Forest idea

[Zipuli]

Is there a possibility to add one more terrain type - a dense forest? Now it seems that the "forest" terrain is like the scattered trees in Combat Mission. I think that the forest is OK for most mid european forests. But forests in northern europe and northern russia etc. are more heavily wooded.

This has impact on tank movement. As it is now tanks can move quite fast in forests (over triple the speed of infantry?). If trees are scattered it's OK, tanks can do that, but a north european forest or south american jungle will slow down tanks more. It has little effect on infantry, but tanks need to take it slow, chop down trees (turret reversed) etc. to avoid getting stuck on something or avoid losing track.

Currently the best way to make forests slow tanks down is to add rough terrain under forest, but it also slows infantry down too much and gives them too good cover. I think dense forest would be a good solution, as the movement costs could be changed. It would be best in my opinion to make infantry and tanks move as fast in dense forest as infantry does now in normal forests.

I've been driving Leo in normal finnish forest, and actually it was slower than infantry speed and using the main gun would have been real difficult while moving. Only way to speed things up was to chop trees, but the turret had to be reversed to avoid trees hitting the gun and damaging the stabilizer etc. And the speed when chopping trees is not very fast as the driver must constantly pay attention to rocks and ditches to avoid losing track.

I think this would be quite easy addition, because there are other new terrain tiles added and this one would not even need a new graphic. The forest graphics would do, only the move costs would need to be changed...

Zip

[narwan]

If feasible that would indeed be a worthy addition. Currently woods aren't much of a hindrance to tracked vehicles (so long as there's no enemy hiding in it at least!) and a single 'woods' type doesn't do justice to all the types of woods out there in the real world. I know there's also the jungle terrain (which you could count as a second woods type) but jungles also come in a variety of densities, some fairly easy to traverse, others near impenetrable.

Narwan

[MacGalin]

Well, as you said, you can set trees on hard terrain, like rough or swamp, or mud.

I think that instead of new forrest type, it would be better to add new "rough" tile type, similar to current "forrest ground", but with changeded movement cost.

[narwan]

The point of the new forest type would be to hinder vehicles more than regular forest hexes do without hindering infantry units more. Adding any type of terrain to the existing forest gives additional movement penalties to both. In fact it almost makes it worse for infantry since it effectively reduces their speed to 1 hex.

Narwan

[Mustang]

This is a big deal that I thought should have been added a long time ago. I was surprised that they didn't put it into the very first Steel Panters, and I think it should be the first thing they put into any new upgrade.