Terrain Choice Improvement

[grumblefish]

This thread is to do with the terrain selection made when you issue/accept a challenge. That part where you click Open, Mixed, etc and it determines what the field of battle is going to look like terrain-wise.

Right now, this takes place when you issue your challenge, or accept a challenge. The problem is... you don't know your opponent at this time (or, depending on the challenger, the acceptor will know). If I'm playing as a giant Roman heavy infantry force, I will generally want to fight in an open field. However, if the opponent is just going to go Parthia or something, then I don't want to do that anymore. I would rather fight in a forest, especially if there are fog of war rules in place to ensure that he can't see me until we're on top of each other.

Anyway, this might not seem like much of a problem/improvement, but I find it a tad frustrating (possibly because I need an excuse when I lose). The choice of terrain isn't entirely determined by the army you have selected; rather, you also have to consider the state that you are going to be fighting with. By simply moving the terrain pick so that it is performed after the acceptance of the challenge, when both sides know which nation they're competing against, players will be able to make a properly informed decision. In history there are plenty of ambushes and other surprises, but I don't think Rome ever marched off to fight Germans and suddenly found Parthians riding around everywhere.

[Amaz_Ed]

One of the problems that i have had with every wargame system I have played with a system for generating terrain is that a good Parthian general wouldn't fight the Romans in a forest and yet he is forced to if the map is covered in trees. He simply can't ride off and wait for the Romans to come out.

I would like to see a system on the pc which would be very difficult to implement on the table top. I would like to have a map that is 9 times the size of the current maps that we play on. This map would be a mixture of varied terrain with crowded ares and open areas and everything inbetween.

I would then like the player with the initiative to be able to place a deployment zone the same size, but possibly square rather than rectangular, as the ones that we use now anywhere on the map. He would then nominate the direction in which the enemy would be deployed.

The player without initiative would be forced to deploy in terrain that quite possibly didn't suit him, but he would, in most cases, have the option to make a fighting withdrawal to terrain that that was more suitable where he could make his stand.

Discuss.

[TheGrayMouser]

I like your ideas on the deployment zones, intead of the long rectangle at each players side of the map..
Would likly need 80x80 maps though at least....

I do disagree about Romans in the wood, I like and choose open maps when fighting Parthians, easier to see the cats and destroy them!

[Amaz_Ed]

Yep, but you get the point.

I should have said that I would like the two deployment zones to be set up at a similar distance to that which they are at now.

[grumblefish]

One of the problems that i have had with every wargame system I have played with a system for generating terrain is that a good Parthian general wouldn't fight the Romans in a forest and yet he is forced to if the map is covered in trees. He simply can't ride off and wait for the Romans to come out.

I would like to see a system on the pc which would be very difficult to implement on the table top. I would like to have a map that is 9 times the size of the current maps that we play on. This map would be a mixture of varied terrain with crowded ares and open areas and everything inbetween.

I would then like the player with the initiative to be able to place a deployment zone the same size, but possibly square rather than rectangular, as the ones that we use now anywhere on the map. He would then nominate the direction in which the enemy would be deployed.

The player without initiative would be forced to deploy in terrain that quite possibly didn't suit him, but he would, in most cases, have the option to make a fighting withdrawal to terrain that that was more suitable where he could make his stand.

Discuss.

That's a good idea, and I am certain I have seen it used in other games. I can't remember the name of the game, but I have definitely played a game where a large map was displayed, and you had a smaller square that you used to select where the game would take place.

[Xiggy]

Sounds like a great idea. With double moves, you could really move around the map until you contacted each other.

[Amaz_Ed]

I wouldn't like to see individual units wandering off in all directions, but if troops were somehow disabled if they left an extended command radius it would allow for sub generals to take a force on a wide flanking manouevre for example.

[grumblefish]

Sounds like a great idea. With double moves, you could really move around the map until you contacted each other.

Well, you wouldn't really need to have the map be any bigger. You'd have a base map of maybe 12 miles by 12 miles, full of terrain, and then the person who wins the initiative has a little box of only 1 mile by 1 mile, and can impose that box over the larger map to indicate where the fighting should take place. The battlefield would only be 1 mile by 1 mile, but the terrain possibilities would have encompassed that whole original area.

This would also greatly increase the diversity of terrain, because sometimes you'd fight in the left hand corner of a certain map, then in the right, then in the centre, etc.