Introducing Wargame Design Studios

[Strela]

Been out of this for a bit, due to RL. But PB3 is looking exciting. I have a plea about the desert maps though, David. Hope this is the place to mention it. 

 I'm assuming you are importing the PC desert maps and converting them. I have major issues with the amount of trees in the western desert maps. It's bizarre, I think. You look at any period maps or photos, not to mention google earth, and it's clear that, for example, there are not all these 'forested' areas south of alamein or around Capuzzo. Tunisia is different - more green, obviously. But east of Tunisia right through to Egypt we are talking about a few oases here and there. I have raised this before in connection with the PC maps and had no real satisfactory response as to why all those trees are there. I have asked the question from the realism point of view. When all these trees were placed on the western desert maps in PC, was there a reason for it, a reason for placing them where they are - ie research and a period map showing them, or even trees in that position on google earth etc? - and it's clear there was not. They seem to have been put in randomly. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. I really, truly hope that you don't just carry over all those random trees into the PB3 maps. Getting rid of all of them would be a more realistic default option. 

Cheers,

Peter

Hi Peter,

Nice to see you back.

Firstly, every map in Panzer Battles 3 has been hand created - we were very unhappy with the maps generated off the automatic system using the PzC source maps.

We're a lot happier with the end result.

Of interest the reason there is so many 'trees' in PzC are that the original map makers misinterpreted the source map.

Here is  a section of that map and you can see the green portions marked as brush/woods. They took these too literally;





We have treated these areas as having more brush than normal. Our brush is different to what you have seen in the other titles.

We have treated as very low sage like plants that will help concealment but won't block line of sight. The other three predominant terrain types are broken, oasis and wadi. Broken (rocky areas) also does the same as brush (concealment but no LOS impact) while Oasis & Wadi due to the heavier/higher vegetation do.

Here is a section of map with the visible hexes turned on and you can see the different terrain types blocking (or not) from the point of reference.





Hope this helps.

David