Scourge of War Boards

Just been having a sandbox battle using the very nice Antietam morning map. The fighting took place around Burnsides Bridge and I was just wondering why there is no water and it is a dry river bed ? This seems to make the bridge of little value as you can just flank / cross over anywhere near it.

Just noticed this should be in add on section sorry, please feel free to move it.

There is water in the Antietam creek, we just didn't find it practical to make the water graphic. It's possible to cross, but you get a HUGE fatigue penalty and the movement is extremely slow. You'll find it's best to cross the bridge, or to find the fords.

The coding in the game engine for water surfaces is not well designed. This is one of the items on our list to fix for the next major release. However it will involve engine level code changes which always require extra testing.

-Jim

There is water in the Antietam creek, we just didn't find it practical to make the water graphic. It's possible to cross, but you get a HUGE fatigue penalty and the movement is extremely slow. You'll find it's best to cross the bridge, or to find the fords.

Amen to that - try and avoid crossing at the wrong place if possible, if there are enemy troops on the opposite bank a couple of spots are real killers

Thanks for the reply’s that all makes sense I thought the Union forces had diverted the river so they could cross over :laugh:

The problem I see is that Burnside's entire corp can just cross over and overwhelm Jones, nevermind the fatigue penalties. I set his 3 divisions to storm straight across and was watching the bridge fight when i noticed the other 2 divisions were suddenly just about behind the confederates in column marching straight up the ridge. That wasn't plausible.

Most of the actual creek has banks too sharp to be climbed out of, and even the fords short of snavely's were not passable by wagons or guns. The bridge became a choke point for a very good reason- if nothing else Lee wouldn't have ignored that flank if there were any danger of fording the creek just anywhere, it would make his entire position untenable.

I love the add-on but that bit is disappointing and could use a refit at some point. As it is you pretty much just have to decide not to jump the creek if you want to keep it fair.

The water is composed of water object planes. Since this is an object it has certain properties. One of these properties is collision. Perhaps if the object had collision enabled it would force the troops to cross only in spots it wasn't enabled. However, I do not know how big these planes are besides what is showing in the creek bed itself. These water planes could stretch farther out and then this option would not be viable. Its worth for someone to take a look into on the team or one of the map mod team members. The csv map files could be changed to make the fatigue greater than it is and the movement could be changed to make it even more slower than its is. But until the water properties are updated, and I am sure in the future they will be, these are possible options.

The problem I see is that Burnside's entire corp can just cross over and overwhelm Jones, nevermind the fatigue penalties. I set his 3 divisions to storm straight across and was watching the bridge fight when i noticed the other 2 divisions were suddenly just about behind the confederates in column marching straight up the ridge. That wasn't plausible.

Most of the actual creek has banks too sharp to be climbed out of, and even the fords short of snavely's were not passable by wagons or guns. The bridge became a choke point for a very good reason- if nothing else Lee wouldn't have ignored that flank if there were any danger of fording the creek just anywhere, it would make his entire position untenable.

I love the add-on but that bit is disappointing and could use a refit at some point. As it is you pretty much just have to decide not to jump the creek if you want to keep it fair.

Yep, exactly how I saw it. However, the powers to be saw it as a Burnside hangup, and the creek was fordable everywhere, but he insisted on only attacking the bridge. It was real tough making the scenarios here work...a corps against three regiments, that's why I included the variants to help out.

Their won't be a refit stock wise, maybe modders can do something with it as 2nd Tx said.

Meanwhile, enjoy the 'WhatIf' variants, the historical versions are basically 'beat the clock', best I could come up with a completely fordable Antietam Creek.

It's nice to know you're looking into the waterways in general. At current I've even mistaken a stream for a trail at some point in noticed my mistake when it it too late. They are also really easy to miss with all the dark brown slurry the ground textures are made of..

-mazikainen

The coding in the game engine for water surfaces is not well designed. This is one of the items on our list to fix for the next major release. However it will involve engine level code changes which always require extra testing.

-Jim

I agree nice looking water effects would greatly enhance the maps visually. Like others I often mistake stream / rivers for trails /paths. Here is a comparison of Antietam creek in SOW and TC2M .