Ideas for Designers

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Horst
Brigadier-General - 15 cm Nblwf 41
Brigadier-General - 15 cm Nblwf 41
Posts: 1927
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 1:22 pm

Ideas for Designers

Post by Horst »

Rivers
Crossing them often seems too easily be done without bridges. I'd rather see more often swamps as floodplains underneath them, looking more natural, as long as they aren't artificial channels, so units get a penalty for getting themselves and their equipment wet. Such mechanic would basically work like the disembark penalty and make it easier for defenders behind rivers. Especially heavyTreaded units should get a severe penalty when crossing them, as they would most likely get bogged.

PS: I've checked the editor again. There is no efficiency drop for heavy treaded units on swamps with bridges but only a movement drop. I think that's acceptable as not every bridge allows full speed.

Bridges
Blowing up bridges and repairing them is a rather neglected feature of the game.
How about giving them supply points underneath so the strategic bombers have something to blow up. If these points drop to zero, a trigger will blow them up. If they are repaired, there is a check-bridge status condition to refill the supply points.
It should be up for the scenario designer how tough the bridges are, thus how many points they receive at maximum. It’s surely not always that useful in scenarios, but could give sometimes a new feature how to play through them. It’s possibly more interesting in multiplayer scenarios with a regular reinforcement flow over the same routes.
Admiral_Horthy
Sergeant First Class - Panzer IIIL
Sergeant First Class - Panzer IIIL
Posts: 366
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:43 pm
Location: Budapest, Moscow

Re: Ideas for Designers

Post by Admiral_Horthy »

I had the very same idea about bridges, I even wrote it here on the forum but I can't remember where.. One thing is for sure, large rives (even more hex wide) should stop supply flaw and represent an - otherwise - impassable obstacle. Especially for - as you mentioned - non amphib vehicles. An alternative can be if they represented by a static structure unit especially because it can get a 3D object (and that can be modded to represent unique ones :mrgreen: ). Athey should definitely exist over water hex for ships to be able to pass.

Supply status is not a factor as it counts as infrastructural repair - that can be done by units.

Also railroads as means of supply chain - and infrastructure - should be destructible ? How about ports?


And now a bigger change for a thought. New supply calculating system. How about dividing the supply into two values. One is the total supply... a simple positive integer. Or zero, naturally. Can be modified by triggers. The second what we use now the actual supply that reaches units. I would call it supply throughput. Or diameter. It's a bit harder to imagine but this way bottlenecks can be done - eg. at a bridge. Or mountain pass. It should be substracted from the total supply, or count as a percentage.

What counts here: range from supply points not in hexes but in movement points. If there is rail connection - rail movement. if there is road then that. Bridge in this case provide a route which if broken causes a significantly longer route OR complete cut from routes. Sea and air supply... they need units even now. The point the unit provides the supply output, it counts as a supply center. In case of air supply, that would be the airfield. need to figure out how to represent this with destroyable units. I think the Dev's idea of bringing it by the plane is quite acceptable - just what amount? Or make it a logical value IF a loaded plane landed there (Load-Unload switch), the airfield provides a zero distance supply - for N+1 turns. I mean it remains active as supply point as long as it has air units to upkeep the connection.



Sorry for spamming but these are also ideas related.

viewtopic.php?f=374&t=85769#p727096

viewtopic.php?f=374&t=80867#p691033

viewtopic.php?f=374&t=86946#p738262
Horst
Brigadier-General - 15 cm Nblwf 41
Brigadier-General - 15 cm Nblwf 41
Posts: 1927
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 1:22 pm

Re: Ideas for Designers

Post by Horst »

Let's post rather only ideas for scenario designers, and not the game designers, which are doable within the limit of the game engine.

Rivers are indeed too easily absorbed by the automatic territory claim mechanic. Cross a river without bridge and it’s assumed that a convoy of invisible supply trucks is following. The game should respect more more or less impassible terrain and we can't really much about it.
Declaring river-hexes as no-man’s land is only a temporary solution either. Declaring river-hexes as impassable territory can work but ruins the possibility to build pontoon bridges.
It’s especially easy for the defender to keep its supply even if you capture the only bridge from its rear-territory where the supply supposedly comes from.
One way to better simulate bottlenecks over bridges is to infinitely change hex-ownership of all river-hexes without bridges to no-man’s land every turn. But this would prevent building pontoon-bridges with a supply line either, except if you create hundreds of single conditions if a bridge is on a certain river-hex.

You surely can create a manual supply point system. It’s work but can be established as a cargo-truck route where trucks spawn at certain points, like harbors or train depots, and drive along roads to certain points, like these military-camp decos. If the cargo-truck reaches the hex, the truck is removed and supply points will be added to the depot-hex. Afterwards, the supply will decrease per turn again, waiting for the next truck to arrive. The more depots you capture, the more trucks are spawned. Each depot can only hold a certain amount of points, so you can't simply drive to the same depot and expect to support a large army.
To make it easier, you can leave this rather in player’s hand without complicated AI-team routes. The player can decide then where the supply is needed most and drive to the certain hexes. To make it more interesting, partisans could attack cargo trucks en route. It certainly can become a nuisance with too many truck spawns.
That would be the most complex system and maybe rather only works on larger maps well enough if you somehow can bottleneck territory better.
Easier is most likely simply adding a strict amount of supply points on the map that is frequently bombed by the AI or hostile player that engineers need to frequently repair.
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