The problem is the ground scale versus the vertical scale: by back-of the envelope calculations, the models are 10x larger than they should be given the game's engagement ranges, etc.

It's not unreasonable to see the ground scale as 15cm=500m: if firefight range is a roughly comparable to the modern firefight range of 1/2 kilomiter.  That works out to a ground scale of 1/3,333.

Yet the figures (and buildings, and trees) are somewhere between 1/285 (GHQ's scale) and 1/200 (GW 'heroic' scale).  In essence to model a hill to achieve consistent lines of sight, (if using 'true' LOS) it needs to be 10x steeper than a normal hill.  Hard to make this look right, and, particularly, hard to make sure that figures stands don't slip down it.

wow some objective figures to back up my subjective gut feeling!

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There are several interrelated problems here, mainly due to the abstraction of height that is built into the rules that gets around a number of issues raised when you try to model height. However, as Mosc says, it gets complex really quickly if you try.

In reality, hills 'hide' targets, provide (slightly) better vision and slightly better range to weaponry, but these all very much depend on local circumstances.

If you really, really wanted to go down this path, I guess you could say that the general height of hills are classified as 'low' or 'high', possibly using a number of contour heights etc; and the hill surface is either 'smooth', 'rough' or 'cliff'.

• Low hills are deemed to be up to 50 feet high so only provide cover.
  
• High Hills are deemed to be at least 100 feet high, so grant 'skimmer' to any units on the crest. Also for every 100 feet in height they grant 5cm extra range to all weapons fired from them, while hills over 200 feet high also deduct 5 cms range from all weapons fired up to them.
  
• Smooth hills are just that; they provide no intrinsic extra cover
  
• Rough hills undulate, having dips and hollows or a rock strewn surface etc, so provide cover to all units on them (-1 to shoot)
  
• Cliffs are rough hills where at least one edge (defined during warm-up) is impassible to all infantry and ground vehicles

However, this all causes further problems as Mosc suggested; for example, can ground units on a hill use 'skimmer' to force FF on enemy attacking them? Alternatively, can 'skimmer' units force FF on ground units that have gained 'skimmer' by being on a hill? How do you apply the 'skimmer' rule to opposing units on the same hill; how is the hill crest defined? And as for calculating who can see over what - well just don't go there.

All in all, while it is a nice idea (and indeed has some merit), I tend to agree with that if it is that important you go low-tech; building the terrain and using LoS sticks to establish who can see what - or preferably just leaving the rules as they stand, so hills block LoS and that is all.

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Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

And then you have to take into account energy weapons vs projectile weapons if implementing a rule like this...

I think it's going to get overly complicated quite quickly.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Summary... Make bigger hills.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Nice stuff, like the possible extra 5cm idea. And flat 5cm for any weapon would be sufficient. I don't think you'd need to calculate energy/trajectory stuff as chroma suggests.

As to the skimmer problem, don't use the skimmer word, use the popup word -  now no firefight problem etc

When on a hill a non skimmer is 'popped up' for the purposes of shooting; Thus anything it can see using the popup rules, can see it. This does leave the unit on the hill rather exposed but does allow it to choose targets a bit more. Since it's non skimmer it can't opt to use it's FF in assault.

Crest of has been explained further up the thread. It can easily be assumed to be anywhere on the flat surface of the hill modal (most model hills have flat tops and are not rounded)

Additionally, to help counter the increased exposure, a vehicle is hull down on the crest if it's on overwatch  though perhaps only in the forward arc and perhaps not at all to aircraft . If the hill is that nasty and rocky then you could treat it as ruins/rubble too (and you won't need to be on overwatch to get -1 cover mod)

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Actually, it's a lot worse than that.  In order to keep things on the board when they really should be off the board based on a true scale, the Epic rules assume a sliding scale.  As the distances extend, the scale ratio increases.

A post from WAAAAY back on the playtest boards:
Originally posted by Jervis:

Although 30cm = @1KM, I've also assumed a sliding scale. This isn't nailed down hard and fast (Epic is a game not a simulation), but it works something like this:

15cm = @250m

30cm = @1KM

45cm = @2KM

60cm = @3KM

75cm = @4KM

90cm = @5KM

150cm = @10KM

300cm = @30KM

Interestingly, this means that the closer you get to the enemy, the slower you move, as the ground scale increases but the speed with which you cross it does not. Which happens to be quite realistic in an abstract sort of way, as formations do move much more slowly the closer they get to the enemy. Of course it also means that terrain features can grow and shrink in size, but lets not talk about that

Best regards,

Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic

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Neal

If you need Deep Blue type computers to get through an Epic game then it's time to play a new game.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I'd tend to go the other way around: hills have no effect on LOS with regard to FF -- but allow for ranged fire over obstacles.  It still misses the real utility to hills, which is spotting rather than fire, but it gets closer to the issue.


There's a reason this view was worth four battles and 70 thousand casualties.

At true ground scale, Monte Cassino should be between 15 and 30 cm high, depending on your guess as to Epic's ground scale. (and leaving aside the sliding scale neal points out.)   But given the height of the figures and model buildings, we're talking 260 space marines tall: between 150 and 300 cm: i.e. 1.5 to 3 meters.

Umm, I think something did not work here
Please could you amend the post

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

You know, a friend of mine built a modular hill set large enough to sculpt entire boards.  He bought a bunch of the cheap styroroam insulation packs and just started carving.  He had enough pieces that he could completely cover a 4x8 board to a depth of about 12 inches.  We fought several battles with large hills and valleys, overhangs large enough for a titan to walk under, waterfalls and so on.

It wasn't the greatest looking board in the world, but it was still cool.

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Neal

Yes, I was certainly thinking of this being more a terrain 'convention' rather than rules. A kind of permanent 5min warm up thing to be used with regulars and perhaps as a suggestion for others and even in tournaments.

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You can look to 40K and Fantasy as two examples. 40K uses strict true LOS, so if you have a small hill, that's a small advantage. Nevertheless, it can be quite useful, but mostly to hide behind.

Fantasy has a number of abstracted rules with hills, but essentially being on a hill allows you to shoot over intervening models. This can get very frustrating, the words "but you can't see him" have crossed my lips more than once.

I much prefer the current system. Just make bigger hills. After all, really huge hills that take up a sizable portion of the board really are realistic!

Thinking about the CC & FF advantage, how about we could take a leaf from Fantasy's book: if one side or the other in an assault has the "high ground" (i.e. majority of units are on a hill and higher than the opponent's units), they get +1 to combat resolution?