BEACH Overlays/Hexes/Tiles

[Tim Kauffman]

Recently, over in the incredibly fun (but buggy) OGRE PC version on STEAM, I updated my custom scenario QUAGMIRE that uses Water, Swamp and Town Terrain. Paneurope has demolishioned a water-mitigation system to flood the advancing Combine offensive in desperation. It worked with devastating results. The area was suddenly geoengineered into a swampy waterway where Paneurope now has the advantage and GEV patrols from Paneurope and Combine prowl and hunt one another. They are the best units for the mission. Inspired by Drew's Dambuster Rules and the artwork on the front cover of OGREzine.

Originally, there were two versions of the same map, one used OGRE rules, no stacking, the other used GEV rules with stacking. Terrain for this scenario became a integral part of the gameplay, much more so than normal. GEVs had to stop before entering Swamp or Town. Town gave them double defense while Swamp with it's chance for Disable gave no defensive bonus, but moving into it became a useful option to get more GEVs situated to get in range for an attack, or in an attempt to get away from the enemy. It was a nice wrinkle in the game play tactical options. The scenario is entirely cat and mouse tactics and the Swamp and Town Terrain is a natural barrier that can be used for tactical advantage. (Town represents water damage to heavier Terrain from the flooding and is not actual Town).

As fun as it was to play, something was missing and I didn't know what.

Then I thought the unthinkable and went back and updated the map by adding BEACH Overlays around all the Swamp Tiles. This then allowed GEVs to not have to stop before entering Swamp like before. I reasoned this was not actually a Beach in this case, but rather represented a Swamp that was easier to enter from it's border, yet retained all of a Swamps rules otherwise.
I found WIKI state: "The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp forests and "transitional" or shrub swamps." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrub_swamp
The "Beach/Swamp" I reasoned represented the "transitional" Swamp.

This slight altering of a Swamps rule to be a different Swamp type (Light Swamp?) created a very interesting difference in the scenario for the GEV pilots to choose from when making their tactical decisions. Now, they could either go for the double defense of a Town after having to stop first, before entering, to then get the defense bonus or on that same turn get closer to the enemy one extra Tile by moving into a "Light Swamp" Tile since they would not have to stop before entering. But there was a chance at becoming Disabled. The tension these options now created complimented this scenario perfectly making it rise above more than just the sum of it's parts.

This was such a simple yet profound change to the gameplay that made it play so much better that I immediately deleted both my Quagmire scenarios and made the new QUAGMIRE scenario using BEACH Overlays around all the Swamp Tiles.

Then, I realized something wasn't right. I went to the OGRE Discussion Forums and asked if this was proper behavior for Swamp Terrain. Our GranitePenguin kindly informed me it was not and as such was a bug. My jaw kind of hit the floor...oh...noooo.

So there it is. A new use for "BEACH" Overlays/Hexes/Tiles. I also then realized that there are many real life cases of Beaches being near Cities/Towns, and Forests. Since Rubble is a destroyed Town, they should work with this Terrain as well. Swamp is a special case, in which it would not really be Beach, but a less dense border around the Swamp, easier to enter, but the Swamp rules would remain otherwise.

I was fortunate to be able to play through the updated QUAGMIRE using "Light Swamp" Tiles before they were rebooted back to the "official" rules where GEVs have to stop before entering them after I mentioned this in the OGRE Forums on STEAM. Silly me... ;) While playing with them in this scenario, "Light Swamp" certainly felt like "official" Terrain. They really turned a fun scenario up to 11. Just this simple rule addition.

I think such new "Beach" Terrain would compliment the game because they would give players more tactical choices when considering Terrain usage in a battle without adding useless complexity. The simple addition that Swamp, Forest, Town and Rubble can be moved into by GEVs without stopping first really opens up more diverse scenario map layouts and unit composition options than if they were not usable in the game.

It's a logical extension and follow-through of the Beach Hex.

Please lets kick this around some and see how viable it would be.

What do you think?