Making Maps: Showing off and getting help

[Misplaced Buckeye]

Originally Posted by CON_Troll

I remember someone posting a map for a scenario called "Blowing Up Duluth". This was before Tom's OGREMap program was available (I think.) Anyone remember this? I've lost track of it.

Need to check my old files. I know the guy's site that I have links to is shut down but he may have moved it. Let you know.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by CON_Troll

I remember someone posting a map for a scenario called "Blowing Up Duluth". This was before Tom's OGREMap program was available (I think.) Anyone remember this? I've lost track of it.

Its not this site is it?

https://ogrefactory.wordpress.com/20...ing-in-duluth/

The map goes to a 404 site, but it shouldn't be hard to make a big version by looking at the small one.

Originally Posted by dwalend

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.

I think that's as extreme a view for making city hex status as one is going to get.

I've been basically looking at the density of the houses. I've been reading the great benefit for INF in cities as cover. Nothing offers hiding places quite like buildings, and the 360 degree cover of a building is much better than a forest. But I've still been longing for something that differentiates suburb from city. I'd certainly consider much of pheonix to be city hex even under such conditions though.

The other hard part is that not all suburb or even forest is created equal. Some housing is particularly flimsy being little more than a wooden frame with insulation and sheet-rock draped on, and some makes liberal use of brick, concrete, and basements. That's effected by history, culture, economics, and zoning.

Forests vary too. Some forests are thick with underbrush strewn throughout them, while others can be freely run and seen through.

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.

That's really good to know.

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.

I've started the initial layout, and It does look like a decent map location. Thanks for the pointers on notable locations. I still need to go back on several of the maps and mark interesting features. But I think this is the first time a military installation has been included.

The islands are most inconvenient size, I will note.

[Misplaced Buckeye]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Its not this site is it?

https://ogrefactory.wordpress.com/20...ing-in-duluth/

The map goes to a 404 site, but it shouldn't be hard to make a big version by looking at the small one.



I think that's as extreme a view for making city hex status as one is going to get.

I've been basically looking at the density of the houses. I've been reading the great benefit for INF in cities as cover. Nothing offers hiding places quite like buildings, and the 360 degree cover of a building is much better than a forest. But I've still been longing for something that differentiates suburb from city. I'd certainly consider much of pheonix to be city hex even under such conditions though.

The other hard part is that not all suburb or even forest is created equal. Some housing is particularly flimsy being little more than a wooden frame with insulation and sheet-rock draped on, and some makes liberal use of brick, concrete, and basements. That's effected by history, culture, economics, and zoning.

Forests vary too. Some forests are thick with underbrush strewn throughout them, while others can be freely run and seen through.



That's really good to know.

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.[/QUOTE]

I've started the initial layout, and It does look like a decent map location. Thanks for the pointers on notable locations. I still need to go back on several of the maps and mark interesting features. But I think this is the first time a military installation has been included.

The islands are most inconvenient size, I will note.[/QUOTE]

No this is Fear and Loathing and NOT Blowing up Duluth. F and L uses the BU map. This one is still up as you see but the original one isn't hence the 404 on the map.

[ColBosch]

I find the concept of GEVs inside the Dig both awesome and terrifying.

[TheAmishStig]

I don't know if it's going to be a viable map, or even if I can build a viable scenario for it, but all this talk of real locations gives me an idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses..._(Pennsylvania)

Any enemy that wants to cut railroad logistics in the northeast targets that spot, as it cuts off Philly, Baltimore, and DC from Chicago...

[Mack_JB]

Why bother with Horseshoe Curve, it's hard to get to, and the terrain is somewhat limiting. Just blast Altoona to the east.

[Desert Scribe]

Here are thumbnails and links to Ogre maps of Boston, Duluth, and San Francisco:
http://supergalacticdreadnought.blog...egev-maps.html

[Mack_JB]

Long back, someone here sent me an image file showing the St. Louis area for Ogre. I think the scale of it may be off though, as it covers a very large area. It also had some mis-spelled town names, and one area where three towns were placed improperly in relation to each other, which I fixed as best I could (both mis-spelled towns I had lived in!).

Edit: Yes, it covers an area roughly 40 km x 70 km, yet is "only" 16 x 30 hexes, give or take.

[Misplaced Buckeye]

Originally Posted by Misplaced Buckeye

Need to check my old files. I know the guy's site that I have links to is shut down but he may have moved it. Let you know.

I did find the Original one in my files. PM me if you still want it. The links listed below are accurate just enhanced.

[TheAmishStig]

Originally Posted by Mack_JB

Why bother with Horseshoe Curve, it's hard to get to, and the terrain is somewhat limiting. Just blast Mt. Union or Altoona to either east or west.

Scorched Earth isn't always a good idea, even in the Last War when factions are slinging nukes as casually as you or I would paintballs. With an objective to keep the town intact (and/or to minimize collateral damage to the rail lines, to make it easy to press the rail line back into service), cutting the rail line further up the mountain becomes preferred...especially if it's lined by ridges, or other ways to funnel a careless attacker into spillover fire.

If and when I get around to playing with OgreMap (or the video game's scenario tools), it won't be an exact copy...at real scales, the whole curve complex and then some could fit in a single hex...but the idea of setting a Ned Kelley-style trap is sparking my imagination.