[Discussion] How to improve urban combat in PzC/MC

[James Ward]

Is this something you could put in your mods?

Well, there is one thing that could be done, and that is to make towns, cities and industrial hexes impassible to tracked vehicles. This would restrict tanks and the like to only being able to move down roads in T mode while in such places, but the validity of this would largely depend on map design. Some cities on the map have enough roads to make this work, while other maps have no roads whatsoever in any city (MC Germany map?). So this is probably something that will not work, not to mention, it doesn't make much sense to totally restrict such units from moving through said place if it does not have a road through it.

The minimal option, which I have done in all the _Alts, is make city, town and industrial hex require all of the MPs of a mechanized unit to go from one hex to another while deployed. Of course this does nothing for the attack / defense values though.

Maybe it would be unfair to make all cities/towns the same.
What about making just Rubble impassable except in T mode as a compromise? If it is difficult to deploy in a relatively undamaged city or town then one where roads are blocked, small bridges are out etc would be really difficult to fight from effectively, into or out of.
I don't think any major military in the world tasks armor as the primary force to take/defend urban areas. This is the one terrain aside from pillboxes/bunkers that AT guns should shine, particularly in Pzc!

[Volcano Man]

Maybe it would be unfair to make all cities/towns the same.
What about making just Rubble impassable except in T mode as a compromise? If it is difficult to deploy in a relatively undamaged city or town then one where roads are blocked, small bridges are out etc would be really difficult to fight from effectively, into or out of.
I don't think any major military in the world tasks armor as the primary force to take/defend urban areas. This is the one terrain aside from pillboxes/bunkers that AT guns should shine, particularly in Pzc!

That would be nice, but unfortunately you cannot define a terrain type as "T mode only". As a matter of fact, rubble is unique because it is not a terrain type per se, it is a modification of an existing terrain type and as such, you cannot specify anything for it in the PDT (but that is off the top of my head and I could be mistaken).

[Volcano Man]

...Are these really separate instances that would require modeling them different? Could you enlighten me why defending from an urban hex on the perimeter of the urban area, (PzC represents this lower density with village hexes) should result in a reduction of firepower on targets approaching the position?

Hmm, not sure if I understand the question exactly, but in your example where the lower density edges of a city (village) get a reduction in firepower as they approach the city, well, my suggestion was that vehicle units in only town, city, industrial hexes receive the "must be in T mode to reside in the hex" penalty, so villages would not because the rationale is that "villages", in the abstract, can be pretty much anything from a few farm buildings in an area, to a very small settlement. Either way, "villages" would not be too restrictive to the deployment of vehicle units, which is where we get into the realm of "towns".

Of course someone can always split hairs about what is a "village" and what is a "town" (and so on), but as long as a realistic penalty for such *high density* places exist to the point where vehicles cannot utilize their full combat power (offense and defense), thus making them avoid such places, then all the other details of why and how are irrelevant to something that would promote more realistic behavior. But again, I have come to live with it the way it is -- this is an old idea I had years ago. :P

edited: clarification

[Hans Boersma]

If I understand correctly the problem is that in a built-up area armoured units cannot deploy and bring their guns to bear like they can in open terrain. This is less so for a coy sized unit, as ±15 tanks probably could find a decent firing position on a 1 mile frontage (though I can imagine this would come with command & control problems). But since a player can stack multiple coy sized counters in the same hex this doesn't really matter.

VM's solution seems sound to me, apart form the fact that the defensive value of a unit in T-mode drops significantly, whereas they arguably would find more cover in the built-up area: less guns to bear also means less targets for the enemy. Another possibility might be to make armour type units automatically disrupt in city and town hexes, as this halves their combat potential. Unfortunately this comes with morale penalties that seem undesirable here. So there'd have to be a new status: disrupted without the morale penalty, called "disordered" or something. (As another candidate for this the forest terrain type comes to mind, but perhaps that is too restrictive.)

I wouldn't even mind having city (and perhaps town) hexes impassable altogether for armour type units. This would force them to fight in the open where they'd want to be anyway. In the PDT editor there is a slot for "armor" but alas changing the values there has no noticeable effect (wonder what it's there for; another game?).

Cheers,

Hans

[Liquid_Sky]

And yet, vehicles were used in cities..even beat up rubble infested cities like Stalingrad. And any disadvantage you might have in bringing your guns to bare should be more then made up by the fact that when you do shoot..it is probably at point blank range.

As well..the units are a bit of an abstraction. In a city environment, there will be friendly infantry all around, even riding the vehicles themselves...And a STuG parked on the street corner while your infantry are crossing the street seems more like a morale booster.

[Hans Boersma]

And any disadvantage you might have in bringing your guns to bare should be more then made up by the fact that when you do shoot..it is probably at point blank range.

That would be if the target is in a city/town hex as well; it's different when the target is in a clear hex.

As well..the units are a bit of an abstraction.

That seems an understatement; the units are very much an abstraction. And IMHO the abstractions of the game need to be respected as much as possible; the presence of infantry as you describe shouldn't be a factor on this scale. A clear hex won't be all that clear in reality either, and a town/city hex surely will have some large open spaces.

Of course it's all a matter of balance (and opinion), but to me it seems counter-effective to first create these abstractions and then start neutralizing them — therefore I think a city hex should be unsuitable for tank units.