Please vote: Groningen as a rail hub city?

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:25 am

I'm a bit sceptical adding Kolberg because the city is very small. In 2000 the population was just 50.000. I don't see any evidence about the city being a port. I'm not sure the
Germans need a port in this area. They have Swinemunde, Gdynia and Konigsberg.

However, the city was designated a fortress city in 1944. So a solution could be to add the city as a fortress (without production) in July 1943 as for the other East German cities. That would be similar to the fortress being added for Calais. Both of these fortresses will be destroyed if captured.This depends upon what we do about adding forest hexes. If we add some forest hexes I don't think we need to add a fortress in 1943 in the Kolberg hex.

Even if Third Reich put Kolberg on the map it doesn't mean we have to do it.

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:34 am

Fair points about Smolensk, Vitebsk, Voronezh. None of them is in wrong place per se. I've just seen them placed slightly differently (regarding the rivers) on other games. And as pk867 said, might also alter the balance bit so better leave them as is I suppose.

Regarding leridano's proposal, I think clearing those swamps SW of Pripet marches and moving Lvov would alter the southern part of Barbarossa.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:06 pm

Map changes suggested are based both in actual maps but mainly in good wargames maps like World in Flames or The Operational Art of War III. Some comments about the changes suggested:

-Forests hexes NE of Brest-Litovsk would be a must do from an accuracy point of view: there is a dense forest named Puszcza Bialowieska that should be reflected in GS map as a forest area.
-The same could be said for the forest hexes N and NE of Krakow and NW of Lvov (Puszcza Solska)
- Breslau is a clear hex for sure (see World in Flames map and TOAW III) and the hexes around should be forests as it is showed in the GS Poland map that I have edited.
-We are used to see Prypet marshes as an impassable and almost out of play zone. But in the real war there were roads, rail network and many battle engagements in this area. Hexes suggested to be clear are also taken from other wargames maps in which Prypet marshes are not so formidable by far as they are in GS map. Also there are some possible forests hexes between that could make this zone suitable for war operations as it should be.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:18 pm

On the other hand, Latvia is by far an excessively forested area in GS map. I will post an edited map with possible changes in Spain and in USSR where I´m currently working.

zechi · Post by **zechi** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:01 pm

What about adding the Seelow Height near Berlin (as rough terrain) as final obstacle to reach Berlin. In the real war the Germans even flooded the Plain below the heights and it became a swamp.

More info can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... ow_Heights

I would suggest to make the two hexes below Stettin rough terrain.

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:25 pm

I agree that Pripet should have plots of forest and few clear hexes but those 4 hexes SW of the marches would enlarge the avenue of attack toward Kiev and coupled with moving Lvov would IMO affect the current Barbarossa slightly (could be wrong, please comment if feel otherwise). Not that it would be necessarily bad but since balance changes to Barbarossa were mentioned as not being desirable at this point. Perhaps instead of making all four clear, put some of them forest to slow panzers/mechs?

Just to be clear, I was refering to these 4 proposed clear hexes circled in red.

That said, I do very much like everything else. And Latvia could indeed use more clear hexes as could Estonia and couple clear dots wouldn't hurt Pskov-Novgorod either. They certainly weren't all forest even back in the '40s. Very interested in seeing your next proposal.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:31 pm

I would suggest that the Seelow heights hexes become forest instead because we use rough terrain for hills, valleys etc. So you need some kind of altitude to get rough terrain in GS. Variation in altitude is necessary to use the rough terrain. The main reason is that the movement cost is quite high for rough terrain (2 and vehicle penalty of 1). Forest terrain has a movement cost of 1 and also a vehicle penalty of 1. Seelow heights should mainly be there with a defensive bonus and making it harder for armor to move through the area. I think we can get that with forest terrain even if the area didn't wasn't heavily forested.

If you look at the terrain in a hex you can always find some forest, swamp, broken, rough etc. Very few hexes can be said to be only plains or grasslands. So when we decide what to put in a hex we have to look at what's MOST in the hex and sometimes we place terrain for effect.

Maybe we should have had a different terrain type like in other games (heavy forest, light forest) or broken to indicate some kind of defenses that won't fit the other types. We don't have that so we have to use what we have so I suggest forest.

Here is a topo map of Europe and you don't see brown color along the Oder except in southern Poland. So Leridano is right that Breslau and adjacent hexes weren't rough. Forest should be more correct.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:37 pm

In the far north there were actually tundra terrain which could be seen as frozen swamps. In GS we've often picked forest for them to indicate the defenses there. Swamp in GS means terrain where movement is very hard, but frozen swamps weren't that bad to move through.

So we will always have compromises when we design a map.

I agree that we can do something about the Pripyat marshes. I don't think we should make a lot of clear terrain there, but some of the swamp hexes could be changed to forest. This will still make it hard for vehicles to move through there, but infantry units (e. g. partisan hunters) can move a bit faster there. In the center of the marshes you had the town of Pripyat and there was a rail line going though here. So we can definitely turn a few of the swamp hexes in the center into forest.

I will make a suggest for Germany and Poland and post for you to vote on.

Adding forests in Spain is probably not a problem because they will replace rough hexes and Spain is not the main theater. Let's see what Leridano suggests there.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:42 pm

Moving cities is something we have to be careful about. I agree that Lvov could be moved 1 hex NW, but the it will be placed west of Brest Litovsk and it's actually directly south of Brest Litovsk. So if you start moving cities you can end up with a chain effect. Remember that the map is slightly distorted so there will be many cities we can discuss the location of.

Lvov is slightly closer to Vinnitsa than Warsaw and if we move it then it becomes too close to Warsaw. It's now slightly too far away. Having a city between hexes is not possible.

