One-sided Sunk/Elevated Roads

[Tuomo]

I'm doing a board for Designer X and I'm intrigued with the notion of one-sided Sunk/Elevated Roads:



These certainly are commonplace enough in hilly areas, but I'm wondering whether the general public hates the concept and whether there are obvious rules problems with it.

Edit - the valley is completely irrelevant to the proposed terrain type; I just added it to help motivate why the one-sided sunken road might be there. Sorry if this caused confusion.

Thoughts?

 

[sdennis]

Oooooh, make it both sided by bringing the valley in next to the road!!!!

 

[Robin Reeve]

I would rather depict such a road as bordered by cliffs.
Gaining Crest status would be difficult, anyway.

 

[von Marwitz]

I'm doing a board for Designer X and I'm intrigued with the notion of one-sided Sunk/Elevated Roads:

View attachment 17074

These certainly are commonplace enough in hilly areas, but I'm wondering whether the general public hates the concept and whether there are obvious rules problems with it.

Thoughts?

The first thing I pictured when looking at that was the following:
Hey, I'd be sitting on top and drop down DCs on passing by vehicles. I.e. I am thinking of an advantage for the guys above the road.

I believe the Problem is as follows:
Infantry on the road could claim Crest, which would provide them with a quite significant advantage. On the other hand, there is nothing that provides any comparable advantage to enemy units with regard to ASL rules that the enemy would have over such a road in reality.

In other words, only the guys 'on the road' can gain an advantage from this terrain (Crest), while the 'guys above the road' cannot. That doesn't go well together IMHO.


The point is:

There is no such thing as 'Crest Advantage' in ASL (similar to Wall Advantage). If a rule such as 'Crest Advantage' existed, i.e. units in N4, N3, and O3 could automatically deny the possibility of Crest Status to units in O4 while they themselves gain advantages similar to Crest status over them , then that type of terrain would work and could actually add a new nuance to terrain. Vice versa, units in Crest in O4 could deny units in N4, N3, O3 the possibility to gain 'Crest advantage thingy' above units in O4.

Ruleswise, this would not be too complicated. The question is, whether introducing this terrain type would warrant a new rule of 'Crest Advantage'. More importantly, the introduction of such a rule would raise the question why it should not be applicable to normal Sunken Roads as well. Logically, it should. But I doubt that such a rule would find its way into the ASL rules body.

von Marwitz

 

[sdennis]

The interesting question is in our abstraction is a sunken road depth roughly equal to a hill height? If so than no rules need to change IMHO. If not than a simple "No crest may be gained in the road hexes Tom is designing would suffice, i.e. it's too steep/tall to do so compared to a normal sunken road.

 

[klasmalmstrom]

In other words, only the guys 'on the road' can gain an advantage from this terrain (Crest), while the 'guys above the road' cannot. That doesn't go well together IMHO.

Don't quite see the difference between that and if those hexes were a "normal" Sunken Road?

 

[Tuomo]

I believe the Problem is as follows:
Infantry on the road could claim Crest, which would provide them with a quite significant advantage. On the other hand, there is nothing that provides any comparable advantage to enemy units with regard to ASL rules that the enemy would have over such a road in reality.

Um, not sure I'm parsing this.

Infantry in any currently-existing 2-sided Sunken Road can claim Crest over one side or the other. So how's that a problem for these 1-sided sunken roads?

I don't see how the discussion of "Crest Advantage" comes into this at all. If that were a normal 2-sided Sunken Road, the units therein could gain Crest Status and... what? Something would be objectionable with regard to other units in N4, N3, O3? So the situation you're apparently objecting to can exist right now, without any discussion of new terrain types. How does the 1-sidedness of the Sunken road affect anything about Crest status?

I would rather depict such a road as bordered by cliffs.

Except Cliffs are NA for infantry movement, whereas these things would be OK for that. Sometimes one might want that.

 

[Tuomo]

One reason for having these things in the first place is to disallow vehicle movement uphill from the road without having to put a double-crest line (and possibly unwanted Hill) above it.

 

[von Marwitz]

Don't quite see the difference between that and if those hexes were a "normal" Sunken Road?

This is indeed correct.

Thinking about Tuomo's idea it struck me that maybe units laying in ambush/position above a Sunken Road in general (one-side or the established two-side version) would in reality have a stronger position than they have in the game. The game gives the 'ambushers' Height Advantage to start with against attacks from units IN the Sunken Road. If there is no other TEM around, the best protection the 'ambushers' can ever get is +1 for Height Advantage, while the best protection the units in the Sunken Road hex can get is +2 for Crest. This has not occurred to me in this context before.

