Multi-story buidlings

[Grimnirsson]

We have no plans for multi-level buildings currently - although can you be clearer about how you think they would function (perhaps start a new thread to make this one easier to navigate for the dev news).

I come from the board wargame side of things and play Advanced Squad Leader. Although BA is certainly much simpler than ASL it's quite a good adaption of the predecessor Squad Leader and is convincing in what it does portray. That the buildings only have one level is cutting down on possibilities and since in WW2 there were many fierce fights within a single building (just think about BA going Eastern Front, which is something many players I'm sure, are waiting for, and then you have a Stalingrad scenario and no fights within buildings...) that should be part of the game imho. It would be as in ASL, you have buildings with just one level, with two and 3 levels. That would change LOS and would allow a city/town to have some specific advantages/disadvantages compared with a different town on the same scenario map. Flags could be located on a certain level of the building and the players would have to fight their way not just into the hex but into the location of the flag. Or if done simpler, the flag would still be the hex but would only count as conquered if all levels in a building located in that hex are 'clear' of enemies. In a three level building LOS would only be between adjacent levels, so a unit on level 3 couldn't be attacked or assaulted from the basement. A unit in a level three church would dominate a town or could have better sniper range or better recon range and to blow away the church tower with a tank would become an important part of the game. It's not necessary to actually blow away that level, but the unit could be targeted by the tank on that level etc.. It would be easier to see what is possible if you could check the ASL rules

Just thinking you know, the game is so great in what it does that smoke (which is on the list as you said - good!) and multi-level buildings is the only part that's really missing

[joelq]

Grim i think we all appreciate the benefits and would love it. Close Combat had a fairly simple implementation of it if i remember correctly. The question is how do you present and interact with the levels in the UI?

I wonder if its it possible to have a set of 'fire' icons when targeting a building perhaps? With the fire icons containing three numbers in them, "1", "2", "3" designating level to target. When occupying a building to move between levels would take a half turn and be represented as a blue 1,2or 3 icon in the corner of the building square? That blue number would only be visible to the enemy when 'spotted'.

I reckon there would be a way to implement it cleanly with a bit of brainstorming. The actual coding and testing of it would take a while though i imagine.

[Grimnirsson]

The question is how do you present and interact with the levels in the UI?

I don't think that has to be more complicated than necessary, this is not an action game where we have to see anything animated. What you said about fire icons designating level targets sounds good and could be the way to deal with multi-story buildings in general. Small numbers that show on which level the units are, a certain movement rate to switch levels, another 'button' that pops up (like the hunt, fast, sniper etc. buttons) to allow inner building movements and assaults/attacks, LOS change based on the level and a possible specific targeting of these levels from outside. I suppose we could come up with several ways to implement these aspects and abstraction is no problem - important is to have these essential aspects covered by the game at all.

[MrsWargamer]

If not for the fact the game has varying levels of elevation for hills, I'd wonder how it would be possible.

But because BA doesn't have many levels of hill, I suppose the code has limitations. Still, it would be nice to have buildings with at least 2 elevations. It would make street fights suddenly incredible.

But in the case of more than one unit in a location, that is I guess the burden of the software, as with a hill, you are never under the surface of the hill.