The main reason we should not bother with moving Lvov is that we've hardcoded the Russian annexation of Eastern Poland and that would change this code. If we move Lvov then we have to move the entire border to keep the shape and suddenly you've given several hexes that belonged to the Axis before Barbarossa to Russia. That means the Germans start further away from e. g. Kiev and it could slow down the advance.

So my proposal is to keep the cities as is and instead add patches of forests where we see from a map that there are forests. We should not make forest clusters, but rather single / double hexes here and there so the motorised forces can easily bypass these forests. Going from only clear terrain to many forest hexes is a big change so we have to be careful there.

I will make a suggestion so you can see the effect.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:02 pm

I have finished editing the possible map changes in USSR and Spain so the following map changes suggestions can be used as a draft for the definitive changes.

F is for forest hex
C is for clear hex
M is for marsh hex

USSR

Some comments in USSR suggested changes:

- Reduced forest hexes in Latvia and included a marsh hex in Daugava river mouth.
- Courland is a known heavily forested area which was not represented
- Pskov and Lake Peipus area mostly are a clear terrain with some marshes areas
- All hexes around Leningrad and Ladoga lake should be clear
- Marsh hexes south of Ilmen Lake and in upper Dvina river

Spain

To mention Serrania de Cuenca as a large forest area in central Spain (NW of Valencia) and the Basque Country is also a forest area that links with the forest area of Aquitaine in SW France. Valencia city itself should be a clear hex and the same way the hex inmediately SE.

Schnurri · Post by **Schnurri** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:17 pm

This may be impossible but - would be cool to have the USSR lake hexes be frozen in severe winter to permit transport.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:04 pm

Frozen lakes is a bit tricky and to do that we need to create a new terrain type called lake where land units can move on and not naval units. Then we can prohibit movement into the hex unless the weather is winter in the hex. That is possible to do, but did we have corps sized movement on lakes?

Schnurri · Post by **Schnurri** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:48 pm

I remember reading somewhere about Russian supply and reinforcement over Lake Ladoga being critical for preventing the fall of Leningrad.

Schnurri · Post by **Schnurri** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:53 pm

Reread it - not worth the effort - Lake Ladoga was a vital supply line when sufficiently frozen but not thick enough for armored vehicles. Not used for offensive purposes but just truck transport of food and escape route for those cut-off.

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 4:38 pm

Schnurri wrote:Reread it - not worth the effort - Lake Ladoga was a vital supply line when sufficiently frozen but not thick enough for armored vehicles. Not used for offensive purposes but just truck transport of food and escape route for those cut-off.

Correct, although some combat was made over frozen parts of Gulf of Finland and Ladoga, hardly enough to warrant that much coding effort on a corps level game.

Nice map ideas leridano. I like, but this will change the current North dynamic quite a bit.

Perhaps close the straight clear patches with a solitary forest hexes to reduce arm/mech cruising through to Novgorod, Tallinn? Say, one at W of Peipus and one S of Pskov?

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:53 pm

PionUrpo wrote: Nice map ideas leridano. I like, but this will change the current North dynamic quite a bit.

Perhaps close the straight clear patches with a solitary forest hexes to reduce arm/mech cruising through to Novgorod, Tallinn? Say, one at W of Peipus and one S of Pskov?

These changes would be adapted to the real terrain: around Pskov there are more clear areas than forest areas (you can check this in wargames maps like TOAW 3 or World in Flames). We would have to adapt our strategy to these changes!

We have to keep in mind that with these clear hexes "corridors", mechs and armours will move faster but they also can be easily neutralised by ZOC of 2 enemy units (even formed by garrison units) so I don´t see the current strategies much affected by this changes. Having only one clear hex for maneuvering the armoured and mech units won´t perform the same way than in a completely clear terrain.

We were used to avoid using mechs and armours in the north of USSR but in the real ww2 this wasn´t so. Many german armoured formations integrated Army Group North and left flank of Army Group Center and operated in this area.

Anyway, my suggestions can be considered as a starting point: they are not definitive!

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 6:47 pm

I agree with your reasoning, I've seen this kind of terrain setup on other games, like War in Russia, as well and personally I would go with you initial proposal. I just wonder if those changes would go further than Devs want to get at this point.

Higher ups, please enlighten us mere mortals.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 7:46 pm

I'm fine with them and think trying out is the best way to find out. Germany reached Leningrad in August so I don't think these changes will disrupt the game. It means the Russians must put some units to slow down the advance, as they did historically.

PionUrpo · Post by **PionUrpo** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:25 pm

Stauffenberg wrote:I'm fine with them and think trying out is the best way to find out. Germany reached Leningrad in August so I don't think these changes will disrupt the game. It means the Russians must put some units to slow down the advance, as they did historically.

Excelent.

Almost forgot this one and I don't know why I haven't pointed this out before

: Finnish post Winter War border shouldn't touch Lake Ladoga.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Finni ... n_1940.png

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:11 am

Karelia is a bit tricky because the map is so distorted so far north. If we start changing hexes we disrupt the chance for the Finnish to move from the area near Leningrad to Joensuu and then put pressure on the Russians towards Petrozavodsk.

So the border as is seems to work since there is a corridor to move along for the Finns. The narrow patch of Russian land on the west bank of lake Ladoga would be less than the Finnish land in the hex. So it's better to let Finland have the hex. If we altered the hexes then we would need to let Russia get all hexes in the corridor and that makes Karelia too wide.

My proposal is to keep things as is and live with the minor inaccuracy. If you look at lake Ladoga and lake Onega you see that the shape is not very accurate, but the map is very compressed north/south wise there to fit in more of Scandinavia than should have been shown. The distortion is east / west since north on the real map is not north in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Norway points north-east on the map and Finland north-west. The reason is that the GS map has some kind of Mercator projection and then the distortion becomes biggest at the north edge.