Terrain turmoil - a question.

[Eckerslyke]

My question is, why is clear terrain still 'clear', when it clearly should not be after action?

The situation - my illustrious Heavy Cavalry (strength 600) has just charged, and vanquished an enemy column (numbering 500) in clear terrain, which had no available hex into which it could retreat.  The enemy column was eliminated.   Trampled underfoot.  Well, underhoof, actually.

My determined opponent, undismayed, brings out six fresh columns from hiding nearby, and surrounds my Heavy Cavalry unit, forms his troops into line, and starts firing.  He doesn't stop until my heroic horsemen are exterminated.

There was no opportunity to capture and remove any survivors.

My question - when the dust has settled, why is this hex still represented as 'Clear Terrain'?

An area of 8200 sq metres strewn with 1100 'hors de combat' humans and 600 equine ones, (one body roughly every 5 sq metres), and a heap of equipment.

Would there really be no effect on subsequent entry into or traversal of that hex?

[Compass Rose]

Sounds as if you walked into a bear trap!

Once in a great while, you get the bear.  Most of the time, the bear gets you!  

[agmoss99]

It's a pertinent question. Moreso when a hex has been fought over and there are men, horses and guns all in massive heaps there. It would be interesting to have a movement penalty but how that could be coded is beyond me - a single dead skirmisher couldn't count in the same way as thousands.

[krmiller]

Been wargaming 50 years now, board, miniature and pc, do not recall any system I've ever played that had any movement penalty for dead and wounded. The old Battleground games did show bodies on the ground in 3D view in hexes where losses were taken but I do not believe they changed ground conditions at all.
A case could be made for wagons and artillery blocking roads and bridges like vehicles can in some WWII tactical games. If you play with Artillery Capture Optional Rule in the ACW games and melee an artillery unit on the road it will cancel the road bonus, never meleed one on a bridge but I would presume it would do the same.

[neonlicht]

It's a good point, and an interesting question.

At Waterloo, we know that later French cavalry attacks on infantry squares were hampered by the piles of bodies from earlier attempts. And we also know that visibility was drastically reduced after hours of cannon & musket fire. Yet how to abstract this into a game?

I guess that, in a John Tiller game, gradually reducing visibility could be added to a scenario via a bespoke Parameter Data file.

Movement costs/penalties can also be modified via the Parameter Data file, though how you would link this dynamically to the casualty level in specific hexes I don't know!

In the JTS Modern & First World War Campaigns series it's possible to add "congestion markers" to hexes in the Editor. Maybe something similar (as a concept) could be added to the Black Powder games?

Great point though.

[Xerxes77]

I agree it's a nice question to consider. One possible implementation would be to have the stacking allowance in a given hex reduced permanently by a certain factor depending on the level of the casualties sustained there.

Another option would be to treat heavy casualties as a terrain modifier/feature (I'm thinking something akin to the "destroyed" terrain in the SB games) which hampers movement.

Of course all of these would be dynamic changes that would necessitate changes in the code, but it's fun to think about the possibilities.

[-72-]

What seems to be talked about is discussed is battlefield dynamism.  I don't know that they could get away with adding movement obstructions created from the results of combat while ignoring los issues due to firing blackpowder weapons.

And if one were to go that far, I guess you could argue for adding in the ability to set fire, and wind effects (drifting smoke, spreading fires) - as I can come up with 3 examples of firing places as part of the battles just off the top of my head:  Breed's Hill 1775, Lutzen 1632, and Fredericksburg 1862 -I'm sure there's more.

I don't know that if there is a case being put out there for battlefield dynamism impacts, that the movement obstructions could really be a stand alone add on -not when you consider that the very nature of a blackpowder battlefield was the blackpowder and massive smoke clouds.  (Lutzen 1632 fits into that nicely too, as I am reasonably certain that Gustavus Adolphus charged into the smoke and that's ultimately what did him in -he might be a hero to some, but the more you know about the guy ... he was reliably rash ...something about hubris I guess... ).

[neonlicht]

Hmm... just an idle thought: but is it possible, from a coding point of view, to have Parameter Data values change during the course of a scenario? Or to have, say, 3 different Parameter Data Files associated with a scenario, which can be swapped out on a given Turn? The idea being to have Early, Mid, and Late parameters to battles, with visibility, movement, stacking etc. getting progressively worse as the action continues.

Another idea might be to introduce "congestion", "smoke", "fire" hex markers (to modify localized movement/visibility effects) that can be placed into scenarios via the Editor? This wouldn't be a dynamic "ingame" change, but rather an enhancement/refinement to scenario design.

Anyways---just kinda "thinking aloud"! :-)

[-72-]

Hmm... just an idle thought: but is it possible, from a coding point of view, to have Parameter Data values change during the course of a scenario? Or to have, say, 3 different Parameter Data Files associated with a scenario, which can be swapped out on a given Turn? The idea being to have Early, Mid, and Late parameters to battles, with visibility, movement, stacking etc. getting progressively worse as the action continues.

Another idea might be to introduce "congestion", "smoke", "fire" hex markers (to modify localized movement/visibility effects) that can be placed into scenarios via the Editor? This wouldn't be a dynamic "ingame" change, but rather an enhancement/refinement to scenario design.

Anyways---just kinda "thinking aloud"! :-)

What you are asking about you could accomplish with weather lines within a single pdt file.  I don't know if weather would impact stacking ( I sort of think probably now), but it can impact visibility, movement rates, and combat effectiveness as well.

The only real way to do 'fire' would be blocked hexes and play around with the blocked graphics.    Basically what you are talking about is doing work-arounds with the current engine. 

At the moment, you can't place smoke counters in the engine, it would have to be through some sort of abstracted effect and then it would be at the cost of swapping out an existing terrain type (it'd have to be one that blocked LOS), and then changing the graphic out for something more visually representative of what you were going for.

Technically it probably isn't actually an enhancement, but rather just working within the limits of the engine; like say coding fords that would only allow mounted or wagon movement through - but at the cost of losing all trails on the map aside from the ones used as fords (essentially what a ford is - is a trail through a full water hex ... which actually can work, btw ... coding in a 'ford' that is basically 1 hex per movement phase and gives something like a 2 or 300% bonus to incoming fire - with the idea that it is an area for swimming escaping mounted units ... sure you could do it, but there would be a cost) ... as an example of some of things that the engine can do if playing around with work-arounds...).

[TheGrayMouser]

Jeff Lapkof’s Medieval 2 game featured “carnage” in a hex after a unit was destroyed in it, which prevented charging into or thru.

I’m not sure I think this would be a desirable feature to add as the casualty rates in these games are really high and represent men ( and horses) hors de combat for various reasons, not simply sprawled on the ground dead. I suspect the effect would likely be over represented.