So the potential protection is not reciprocal which seems a bit strange, now that I think about this.

In reality, I would tend to think that the units 'above' a sunken road would rather be at a potential advantage against those 'below' and not vice versa.

von Marwitz

 

[klasmalmstrom]

If there is no other TEM around, the best protection the 'ambushers' can ever get is +1 for Height Advantage, while the best protection the units in the Sunken Road hex can get is +2 for Crest. This has not occurred to me in this context before.

So the potential protection is not reciprocal which seems a bit strange, now that I think about this.

Units in the higher adjacent hex would have LOS INTO the Sunken Road, so Crest units would not get the +2 vs them. So the units in higher terrain are better off with a +1 for HA.

B20.92:
"The entrenchment benefits (27.3) of Crest status do not apply to Indirect Fire or OVR, or to Direct Fire from any position that has a LOS (A6.3) INTO the Depression hex ..."

 

[zgrose]

I think I like Cliff artwork better for this for 2.5 reasons:

1) the board can be used w/o any special thinking
1a) the cliff graphic looks almost the same anyway
2) the scenario SSR can say "treat O4, P3 as Half-Sunken Road" (or whatever) and you get all the gameplay benefits

 

[footsteps]

All the discussion seems to be focused on the embankment side of the road. But what this feature means is that the road has Sunken Road protection on one side, but nothing, absolutely nothing, on the other side. In fact, Crest infantry across the embankment are probably more exposed to fire from across the road. And vehicles are more restricted in evasive maneuvers because of the embankment - Hazardous Movement for AFV? In essence, units in the Road hex are "up against the wall" when fired upon across the road.

I think this is an interesting feature, both as Sunken and Raised Roads.

 

[von Marwitz]

Units in the higher adjacent hex would have LOS INTO the Sunken Road, so Crest units would not get the +2 vs them. So the units in higher terrain are better off with a +1 for HA.

B20.92:
"The entrenchment benefits (27.3) of Crest status do not apply to Indirect Fire or OVR, or to Direct Fire from any position that has a LOS (A6.3) INTO the Depression hex ..."

Thanks, Klas. I'll count that as a classic beneficial 'whacking' of yours.

I had forgotten about that part of the rule you quoted. Which explains nicely, why this 'strange thing' had not occured to me before...

As long as I can learn rules faster than I forget them, there is still hope...

That said:
Having (re-)learned, I now think this is a good idea of Tuomo. Go ahead!

von Marwitz

 

[bprobst]

whether there are obvious rules problems with it.

The obvious "rules problem" is that there are no rules for such terrain.

If the product that the map comes with actually provides the appropriate rules, then there shouldn't be any problem. Don't provide any rules and you're just continuing a stupid trend that MMP has recently been following: let's just slap something onto a map, provide no rules for it, and assume that no-one will ever question it.

 

[The Purist]

This is an excellent example of a 'cut' made by engineers to lessen the slope of a road that climbs over a hill or one that skirts the shoulder of one. I have no problem picturing this type of terrain. In fact, I could walk the four minutes up to the clubhouse on the town's golf course and take a picture of this exact terrain type (slope "up" one side of the road and another "down" the opposite side).

Excellent idea.

 

[Tuomo]

As I added to the original post:
Edit - the valley is completely irrelevant to the proposed terrain type; I just added it to help motivate why the one-sided sunken road might be there. Sorry if this caused confusion.

Thanks for the comments!

 

[BigAl737]

What Zoltan said...

Art looks cool though.

 

[Gordon]

I've come around to this proposal. With a properly designed set of rules for the terrain (don't just assume "half a sunken/elevated road" works), I'd say go for it.

 

[RandyT0001]

One reason for having these things in the first place is to disallow vehicle movement uphill from the road without having to put a double-crest line (and possibly unwanted Hill) above it.

I asked about a similar situation on the FB Scenario Design Group using these pictures to define the terrain to model.




I suggest cliff on the hex sides (not along the road) and SSR "Cliffs in O4 and P3 are impassable to vehicles but infantry can move across these cliff hex sides at a cost of 2x (1+COT)."
YMMV

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I would rather depict such a road as bordered by cliffs.
Gaining Crest status would be difficult, anyway.

Not all cut out roads would be steep enough to be cliffs, though.

I'd say there is a case to be made to include this terrain type.