[dwalend]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I'm not sure how to do mountains properly.

Mountains could just be terrain where INF has M1 and nothing else can go unless there's a road, and 2X or 3X cover for INF. (If you need mountains with existing terrain rules try ridge hex sides around swamp. Any fool that drives an SHVY over the ridge can get stuck.)

If you've got access, I think one of the (on hold) Assault Packs had rules for mountains and cliffs.

I'm not sure how urban an area needs to be before marking it as city. On this map, dense suburbs are marked as city. Is that the correct interpretation?

My take on it is a hex dominated by multi-story concrete structures for most of the hex is a town hex. It's got to provide 2X defense vs nuclear weapons to vehicles just driving on the street. If the hex features lots of multi-story parking garages its town.

If parking is free, in flat lots, to me that's not town. There's no cover for INF, and nothing to slow down a tank. A city like Phoenix - which has only a maybe three blocks of downtown, but flat sprawl for miles - I think should be clear terrain - all those 5-lane and 7-lane avenues, and no basements. (South Mountain Park and the Sierra Estrella to the southwest are at least rubble-and-ridge.)

I like to call most suburbs forest. With tac-nukes flying around, houses are about as durable as trees, and INF can duck into a basement for a bit of extra cover.

Is the map too small? I know this area well, and I found myself wishing I could include certain neighboring regions, like all of the northern city, and the fields to the south that make it possible to go around the lake. Is this a special case, am I thinking too epic in scale, or does ogre really like big maps?

It really depends on the scenario. A lot of the charm of Ogre is that you can play a game over a lunch break on a small map with a handful of fast units, or a scenario with a strict time limit goal, or play an INF slog on a huge map over a weekend. With those big lakes be sure to bring some GEV-PCs.

Does anyone have any areas they'd like me to do next?

Boston could be interesting. It's tiny, so you can fit a lot of interesting stuff on one map. No mountains. South Boston to East Cambridge, maybe west to Longwood should be town. The rest is a mix of some clear suburbs, forest, swamp, the harbor, and the Charles (river up until Watertown - that can't be more than two or three hexes, then a winding stream that seems to go everywhere). The harbor has some rocky barrier islands and peninsulas, including one trace Italienne fort. Give us lots of bridges over the Charles and Mystic rivers, but not too many other roads inside of 128. The road system is just not that good to begin with, much of it is buried or built over. An LT wouldn't fit through the underpasses on Storrow Drive. GEV pilots might have fun in the harbor tunnels or on the Pike, but they'd be helpless if attacked. Maybe set up some bonus targets for MIT, HMS, the SSC in Natick, and Hanscom AFB.