Plans to expand the Zealand Islands area

[XOOM 1,459]

Among many of our other advancements with the Terrain aspect of the game, going further in other directions, whether it be building up more of France or building up the Zealand areas, there is valid reason to believe that adding more play-able areas is going to remove a lot of the stagnation or repetition of the existing Campaign.

In the near future, we’ll be sharing some information about what we’ll be doing to try and revitalize the relevancy of the naval game as well as Zealand island fighting, which at present, is crushed rapidly by map movers who are cutting these areas off with limited fighting.

We’re also planning some fixes for our existing navy content that is directly causing issues for players using those vehicles.

I’ll be announcing some more in the very near future, but the ability to add in new towns and terrain elements is back in tact, to the point where we’ll be seeing very many fixes across the map globally resolved. This includes several existing town lay-outs being re-worked. This also includes as mentioned the addition of several more towns to WWII Online.

In the future, that means the starting lines of the campaign will also need to be updated. This is really important again because our more experienced map strategists know the exact routes of how to take down certain areas in sequential order.

Are you looking forward to these possibilities? Tell us your thoughts.

[krazydog 262]

Sounds good to me

Also, it would be nice to have starting lines that split up the real estate closer to 50:50 pct control.

Right now the Allies start off with 55 pct of the map compared to the Axis 45 pct control at the start of the Campaign.

 

Edited May 26, 2018 by krazydog

[B2K 592]

Whoa....... navy patch?

[delems 827]

Excellent!

 

[gters 22]

Great News...

 

a simple idea, AO on the coastal cities always and in the game we'll be more air/naval battles

[ZEBBEEE 436]

Considering the 1.36 baseline, what about simply introducing neutral Belgium/Luxembourg/Holland towns with light garisons?

Like IRL in 1940, keep french and british divisions at the french border and let HC decide where it will move its (moveable) flags over the neutral Benelux territory. 

Benelux cities cannot attack, only defend, until FR/BEF divisions set foot in town.

Axis can therefore plan new battle plans by setting their divisions as they wish over the Frontline. 

First FR/BEF divisions should arrive at the Frontline within 48 hours and will probably meet the axis around the Meuse except if belgian garisons held strong .

But then new cities should be added to Germany in case they fail to invade Benelux.

I want to see this kind of campaign planning: 

Can we contribute to create new town layouts ?

[XOOM 1,459]

More of Holland will be added to the game.

@Zebbeee, let's talk about contributions to town layouts. E-mail me please.

[Silky 2,450]

Remove the bounce to Training with no valid fallback for naval and air units 

 

Have naval units fall back to a safe town when they’re no valid fallback 

[lipton 296]

Split FB ownership at Campaign start. Axis having all FB's at start seems pointless now. 

[delems 827]

*** Remove the bounce to Training with no valid fallback for naval and air units 

How come?  Is fine as it is.

On the other hand, how about a few more hints for this 'navy'/'zeeland' update patch!?
 

[droptow 0]

I would throw some light randomness in the campaign starting positions. As you have said both sides have experienced map movers that know the "right" order of attack.

Lets mix it up...some "what if" moments could ease the stagnation.

[OHM 517]

10 minutes ago, droptow said:

I would throw some light randomness in the campaign starting positions. As you have said both sides have experienced map movers that know the "right" order of attack.

Lets mix it up...some "what if" moments could ease the stagnation.

With new areas of the map coming stagnation of the start of the campaigns will not be an issue.    

New front line at map start in will be coming.  ... Where and what % of map each side gets will be dependant on how many towns do get added.   

Plus i do not think all of the new areas are going to be added at the same time , so that will mean we might have a few different starting lines as we get them out (not 100% sure of this). 

While this work on the new areas is being done i will try and see if we can get some of the links between towns changed to really make shake it up

 

[jwilly 2,132]

The 1940 Allied defensive scheme was called the Dyle Plan, or Plan D.

Following WWI, the Belgian High Command concluded that it would be impossible for any plausibly achievable Belgian Army to hold out the Germans defending at the Albert Canal. There were too many crossings, and no readily defensible terrain once the Canal itself was crossed. Oddly, CRS's original game design had the Albert Canal as the Allied defensive line.

Historically, the Belgian High Command instead concluded that their defensive line should be at the Dyle River. The very marshy east bank of the Dyle would allow emplaced, relatively immobile Belgian forces with only small mobile reserves...the kind of defensive army that Belgium felt they could best afford...to hold off a German frontal attack, which necessarily would have to be almost entirely infantry since German vehicles could not traverse the marshes to get to the river and there were only a few naturally suitable bridging locations.

