of Kharkov Winter Storm L6 map - I wish I could take credit for the map since it is one of my favorites.

So I did not tinker with the railroad tracks on this try. All I messed with was buildings and removal of some of the rail cars so troops could move through the train. BTW, it seems to me that grunt infantry should be able to pass through trains with sever movement penalty since they could crawl under or move between cars or move through the cars themselves.

I have started a battle going on this map to see how effectively the AI can attack this sort of a map configuration. On the next fight, I will command (ugh) the German force. [;)]

I am mainly attempting to show that existing maps can be altered in substantial ways using out-of-the-box Panzer Command Kharkov.

ORIGINAL: Redleg

BTW, it seems to me that grunt infantry should be able to pass through trains with sever movement penalty since they could crawl under or move between cars or move through the cars themselves.

Redleg,

I've been doing some tests ... To allow the infantry to pass you need to change the terrain map color under the trains to "teal", tank obstacle (0,150,150). This will allow the troops to pass, not the vehicles.

Also, if you want to narrow their passage thru the train cars, make a path 3 pixels wide where the train car's hook up, using the tank obstacle color. The minimum obstacle clearance is 3 pixels, no less.

Hope that helps,

Rob

Yes, the tank obstacle idea would seem to be very workable.  Excellent approach.
I think I will try this on my map with the trains and see what happens.
 
I was thinking that a three-sided wall might make a decent gun emplacement.  Seems to me that a MG or IG inside a thing like that could fire with good flank protection.
 
Thanks for the idea.
 

Erroneous post. Sorry.