Rivers & Capturable Bridges

[dkff49]

I would!

there you go hitech he just said it would be ok for you to code in to have him exit out of whatever flight he is in to rebuild the bridge when some fight killing tardlet wants to do his thing.

[xthecatx]

  Sounds like a plan

[Sakai]

The idea does interest me, but making the bridge destroyable would be a bad idea.

HiTech

Au contraire, Pierre.

One way you could destroy them that could earn a player perks and not be too easy to do (a la Dive Bombing Heavies) would be to add an enginering group to the halftrack loadout.  If the engineers and halftrack survive at the bridge for say 10-30 minutes, Voila, blown up. 

But they have to stay within x proximity of the bridge for x time and the engineers can't lose more than say half their number being strafed off the bridge.  Make it harder yet:  One track/LVT has to take troops, one supplies.  If you can coordinate say several tracks to work on the bridge at once, it could lessen your time. 

[AKP]

Ok...

There is a lot of talk about whether the bridge should be destroyable or not.  Here are some thoughts:

Destroyable Bridge:

1) Could be destroyed by bombing from the air, but would require MUCH more damage than a hangar.  Down time could be short.

OR

2) Could be destroyed by "engineers", who would attack the bridge the same way troops attack the map rooms.  10 are needed to reach the bridge intact.

I think (1) would work better than (2), given that we dont have engineers in the game (yet).  I also dont see the need for adding a whole new troop type just to take out bridges, when even on a large map, there would only be a few of them. 

Right now, a hangar requires 3000 lbs of bombs to take out.  If you think about it in game terms, a bridge like we are talking about "should" require more than that to take down... since a hangar is really nothing more than a corrugated metal building.  A HQ takes 38,000 lbs of bombs to take down.   So if a bridge were somewhere in the middle... say, 20K lbs of ords to take out, it would take more than a single attack to take it out. 

Is that realistic?  No.  But it does solve the problem of Porkins taking out the bridge just for S&G's.  Regen time on the bridge would need to be fast too... so Ol' Porkins cant drop his load, bail, and make another run.

Now... even if bridges were made indestructible, they would still be an important element if added to the game.  The fight isnt really about "blowing up" the bridge... its about CONTROLLING the bridge.  The fight is going to be cenetered at capturing the "Bridge Towns" on either side.  Air strikes will still be called in to flatten the town on the other side... LVT's could still be used to cross up or down river to avoid a heavily defended bridge... PT's could still be used to provide support to the ground units, and/or enhance AAA capabilities.  And when all else fails... RUSH THE BRIDGE with GV's and troops and try to overwhelm the defenders.  And the best part is, both sides are going to be trying to take the opposing map room at the same time to secure the bridge.  Can you imagine the carnage?  Oh the horror!!! 

I think the real point of adding the bridges are going to be for the strategic value of gaining the ability to get ground units into enemy territory.  Take a look at the pic below:



By making the spawn points from the bridge bases the only way to get ground units across a river and into enemy territory rapidly... the focus of taking the bridge towns becomes gaining the ability to USE those spawn points.  In the pic above, the "green" team has taken B2 and B3...  allowing them to now attack A20 and A21 with ground forces.  If they did not have B3... there is no fast way to get ground forces to those bases.

Would I like to see engineers and destroyable bridges and useable roads that effect GV movement and the ability to cut off supplies?  Yes.... BUT, I think that the nature of AH2 is such that if bridges were destroyable, they would become targets of opportunity, taken out by high level, precision bombers with no real danger to being shot down.  And that just isnt how bridges were dealt with during the war. 

If I had to choose between having bridges set up in this manner, or not having them at all... I would prefer to have them.

[SuBWaYCH]

How bout if you have a 'town' object that spans a river with a bridge across it, you have multiple bridges.  The 'main' bridge is indestructable, but perhaps two or 3 bridges that are fully destructable (and regen in about the same time frame as a hanger)  Obviously a fair amount of damage would be needed to take down bridges... more than a hanger, but less than HQ (obviously).

i'll do you one better bud. Make 4 destructable bridges per main bridge. Place 2 on one side, each 2-3 km apart from each other, and on the other side place them 2-3 km apart. Make it 18000 pounds to destroy a destructable bridge and have downtime be 10 minutes. That way camping a bridge would be much harder and the strategic value of bridges is still maintained. Do the "all roads lead to rome" kinda style and have it be something like



Keeps the strategic value of crossing and makes v-bases harder to defend.

