Orders and zooming on 2D-map possible, units size?

[oho]

I played TCBR and TC2M from the very beginning and liked it a lot. The only major complaint was the restriction, that I had to give movement order only on the 3 D map. So I had to jump to the 2D-Map, select a movement destination that was further away, go to 3D and order it, jump on the 2D map, select the starting point, jump into 3D map to look for the next unit and so on.
Will I be able to give orders on the 2D map?
If yes, can I designate a facing, a stance?
And: will I be able to zoom in the 2 D map?
Another question: what is the units size per soldier, I counted about 2,5 ratio on the screenshots is that right?

[norb]

You cannot give orders from the map.

You cannot zoom the map, although I think this would be a great feature because it gets very crowded.

I think it's 1:4 in our default settings, but you can mod it. We have not gone that way, nor are our formations able to handle that. You would have to create the 1:1 formations. But it will be possible once the sdk is released.

[Jim]

The sprite to soldier ratio is 1 sprite to 4 soldiers. The system is designed to allow that to be modded, although I don't know if it has been tested as yet. There are practical memory limits on the number of objects on the map. That includes fences, rocks, buildings as well as soldiers. We made the GB maps with a lot of items to give them as much historical correctness as practical. On the GB maps, the limit seems to be somewhere around 10K soldier sprites which works out to 20K soldiers per side, or 1 CS vs 2 US corps. So if you you want your mod of 1:1 to run, you need to keep your total battle to under 10K soldiers. You will also have to scale down the sprites and all of the map objects as they are scaled to the 1:4 ratio sprites.

-Jim

[Joshua l.Chamberlain]

So there could not be 130,000 soldiers to one side without there being problems? In TC2M I like to combine several OOBs to make one massive one.

[Janh]

That brings up whether a zoom-able 2D map and orders on that could be modded?

For the 20k sprites I would hope for someone to take all the detailed maps and merge them into one large 6x6 or 6x10 mile map including the cavalry battlefield with just enough detail to be able to add full armies without performance issues. And hope AI and scripting will give us a beautiful 3-day scenario in the future.

[Jim]

Joshua l.Chamberlain wrote:

So there could not be 130,000 soldiers to one side without there being problems? In TC2M I like to combine several OOBs to make one massive one.

No. I have a test scenario with the full June 30 OOB for both sides (~90K US + ~70 K CS). Even on the minimal map it is not playable. Framerates with everyone just standing there are in the single numbers and if you get some significant fighting going . . . :X

-Jim

[MrSpkr]

norb, what was the scale in TC2M? Was it also 1:4?

Steve

[norb]

1:10

[Colonel Dreux]

Do any scenarios start on June 30?

[Janh]

I see, then it will probably be more difficult. How much effort would you estimate for scaling it back to 1:10, and would you think that could work with large maps?