Also oddly, CRS's original European map didn't include the Dyle River. It's strange that the game modeled so many rivers, but not the one river that was of greatest importance in pre-war Allied defensive planning.

Here's where the Dyle River might be added to the map:

Many of us have read in WWII history how the quite small but mobile and armor-heavy British Expeditionary Force was tasked with defending  the "Gembloux Gap". That makes no sense on the existing CRS map. On the modified map above, though, it becomes clear. The Gembloux Gap is the highland area centered on the town of Gembloux, between the southernmost end of the Dyle River and the closest approach of the Meuse River. 

That makes sense if you are aware that WWII defense was not about towns. It was about river crossings for supply lines.  Only when there was no river available did armies consider defending on open ground, which might or might not include a town.

The existing game has that fundamentally wrong, too. That however is harder to fix without fundamental changes to the game mechanics.

[jwilly 2,132]

Quote

building up the Zealand areas

Historically of course, the Zeelands were connected to the mainland and each other by causeways and bridges. The causeways mostly crossed areas that were shallow water at high tide, and soft-mud salt water marshes at low tide. We have no way to model twice-a-day tides in a game that cycles through a year in a couple of weeks. We're also limited by the existing tile-set. Nonetheless, the Zeelands area could be made more realistic by making the causeway-bridges down at game-start but repairable.

A further unrealism for the Zeelands area and all of the Scheldt River Estuary is that all water tiles have the same depth. The actual Scheldt Estuary is quite shallow except near its ocean end. The mock-up map below shows the southern Scheldt Estuary modeled with three water-depth tiles (deep, intermediate, shallow), plus shallow tiles with a narrow dredged deep channel. As with the Dyle River mock-up map above, this one is based on historical maps and charts, approximately as exactly as possible using a modified standard CRS tile-set:

[delems 827]

Maybe we can model sea depth?

Do rats have the maps you've shown with the tiles of river and water depth? ( I see some islands too)
 

Might be a big terrain project, but would change how the map played too.

Along with making it much more historical.

 

Even if we can't get the depth in, that river seems like it should be on the list to be added.

 

[jwilly 2,132]

Quote

 

Maybe we can model sea depth? 

 

Sea depth in a game like this one has to be "modularized" to make it simple enough for a game's need for rules and data categorizations.

In the design concept associated with the Westerscheldt map above:

There are Deep, Intermediate and Shallow depth tiles. Deep is darker blue, shallow is lighter blue.

The colors shown on the mockup tiles are purely for illustration purposes. The actual colors of the in-game tiles at different LODs would be up to the artists and management. In real life, though, usually deeper water is a darker color. Usually water reflects the sky color, i.e. with a blue sky the water would have a blue pallette, with a gray sky a gray pallette, at night all black except for faintly white moving breakers along shoreline tiles.

The entire area of a tile that is shown as containing two depths (not counting channels or harbors) would operate as the deeper of the two depths. The color-transition away from the tile edge would be an art effect only, and would serve to visually mask the tile grid and to provide an "early warning" for naval movement to help avoid running around.

Mobility effects would be implemented within the existing game engine using the existing drag-factor mechanics. A vessel class that required water of a certain depth, or deeper, would be abruptly subject to a greatly increased drag factor ("running aground") upon moving onto a tile-type "shallower" than the requisite depth, and...depending on speed, and vessel type...might be subject to flotation damage as well.

Channels would function like roads, i.e. they would locally cancel the drag factor of the underlying tile, as long as the moving object stays "on the road". Harbors would operate like wide channel areas. Historically, the Westerscheldt channel to Antwerp was about 100 meters wide on average. Two freighters passing usually meant one was stopped and the other one operating very slow. High speed operation never occurred. 

Shallow tiles also containing land would be "shoreline", modeled as having surf, sandbars, murky water so the bottom is invisible, and shifting underwater obstructions. Only vessels designed to be beached could operate there.

Destroyers, and similar deep water warships, would operate in deep and intermediate locations only, including channels. Movement into a shallow tile or out of a channel would result in abrupt near-stoppage and speed dependent flotation damage.

Motor gunboats, and motor torpedo boats and other coastal fighting craft when eventually modeled, would operate in all water locations except shoreline tiles.

Landing craft, when eventually modeled, would operate in all water locations.

Minefields, when eventually modeled, would be placeable only in intermediate, shallow and shoreline water locations and in channels.