[PFactorDave]

In my opinion, even if the bridges cannot be destroyed, this idea might get some fun GV fights going.  I really like the idea of buildings at both ends of the bridge.  GV street fighting is fun!

My vote would be to put some of these bridge choke points on to one fo the maps, then do a little experiemting with destructable bridges.  Vary the bridge down times for awhile, until the right balance is found.  I suspect that if you made the down time pretty short, similar to hangar down times, but kept the distances between the buildings on each side you might find that destroying the bridge wouldn't actually stop the fight.  It might continue at a distance while both sides await the bridge respawn.

I think the important thing is to design the bridges in such a way that a tank can find "some" small amount of cover on the bridge, so dodging from structural element to element is possible as one is crossing the bridge.

[flatiron1]

i like it

[AKP]

i'll do you one better bud. Make 4 destructable bridges per main bridge. Place 2 on one side, each 2-3 km apart from each other, and on the other side place them 2-3 km apart. Make it 18000 pounds to destroy a destructable bridge and have downtime be 10 minutes. That way camping a bridge would be much harder and the strategic value of bridges is still maintained. Do the "all roads lead to rome" kinda style and have it be something like

(Image removed from quote.)

Keeps the strategic value of crossing and makes v-bases harder to defend.

Not sure on that one... I think it would be too hard to defend against tanks rolling over 5 bridges.  2 might be ok (1 of each) but I just dont know.  I think 1 bridge... no matter what kind it is... is the way to go.

[AKP]

you might find that destroying the bridge wouldn't actually stop the fight.  It might continue at a distance while both sides await the bridge respawn.

BINGO!  And you can use LVT's to try and cross, and PT's for support.  No matter how it plays out... having different teams holding the 2 sides is going to lead to a HUGE firefight!

But lets not forget... the best way to take a bridge is "Both sides at once".  The team that plays it right, will attack both towns at the same time, and will take them at about the same time.  Would require a lot of teamwork, but it could be done.

[hitech]

This would eliminate the point of a bridge and the end result would be forces by passing each other.

Simply put the whole Idea of a bridge is to make a defensible bottle neck that promotes a place to fight for GV's.

This is a classic example of how realism many times is not fun. What is the end result of destroying the bridge. Fighting ends. No fight no fun.


HiTech

[RipChord929]

Now, trying to capture a bridge INTACT against a prepared defence? What do you think is going to happen?
I'll tell ya, They're gonna blow it up in your face!!!!  Preferably with YOU ON IT!!!!
DUH!!! LOL!!!

Gamewise, destroying the bridge is just like porkin troops, to stop the horde... When outnumbered, Its the best defensive move you have.. Attackers can resupp troops, or rebuild the bridge, Same'o Same'o!!!! Many german tanks in Normandy went into battle with 1/2 empty ammo bays, fuel tanks, and Bellies, because the 9th Airforce had blasted all the bridges, preventing resupply... Its called INTERDICTION!!!

On offence, bridges are prime targets.. To interdict enemy resupply, and reinforcement... And to prevent enemy escape from a trap of his own making.. This is just plain military and historical FACT... Illustrated best in Normandy, on the Don Bend, at the Rhine river, and in the First Gulf War.. Sure, troops can escape, by swimming for it... But they have to leave their equipment behind... War is a tough biz, huh!!!

If a bridge IS captured intact, it is purely a freak occurrance.. Due to enemy ineptitude, or malfunction of equipment, or they are running so fast that they dont have the chance to set their demolition charges...
This should be a possibility, but a far remote one... SOP for any any army would to assume that the bridges would be DOWN!! And prepare their forces accordingly, to FORCE a crossing... By air, or LVT, whatever!!

A major river crossing, against a prepared defence, is possibly the most difficult operation attempted by an army in the field... Game wise, it should take more than a pack of girlscouts, or gang of milkrunners...

PLEASE, DONT PUSH THE EASY BUTTON ON THIS

RC

[Tilt]

 I dont see any game play advantage to make a bridge (which has capturable towns either side of it) destructable in the MA.

