Matrix Games Forums

Eastern Front map

I am making a 10 miles per hex map of the Eastern Front, using the WitE map as the template. It will take ages, but here is a screenie of what I have done so far.

Whether an actual scenario will follow is uncertain. I have some ideas but the amount of work is huge.

Urals

The map will extend to the Urals, which is absolutely marvellous.

Wowsers !

Here's the mini-map.

Wow that is a big map! About the same size as your famous Ost scenario?

I just used the GPW map for the original Ostfront, which is 140 x 120 hexes.

This new map is 183 x 140 hexes and the WitE bitmap which I am using as an overlay is 9,216 x 7,168 pixels

Scenario

I have decided that I will indeed do a scenario for the map, to be called (unsurprisingly) Ostfront 2.

This time I will stick much more to the AT way of doing things, since trying to impose an OOB and TOEs with this engine is an exercise in futility. This may even make development easier since I will not have to edit in gazillions of reinforcements. It was this painful prospect which caused me to give up last time.

Don't expect anything soon.

Scorched Earth

One thing I very much want to incorporate in this is the idea of "Scorched Earth", or to put it another way - the countryside has a utility to both sides.

What this will likely mean in practise is that each and every town on the map is a production centre, providing things like Supply, Manpower & Horses. These production centres will then work for both sides, but with a discount applied for the non-native occupying regime.

My only concern with this is that players may baulk at the amount of micro-management this will involve. There are hundreds of towns on the WitE map and I will be copying them all over. However, given that you will not acquire any more than a few towns per turn (when you are advancing) this ought to be doable.

Any thoughts?

It seems to me that in one of the WW2 games on this engine you could build rifles in your native town but when captured it would not let the new owner build rifles. That might be important for the Soviets.

Towns certainly won't be building Rifle. They might perhaps build Manpower (an off-map resource like Oil and Ore) which is then used for creating lots of different units.

This is what a Town looks like at the moment.

Here's a micro-section of completed map. As you can see the rail density is very high.

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Nyuk Nyuk... the town name is Slutsk. Wonder what they produce ?

Moscow

Not very big is it?
 
[;)]
 
Just kidding, appreciating your work Captain.

Most Cities are only one hex. The only exceptions are Kiev and Stalingrad at 2 hexes, Moscow and Berlin at 3 hexes and the Leningrad complex at 4 hexes.

The other thing to realise is that there will be lots of Towns on the map. Indeed Moscow is surrounded by them. However Towns take the terrain of the under-lying hex rather than being Urban so they will not appear until I add Loctypes.

Here's Moscow in context. There are a few trees missing but otherwise this area is complete.

Leningrad.

There are two river types - Minor and Major. You can see them both here. I have tried to make the minor rivers stand out by "dotting" them. Of course the graphics might change, but you can definitely see the difference now.

This is what a Town looks like on the map.

Pripet Marshes

All the rivers are now on the map. There are a lot of them.