Impassable hexes?

[neonlicht]

In other JTS games I've bought there is an option (in the scenario editor) to place "impassable" hexes on the map. This can be very useful, and it also allows for historically accurate scenarios in which, for example, a wood or forest was deemed "impassable". But in the SYW game I can't find such an option in the "Hexes" menu. Just saying...

[-72-]

In other JTS games I've bought there is an option (in the scenario editor) to place "impassable" hexes on the map. This can be very useful, and it also allows for historically accurate scenarios in which, for example, a wood or forest was deemed "impassable". But in the SYW game I can't find such an option in the "Hexes" menu. Just saying...

Disclaimer (I don't have a copy of a Civil War title loaded on the machine that I am writing this from and I suspect it is probably works like the other series in a grand tactical scale, but...) 

Napoleonic Battles, and Early American Wars (specifically 1776 - I didn't check the others), it is the same -users cannot add 'impassible' hexes; this is done in their Map editors - as blocked terrain.

*However* ... out of curiosity, are you going for trying to make it impassible to everything, or just certain classes of units?  I guess that might not be relevant in the sense that if playing around with the movement points in the PDT it applies to all instances of that terrain on your map. In effect what this means is that while you don't have access to change the map terrain, you do have the ability to change around its impacts in the PDT file.

What you can do, is put some abattis in your woods hexes (and since I think probably the default pdt settings are that movement is allowed through those -you should be able to code it so that they are impassible to all movement or even just some unit classes' movement.

I'll give you a sort of example; I was trying to come up with setting up a map where mounted units could cross a full water hex, but it could only be done by a mounted unit. It was going to be slow, and it would make any unit doing this very vulnerable to fire while in a full water hex (I think I set it at +300% fire effects -but was going to adjust that based on testing feedback) - what this was representing was giving mounted units the option to 'swim' their horses to the other side of a river ... which only would have been done, say, when running into a bottleneck like you'd find at a bridge ... and in the middle of a general panic.

What I had to do was convert these river hexes to a series of interconnecting ford hexes, and then rated it so that it was impassible to everything -but- cavalry class units.  I tested the coding, and had it independently tested - and it worked --- although by work, admittedly I am meaning with a significant amount of text coding, and some trial and error.  Of course to also do this, it meant that I also had to edit all of the trails off of the map -as a Ford is a Trail - just a trail in a full water hex.  (Now that I wrote that - the PDT movement changed was the path/trail - there is no ford terrain type in the PDT file... hey, it's been awhile :) ).

What I am getting at is, it can be a bit of an exercise in work-arounds. And sometimes you can end up at a roadblock.  Leastwise that's what I found.

[neonlicht]

In other JTS games I've bought there is an option (in the scenario editor) to place "impassable" hexes on the map. This can be very useful, and it also allows for historically accurate scenarios in which, for example, a wood or forest was deemed "impassable". But in the SYW game I can't find such an option in the "Hexes" menu. Just saying...

Disclaimer (I don't have a copy of a Civil War title loaded on the machine that I am writing this from and I suspect it is probably works like the other series in a grand tactical scale, but...) 

Napoleonic Battles, and Early American Wars (specifically 1776 - I didn't check the others), it is the same -users cannot add 'impassible' hexes; this is done in their Map editors - as blocked terrain.

*However* ... out of curiosity, are you going for trying to make it impassible to everything, or just certain classes of units?  I guess that might not be relevant in the sense that if playing around with the movement points in the PDT it applies to all instances of that terrain on your map. In effect what this means is that while you don't have access to change the map terrain, you do have the ability to change around its impacts in the PDT file.

What you can do, is put some abattis in your woods hexes (and since I think probably the default pdt settings are that movement is allowed through those -you should be able to code it so that they are impassible to all movement or even just some unit classes' movement.

I'll give you a sort of example; I was trying to come up with setting up a map where mounted units could cross a full water hex, but it could only be done by a mounted unit. It was going to be slow, and it would make any unit doing this very vulnerable to fire while in a full water hex (I think I set it at +300% fire effects -but was going to adjust that based on testing feedback) - what this was representing was giving mounted units the option to 'swim' their horses to the other side of a river ... which only would have been done, say, when running into a bottleneck like you'd find at a bridge ... and in the middle of a general panic.

What I had to do was convert these river hexes to a series of interconnecting ford hexes, and then rated it so that it was impassible to everything -but- cavalry class units.  I tested the coding, and had it independently tested - and it worked --- although by work, admittedly I am meaning with a significant amount of text coding, and some trial and error.  Of course to also do this, it meant that I also had to edit all of the trails off of the map -as a Ford is a Trail - just a trail in a full water hex.  (Now that I wrote that - the PDT movement changed was the path/trail - there is no ford terrain type in the PDT file... hey, it's been awhile :) ).

What I am getting at is, it can be a bit of an exercise in work-arounds. And sometimes you can end up at a roadblock.  Leastwise that's what I found.

Hi and thanks for this! That's very interesting--I'll take a look at the PDT file and see what can be done. Unfortunately, the Seven Years War game has no map editor like the EAW 1776 game (in which individual hexes can be edited), only a submap editor for creating the basic scenario battlespace. But yeah--your workaround idea looks cool. Thanks again! :-)

[-72-]

Hi and thanks for this! That's very interesting--I'll take a look at the PDT file and see what can be done. Unfortunately, the Seven Years War game has no map editor like the EAW 1776 game (in which individual hexes can be edited), only a submap editor for creating the basic scenario battlespace. But yeah--your workaround idea looks cool. Thanks again! :-)

Apologies- I wasn't meaning to sound like Musket and Pike came with a map editor; I had access to it because I had been working on a project in development for that publisher. I was just meaning to confirm what it does/doesn't do.

I'm basically writing about my own experiences in working on that -and to be entirely honest, even in that environment I had to mostly teach myself how to do all of this stuff.

You know the funny thing about my own project is that (if you have REN) those OOBs are pretty granular in terms of weapons for units, and even unit structure... the 'odd' thing that I found was that even though what I was working on was a later period - there absolutely wasn't that sort of information available in the period with which I was working on... I got that by comparing the types of sources stated in REN's bibliography, and the ones I'd used.