Basically the same porking (as would be directed to the bridge) would be directed to the town like vehicle fields either side. The bridge just becomes a thin strip of land.

I do see advantages for destructable/rebuildable bridges in "events". However to do this a bridge needs ownership (in order to recieve strat and supplies) and which "town" will you give ownership to?

Giving each town ownership of half a bridge induces a real world scenario. ie you do actually need ownership of both sides of the river to rebuild it but can destroy regardless of which side (if any) you own.

For MA usage bridge hardness is set to near indestructable via object settings.


I like roads however I think spawns should spawn along roads and not between them hence on AKP's map above there would not be a spawn between A21 and B3 unless there was also a road. Like wise there would be a spawn between A20 and A21.

[TonyJoey]

Ok...

There is a lot of talk about whether the bridge should be destroyable or not.  Here are some thoughts:

Destroyable Bridge:

1) Could be destroyed by bombing from the air, but would require MUCH more damage than a hangar.  Down time could be short.

OR

2) Could be destroyed by "engineers", who would attack the bridge the same way troops attack the map rooms.  10 are needed to reach the bridge intact.

I think (1) would work better than (2), given that we dont have engineers in the game (yet).  I also dont see the need for adding a whole new troop type just to take out bridges, when even on a large map, there would only be a few of them. 

Right now, a hangar requires 3000 lbs of bombs to take out.  If you think about it in game terms, a bridge like we are talking about "should" require more than that to take down... since a hangar is really nothing more than a corrugated metal building.  A HQ takes 38,000 lbs of bombs to take down.   So if a bridge were somewhere in the middle... say, 20K lbs of ords to take out, it would take more than a single attack to take it out. 

Is that realistic?  No.  But it does solve the problem of Porkins taking out the bridge just for S&G's.  Regen time on the bridge would need to be fast too... so Ol' Porkins cant drop his load, bail, and make another run.

Now... even if bridges were made indestructible, they would still be an important element if added to the game.  The fight isnt really about "blowing up" the bridge... its about CONTROLLING the bridge.  The fight is going to be cenetered at capturing the "Bridge Towns" on either side.  Air strikes will still be called in to flatten the town on the other side... LVT's could still be used to cross up or down river to avoid a heavily defended bridge... PT's could still be used to provide support to the ground units, and/or enhance AAA capabilities.  And when all else fails... RUSH THE BRIDGE with GV's and troops and try to overwhelm the defenders.  And the best part is, both sides are going to be trying to take the opposing map room at the same time to secure the bridge.  Can you imagine the carnage?  Oh the horror!!! 

I think the real point of adding the bridges are going to be for the strategic value of gaining the ability to get ground units into enemy territory.  Take a look at the pic below:

By making the spawn points from the bridge bases the only way to get ground units across a river and into enemy territory rapidly... the focus of taking the bridge towns becomes gaining the ability to USE those spawn points.  In the pic above, the "green" team has taken B2 and B3...  allowing them to now attack A20 and A21 with ground forces.  If they did not have B3... there is no fast way to get ground forces to those bases.

Would I like to see engineers and destroyable bridges and useable roads that effect GV movement and the ability to cut off supplies?  Yes.... BUT, I think that the nature of AH2 is such that if bridges were destroyable, they would become targets of opportunity, taken out by high level, precision bombers with no real danger to being shot down.  And that just isnt how bridges were dealt with during the war. 

If I had to choose between having bridges set up in this manner, or not having them at all... I would prefer to have them.


I really like the first idea, and the example on the map looks really fun! Some good GV fights to be had at that bottleneck.

[BaldEagl]

Just because a bridge is destoyed that doesn't nessesarily end the fight.  There's always LVT's which can cross and I'd think there would be PT spawns into the river.  And that discounts the possibility that tanks could still fire at one another from opposite sides of the river.

Then there are always those pesky aircraft who just might keep the fight going trying to capture both sides of the bridge so when it comes back up they own it.

But hey, what do I know.  I only play the game.  If HT says the fight ends then I guess it ends.

[olskool2]

Just because a CV is destroyed, it doesn't end the fight. We still have PT boats and ack.

Sarcasm.

The bridge doesn't need to be destructible, there's no need for it to be. Far too big of a target for our laser-guided bombsights and long range GV laming.