Close Terrain

[RandomAttack]

Love the game, but have a bit of a problem with "Close Terrain". The manual says cities, forests and mountains, but the in-game library/tables say there is ALSO other close terrain: Hills and Swamps for example. I understand the concept, but think it is too widely applied. I first became aware of this when I had a tank unit on plain "hills" outside a city, and the defender attacked me with a low-end infantry and did like 5 damage (because it attacked my close defense rating).

Given the scale of the game this just seems a bit much. Otherwise clear HILLS for Pete's sake? I think "close terrain" should be limited to cities, mountains, DEEP forest, ports, and bocage.

Finally, is this moddable? If I wanted to experiment with changing what terrain is considered "close", where would I find it?
Edit: Found it in the data/terrain file. [:)] I may play around with it some and see how it works.

[Xacto]

Great question... I have another.

If there is an ememy infantry in a forest and he attacks my tank that is in a clear terrain; will the attack go to "close defense" even though I am in the open?

[RandomAttack]

I THINK that it depends on the terrain in the hex under attack-- but not 100% sure.

[Razz1]

You lost 5 strength points because you were in hills.

[RandomAttack]

Yes, I know that-- but it seems wrong. Tanks have no problems with hills and it's not like an Infantry unit is going to storm out of a city and engage a Tank unit at point blank range just because it is in hilly terrain. So maybe the Tank unit shoots at 500m instead of 1000m-- it's not like creeping through a forest and closing that way. It's just HILLS.

[Rudankort]

ORIGINAL: Xacto

Great question... I have another.

If there is an ememy infantry in a forest and he attacks my tank that is in a clear terrain; will the attack go to "close defense" even though I am in the open?

No, only terrain of the defender's hex is considered.

[Rudankort]

ORIGINAL: RandomAttack

Yes, I know that-- but it seems wrong. Tanks have no problems with hills and it's not like an Infantry unit is going to storm out of a city and engage a Tank unit at point blank range just because it is in hilly terrain. So maybe the Tank unit shoots at 500m instead of 1000m-- it's not like creeping through a forest and closing that way. It's just HILLS.

Hills are close terrain, but their initiative cap is bigger than that of cities and forests. So in hills tanks will likely win the initiative and shoot first. Still, the hills give enough opportunity for infantry to close in.

This makes hills "middle ground" in infantry vs. tanks competition. When I was playing Bagration I tried to hold defense with infantry in hills against russian armor and I completely failed - 4 infantry units got destroyed and the AI broke through. If it was a city or forest instead, my 4 infantry units would surely hold. So I think that this is actually pretty balanced, but feel free to experiment with this if you like. Indeed, terrain.pzdat file can be edited to change this aspect.

[RandomAttack]

Thanks Rudankort!

After examining the file I take your point with the iniitiative cap-- the mechanics are not quite as cut & dried as I originally believed. In fact, I think my result may have just been a particularly unlucky die roll. It just seemed preposterous at the time... [X(] I think I'll play quite a bit more before I tweak anything. Thanks again for the explanation.