Submarines, when eventually modeled, would operate surfaced in deep and intermediate locations only, including channels. They could submerge only in deep locations.

Torpedoes would be launchable, and could run, in deep and intermediate water locations and in channels. A torpedo running into shallow water would dud without exploding.

A vessel sinking in deep water might use the existing bow-in-the-air animation. A destroyer or freighter sinking in intermediate water would become an underwater hulk with masts and superstructure protruding above the waterline., and would block movement as long as the hulk lasted. A sinking vessel near shallow water could be intentionally steered into that shallow water, so that when it sank it would settle to a low-in-the-water position, without sinking. Those of its guns, etc. that do not require power to operate might continue to do so until silenced by enemy action.

***

Rivers would be another water type. None of the vessels above would operate in rivers. River watercraft would include, when modeled, various assault boats including rowed rubber inflatables and outboard-motor rigid boats, and unpowered and motorized bridge pontoon-rafts.

[Merlin51 1,388]

23 hours ago, jwilly said:

It was about river crossings for supply lines.  Only when there was no river available did armies consider defending on open ground, which might or might not include a town.

The existing game has that fundamentally wrong, too. That however is harder to fix without fundamental changes to the game mechanics.

Originally the game had that right, just the visible AI driven aspect and the advanced functions did not come to fruition.
The invisible AI on the other hand was quite busy, and a downed bridge cost time and money(RP)
At some point, i think we will need to come back to that system and finish it so its fully operational both behind the scenes and in the visual aspect.

 

[Augetout 381]

On 5/26/2018 at 0:39 PM, krazydog said:

Sounds good to me

Also, it would be nice to have starting lines that split up the real estate closer to 50:50 pct control.

Right now the Allies start off with 55 pct of the map compared to the Axis 45 pct control at the start of the Campaign.

 

Seriously.  Bypassing the Maginot line isn't enough of a bennie for your side?  

[Augetout 381]

On 5/26/2018 at 6:08 PM, XOOM said:

More of Holland will be added to the game.

Arnhem, please.  It it like asking for the moon, I realize, but then there can be 'a bridge too far' special events, and so on.

[goreblimey 451]

16 minutes ago, augetout said:

Seriously.  Bypassing the Maginot line isn't enough of a bennie for your side?  

As well as  all fbs axis at start of campaign

[Memoi 50]

More fighting in the Zeelands would be great and I look forward to it.

Will the victory conditions be changed too?  At the moment, both sides head for each others factories and routes to these factories will still be roughly the same.  It'll be interesting to see what's changed to vary these conditions.

[XOOM 1,459]

9 hours ago, augetout said:

Arnhem, please.  It it like asking for the moon, I realize, but then there can be 'a bridge too far' special events, and so on.

This is definitely on the list of considerations, I’ve been personally looking at that area quite a bit with our production guys developing a plan of action. We think there’s extraordinary value in expanding naval game play based on the recent feedback we’ve got from everyone via surveys. In addition it is the most clear and obvious under developed component of our game, yet it is such a vital part of the war and we’ve got a lot of territory that could be developed.

7 hours ago, Memoi said:

More fighting in the Zeelands would be great and I look forward to it.

Will the victory conditions be changed too?  At the moment, both sides head for each others factories and routes to these factories will still be roughly the same.  It'll be interesting to see what's changed to vary these conditions.

It’s really too early to say, but we can say as more towns are added and areas developed, we will see a shift in starting lines for the campaign. 

[XOOM 1,459]

16 hours ago, delems said:

Maybe we can model sea depth?

Do rats have the maps you've shown with the tiles of river and water depth? ( I see some islands too)

I asked the guys some questions about it, it would be a pretty in-depth task for sure. Still in discussions and considerations phase, no promises. But did want to acknowledge we are for the first time seriously discussing it with this new CRS team.

[stankyus 888]

I don't know but I have never noticed that NE of Den Haag is a large city layout on the map.  Is that a new city in the works or has it been around for a while?  I would also be in favor since we are going back to a town based supply adding some small air fields, not air dromes but small air fields with less supply on them. MB they are only supplied with fighters and fighter bombers.  Secondly I love the fact that the Zees will be flushed out.. given that fact we will be going back to a TBS model, will we have the ability to ship tanks to the towns again in the Zees from the mainland?

[SCKING 523]

52 minutes ago, stankyus said:

I don't know but I have never noticed that NE of Den Haag is a large city layout on the map.  Is that a new city in the works or has it been around for a while? 

That’s been there for a long time.. That is Amsterdam..