Top ten things I have learned.

[Askari19]

I declare (as my great-aunt would say), you do go on about what a person should or shouldn't do in what is after all a flipping wargame... and I just really don't care. I'll choose to think of it as the kind of forested slope that I have driven on, and you can make jokes about driving up mountains, and never the twain shall meet.

You, sir, brought it up? This whole thread morphed into what units could and could not do?
Driving a truck ... a truck ... (just to be clear here) up the side of a mountain is simply not possible in "real life". But, it can be done in the game?
If you did not care, why did you respond?

What is the point in arguing what constitutes a mountain, and whether a halftrack (or an M4!) could climb it "for real"? There's no way to settle such disagreements, so my approach is this: If the game system and the game map allows it, that's the only arbiter I'll accept about what can move where.

Is this misdirection?
I said, "a two and a half ton truck" could not climb a mountain. You bring in Halftracks and tanks?
I could care less for the argument "if the game allowed something" that could be done, but not in "real life", "all things go".
Heck, the developers put in a lot of rules (and units) that are supposed to make the game more "realistic". :fireman:

If it were "for real" I'd sneak a couple of soldiers with a pair of binoculars and a radio up that hill, and you'd never see them.... but since CS doesn't give me that realistic option, I'll do it with a great lumbering halftrack that you can spot and chase and shoot... doesn't seem to be much to complain about there, come to think on it.

Once again misdirection (and little condescension)?
Who's complaining?
You do have access to patrol scouts? At least scenario designers do. And, they can remain hidden?
Why send a truck/transport up a mountain (or series of slopes leading to a high point - cause I don't know what kind of strawman you want to erect) to a place where it can "see" question marks?
And, in case you bring it up again, a combat halftrack or tank can "see" more than just "?'s". Let's stick to trucks here?



HSL

No, no misdirection. I'm not talking about trucks at all. Go back to my original response; you had not said anything about a 2 1/2 ton truck. I responded to your post on the topic of halftracks, where you made the remark about climbing mountains to "take a peek". There was nothing in the preceding post that you were responding to, nor in that post of yours, about trucks, which developed into another thread within this thread. I never said anything about trucks; I said that I've driven forested slopes with VWs that I presume would be even easier to negotiate with a 4x4 or halftrack; there was your clue that I was not talking about trucks. Since I'm "peeking" at you with halftracks on forested heights in our current game, and your post referred directly to halftracks, it was not hard to connect the dots.

I was not talking about trucks at all. But in any case, as far as movement, the same logic applies. There are conventions in the game design that set the rules and AP costs for traversing terrain. There are NO conventions for what constitutes a "mountain". In fact, with a contour interval of 50 meters, a 1:5 slope is considerable but it's not a mountain in my book, and (in my opinion and the apparent opinion of the game designer) not prohibitive for wheeled vehicle movement. Double that - a 100m elevation change in 250m horizontal distance - and yeah, I'm with you. Which is why I say a scenario designer that wants his terrain to model steep, impassable-to-vehicles terrain can either steepen his slope... or place hexside barriers to limit movement.

Forests? They come in many flavors. I'm very familiar with western pine forests where mature trees with continuous overhead canopy are spaced far enough apart that you could easily drive a deuce and a half between them. I do not play the geographer or botanist or do map studies of every scenario locale before I play it; I accept that forests in game terms are an artificial construct that cannot represent every specific type of woodland. I can make my own assumptions about what "real life" type it represents, or I can ask you or I can simply interpret the generalized, stylized terrain that the game system provides, and the scenario designer used in constructing the map. The third approach makes most sense to me. I think you are constructing a strawman in suggesting that this approach means I have less concern about "realism" than you do.

My disagreement with you, Ed, is simply over our interpretations of what can and cannot be done in "real life", and what "real life" condition a particular CS game situation represents. Your interpretations are your own, and you're welcome to them. You can self-limit, of course, and we agreed in our ROE discussion a while back that there are things the game allows that we just don't do. But if you want your views & limits respected by someone else, they have to be reasonable and well-defined (which I think your designation of "mountains" and your assumptions of vehicle capabilities are not) and then agreed to.

I do not condescend; I think the beam is in your eye, because you take that tone yourself whenever anyone disagrees with you.
-Bill