Variable Visibility

[Romano]

I was told that the Variable Visibility option tends to go to a minimum value and just stay there for the rest of the game. I am seeing this in action now. Playing a big scene with 4 hex visibility. There were about 3 or 4 turns where it went up as high as 9 hexes, but for the past 20+ turns it has been stuck on 4 hexes. Is there truth to the theory that that the variability stops working and stays anchored at a value?

[Von Earlmann]

I was told that the Variable Visibility option tends to go to a minimum value and just stay there for the rest of the game. I am seeing this in action now. Playing a big scene with 4 hex visibility. There were about 3 or 4 turns where it went up as high as 9 hexes, but for the past 20+ turns it has been stuck on 4 hexes. Is there truth to the theory that that the variability stops working and stays anchored at a value?

I don't think VV is supposed to work at all in scenarios with less than a 6 hex visibility. I never use it so I could be wrong. My main complaint with it is that it changes before both sides play the same turn and in a push pull game that tends to not be quite fair.

Earl

[K K Rossokolski]

Firstly, I hope all who come here have a good 2011.

I see a few mentions of variable visibility on this forum, usually in the context of game options.....specifying NVV!!
I would like to see a different approach based on the most striking and commonest manifestation of VV..Night and Day.

CS started off as a vehicle for regiment-sized wargaming. This small scale was due, I understand, to limits on processing power. For some time now, this problem has gone away. Games of army level are feasible.
Historically, many of these larger scale battles lasted more than one day. The "Crusader" operation ..... a complex series of interlinked fights in the Western Desert in late 1941 lasted nearly six weeks!

Huib Versloot showed me a way to change from day to night to day by a code change in the battle file itself....a simple enough procedure even to an analogue-era bloke such as I. However, it needs to be manually performed each daybreak/nightfall, and requires something like a set of notepad instructions. And the players need to remember to do it. Would it be too much to ask for a facility in the scenario editor to automatically change as specified by the designer?

Another issue...perhaps that which VV was meant to simulate..... is the issue of changing visibility during daytime....a desert afternoon duststorm, visibility approaching zero, but lasting only an hour; a morning rainstorm clearing up to a brilliant day on the steppe. A designer building a historical scen cannot reproduce such documented historical conditions. Would it be possible to have a facility whereby the visibility changes iaw a schedule set by the designer according to historical knowledge?
It might also work at night...moonrise/set.

[Von Earlmann]

Firstly, I hope all who come here have a good 2011.

I see a few mentions of variable visibility on this forum, usually in the context of game options.....specifying NVV!!
I would like to see a different approach based on the most striking and commonest manifestation of VV..Night and Day.

CS started off as a vehicle for regiment-sized wargaming. This small scale was due, I understand, to limits on processing power. For some time now, this problem has gone away. Games of army level are feasible.
Historically, many of these larger scale battles lasted more than one day. The "Crusader" operation ..... a complex series of interlinked fights in the Western Desert in late 1941 lasted nearly six weeks!

Huib Versloot showed me a way to change from day to night to day by a code change in the battle file itself....a simple enough procedure even to an analogue-era bloke such as I. However, it needs to be manually performed each daybreak/nightfall, and requires something like a set of notepad instructions. And the players need to remember to do it. Would it be too much to ask for a facility in the scenario editor to automatically change as specified by the designer?

Another issue...perhaps that which VV was meant to simulate..... is the issue of changing visibility during daytime....a desert afternoon duststorm, visibility approaching zero, but lasting only an hour; a morning rainstorm clearing up to a brilliant day on the steppe. A designer building a historical scen cannot reproduce such documented historical conditions. Would it be possible to have a facility whereby the visibility changes iaw a schedule set by the designer according to historical knowledge?
It might also work at night...moonrise/set.

Most of the VV you have mentioned is already in use in my campaigns. It works pretty well (just my opinion). I am not a fan of encouraging players to open and edit the .scn file. I fear it could lead to other abuses. Again just my opinion but based on seeing some funky things over the years.

VE

[K K Rossokolski]

Most of the VV you have mentioned is already in use in my campaigns. It works pretty well (just my opinion). I am not a fan of encouraging players to open and edit the .scn file. I fear it could lead to other abuses. Again just my opinion but based on seeing some funky things over the years.

VE

Whilst I fully agree your point re players opening the .scn file, the day/night changeover is made in the game file opened with notepad.
What I am asking for is a couple of practical changes of the visibility to be incorporated in the editors.....day/night transition, and (ideally) the facility for a designer to program a heavy afternoon snowstorm, for example. I would like to see this development...if it is technically possible...introduced ASAP.

[Jason Petho]

What I am asking for is a couple of practical changes of the visibility to be incorporated in the editors.....day/night transition, and (ideally) the facility for a designer to program a heavy afternoon snowstorm, for example. I would like to see this development...if it is technically possible...introduced ASAP.

I've been begging for something similar for years on my long list of wishlist items.

Hopefully in a future UPDATE it will be a reality.

Jason Petho

[K K Rossokolski]

Good stuff...thanks JP.