A couple of basic questions about hexsides

[Xerxes77]

I was playing around with The Final Struggle, trying to familiarize myself with the Nap system, and a couple of questions came up...

a) Opportunity fire:
In the following screenshot from Plancenoit, my Prussian unit has just moved south of the French and was met with defensive fire. The Prussians ended behind a hedge+embankment hexside, and yet the modifier for the firing French unit shows as 0%:


Now is the active turn of the French, and they fire again on the Prussians. This time the modifier seems to be applied correctly (10% from the Hedge + 10% from the Embankment = 20%):


I have perused the manual but couldn't find an explanation of why the first reaction fire had no modifiers?
I also noticed that when the opportunity fire is triggered by firing, not movement, it does show the correct modifiers, so maybe this only happens when a unit is moving?

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the following rule: "Target units which have not moved during their turn get a defensive benefit from certain hexsides"? I took "during their turn" to mean their previous active turn, but maybe it actually means the current turn, and the hexside benefit is forfeited only when coming under defensive fire?

b) My next question concerns embankments. Their movement cost is set in the Parameter Data as 2 points. However, that seems to be the cost of crossing an embankment in one direction: they just cost 1 point to cross the other way! Again I could find no reference to this in the manual.

I'm a bit puzzled by the purpose of embankments in general. They almost always appear following elevation contours, so I initially thought of them as "ramps" of compacted soil...  however their movement cost is added to that of climbing the elevation, so they actually *hinder* movement. They also provide some protection to units stationed just below an elevation, which seems weird?

Rarely, embankments appear between hexes at the same level... I guess they essentially act as breastworks? Thanks for any insights...!

[LarkinVB]

a) Terrain hexside or breastwork modfiers are only applid if the target unit did not move during the current turn.

Not sure about b)

[Xerxes77]

a) Terrain hexside or breastwork modfiers are only applid if the target unit did not move during the current turn.

Not sure about b)

Thanks for confirming a)!

[Rob_by_the_river]

Regarding b:
Embankments show very steep elevation changes. Walking up a gently climbing hill is more tiring than flat ground, hence the +1 for Elevation change.
But it is way harder clampering up a very steep section of slope, so extra points get added. Way less of a problem on the way down, but note that Embankments are obstruction hexsides, so will disorder Line Infantry and Cavalry.
Since it is so steep, it can act as an imprompto trench for infantry on the lower side.
Think about the sunken road in the battle of Antietam for example.

By the way, are those modded counters in your screenshot? They look very nice!

[-72-]

Regarding b:
Embankments show very steep elevation changes. Walking up a gently climbing hill is more tiring than flat ground, hence the +1 for Elevation change.
But it is way harder clampering up a very steep section of slope, so extra points get added. Way less of a problem on the way down, but note that Embankments are obstruction hexsides, so will disorder Line Infantry and Cavalry.
Since it is so steep, it can act as an imprompto trench for infantry on the lower side.
Think about the sunken road in the battle of Antietam for example.

By the way, are those modded counters in your screenshot? They look very nice!

There isn't a requirement that an elevation change is involved, for example the EAW engine uses them as a version of fortified hexside. The same can be coded in the Napoleonics and Musket & Pike engine to represent something maybe less full on as the fortified hexsides in the engine as well.

I was using them as German Wehr boundaries in that way, which were a little like smallish canals with a version of built up earthen works on either side; for this you'd just put them on opposite sides of the same hexsides.

[Xerxes77]

Regarding b:
Embankments show very steep elevation changes. Walking up a gently climbing hill is more tiring than flat ground, hence the +1 for Elevation change.
But it is way harder clampering up a very steep section of slope, so extra points get added. Way less of a problem on the way down, but note that Embankments are obstruction hexsides, so will disorder Line Infantry and Cavalry.
Since it is so steep, it can act as an imprompto trench for infantry on the lower side.
Think about the sunken road in the battle of Antietam for example.

By the way, are those modded counters in your screenshot? They look very nice!

Thanks for the explanation! The difference in movement cost going up vs down is not documented apparently.

Also, based on this description it would seem that using embankments on just one side of a hexside when on flat ground may not be entirely correct from a design standpoint?

In _72z's example it makes sense to apply them to both sides to represent an abrupt spike in elevation (like the West Somerset Mineral Railway), which would cost the full Embankment movement to traverse from both sides. But I'm not sure what a real-life counterpart of a half embankment could be. I'm picturing a steep slope on one side that suddenly comes to a sharp end

Those counters are vanilla 4.0, from the demo!