Rivers over the top

I agree. Rivers is so out of pocket. A journey that used to take 6 hours now take more than 24 because of embarking/disembarking.

In my experience, rivers have made maps more fun, and added strategic realism even if it looks wonky at a tactical level.

Equatorial Africa is supposed to be difficult to traverse. Now it feels less like Asia and more like Europe. Lots of natural choke points.

Stalingrad has become a strategic point on the map, controlling the passage to and from the Caucasus.

The Great Lakes are integrated into Atlantic shipping.

The Homefront map is much more interesting with rivers.

None of this is perfect of course, but it's fun.

z00mz00m wrote:

In my experience, rivers have made maps more fun, and added strategic realism even if it looks wonky at a tactical level.

Equatorial Africa is supposed to be difficult to traverse. Now it feels less like Asia and more like Europe. Lots of natural choke points.

Stalingrad has become a strategic point on the map, controlling the passage to and from the Caucasus.

The Great Lakes are integrated into Atlantic shipping.

The Homefront map is much more interesting with rivers.

None of this is perfect of course, but it's fun.

Triangle Guard wrote:

Bro takes the opposite stance on everything, like a mini Undaunted

Oh, that's hitting below the belt...

You clearly not played American Homefront then? You cant reach the Great Lakes from the ocean. You can on the WaW map - ugh? Bit stupid that, yet the Congo a non navigable river effectively makes Belgian Congo, SWA, SA, Bechuanaland unplayable because of the totally unnatural choke point. As for the Orange river in SA - total joke.

z00mz00m wrote:

In my experience, rivers have made maps more fun, and added strategic realism even if it looks wonky at a tactical level.

Equatorial Africa is supposed to be difficult to traverse. Now it feels less like Asia and more like Europe. Lots of natural choke points.

Stalingrad has become a strategic point on the map, controlling the passage to and from the Caucasus.

The Great Lakes are integrated into Atlantic shipping.

The Homefront map is much more interesting with rivers.

None of this is perfect of course, but it's fun.

BladeFisher wrote:

You clearly not played American Homefront then? You cant reach the Great Lakes from the ocean. You can on the WaW map - ugh? Bit stupid that, yet the Congo a non navigable river effectively makes Belgian Congo, SWA, SA, Bechuanaland unplayable because of the totally unnatural choke point. As for the Orange river in SA - total joke.

It should not be easy to cross large lakes or rivers like the Congo that are wider than the eye can see.

U been there have you?

To the Congo, no. But I've seen many large lakes and rivers. The kind that you can't just bridge with pontoon boats. The kind that require ports and ferries to get across. Large bodies of water have been a key factor in military campaigns throughout human history.

Obviously as you go up river it narrows but there are no paths leading down to the river in the game so you cant say, embark, disembark and 'invade' if you like and that is what is wrong. A couple of areas where this would be possible would help.

The whole point is to make you think of a new strategy. That's what makes it fun.

It's wrong how easy it is to disembark on random mounains and jungles. You should have to build ports. And infrastructure.

z00mz00m wrote:

The whole point is to make you think of a new strategy. That's what makes it fun.

It's wrong how easy it is to disembark on random mounains and jungles. You should have to build ports. And infrastructure.

oh yeah sussed that out eons ago. Bit of a bugger that if playing Congo/Angola/SWA there is no crossing point from Banana until Lake Victoria or somewhere. It means for half a dozen countries you have to have a war first to gain the right to go through Tanganyka.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Kind of a problem when you don't own the other side yet...?

Operation Market Garden?

If you're not feeling lucky, pay the time penalty and go around.

I don't think they built a lot of infrastructure for Market Garden...

lol

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I don't think they built a lot of infrastructure for Market Garden...

Probably not... but they did try to protect or patch up bridges. In general, heavy divisions move too easily in CoW. The rough terrain penalties are minimal and river crossing penalties are non-existent. I like that they're trying out new ideas, providing flavor to historical choke points.

Stalingrad just "feels" different now.

On the contrary; foot infantry and artillery are moving too fast. They are well over half AC speed; this is while a man walks 5 km/h, while a vehicle easily reaches 80 km/h. I understand that they can't advance at full road speed into enemy land; but still they are relatively MUCH faster than foot troops.

But I must agree that rivers are over the top... Congo river, anyone? It not only doesn't have any "bridges/crossings" for land troops; you can't even cross it by embark-disembark because there are no roads to the river bank anywhere. This goes all the way from the lakes in the Ruanda-Kenya-Tanzania area to the Atlantic ocean. Shame, Bytro!