Mines, ... and why we need them.

[Thonar]

Good evening folks,

as it currently looks Steel-Division will do a lot right and is even using ideas of former Wargame-Players to enhance the game-play thus I'm looking well forward to this game.

Now to the topic:
Mines! - Why?
Unlike in Wargame, SD:N seems to get a far more fluid game-play which is awesome since the mostly objective-based Wargame mechanic often times caused repetitive use of terrain-features and even discouraged maneuver-warfare partially which would have made Mines an even bigger death-sentence to it.

Now that doesn't seem to be the case anymore with the "Frontline"-Mechanic and the contrary seems to be the case.

Players shouldn't be able, not even in a team on bigger maps, to satisfy the whole frontline with a defensive line. This would discourage maneuvering. To encourage maneuvering they need tools at their disposal to weaken certain parts of the frontline to be able to gather forces for an own attack. Nevertheless these parts of the frontline need a certain way of being able to delay an enemy advance to buy time for own attacks to break-through.
These tool are mines and obstacles.

I do not propose a too deep obstacle mechanic, but a rather simple mine mechanic.

How could it work?

1. Pre-Bought-Minefield-Units
In case the Deck-system comes back (hopefully a combination of ALB and RD) Mine-Fields could be bought within a support-tab or a special obstacle-tab with a certain amount per card and 3 different cards: Pure Anti-Tank-Field, Pure Anti-Personal-Fields and a combination of both.
These Fields are unmovable and have a fixed size that can be adjusted in length and width but will always cover the same amount of area. They will be placed by the players at the start of the game outside of their deployment-zone but within their own half of the map.
The big negative: It doesn't fit with the announced "stages" of battle which leads us to option number 2:

2. Mine-Laying-Units
This is an rather easy option: You buy in the support-tab a unit that is able to lay minefields.
These units have a certain ammunition-count on these mine-fields and need a certain amount of time to place them depending on the placed minefield-size. Otherwise, like above, a single mine-field should also have a maximum-area it can cover but should be adjustable by length and width.

How to balance Mines?
A) Size of a Mine-Field: Smaller fields are weaker
B) Damage: No damage? Small Damage?
C) "Debuffs": Routing Infantry, Detracking Tanks, Immobilizing vehicles
D) Time that is needed to place them.
E) Camouflage - who can spot them?
F) Time needed to break it

I propose option 2 with mines that make very little damage at all (like 1 Wargame-Hitpoint to any kind of unit), which demobilize tanks and rout infantry with the time-needed to place a single field on maximum size in something like 3+ Minutes and which can be only spotted by Scouts when rather close to them or by units when they got hit by them. Defusual should take by vehicles something along 30s to a Minute and for infantry roughly a Minute

How to counter-mines
The allies had special Anti-Mine-Tanks, the Wehrmacht e.g. the SdKfz 300. Engineering Infantry could also delete them. A vehicle will need less time to "defuse" a minefield than infantry but is easier to spot.
While in reality the breaching-units would only open a path, for simplification they could just "delete" the mine-field ingame.


So, what are your thoughts?

 

[77Hawk77]

I think if my wish for an attack and defend game mode becomes real, it would make sense for the defender to set up minefields in the beginning.

 

[Fonz]

With how Eugen did Wargame, I'm gonna hazard a guess to say that they do not have it in the game, in which case I think they should wait until at least after release and then either do a full expansion on fortifications and fortress busters, or never touch it with a 10 feet stick.

Thing with mines is, the most significant gameplay impact isn't just about the mines themselves, its about being able to put things on the ground.
If you have mines, then barbed wire should be a thing, if barbed wire is a thing, then tank traps should be a thing, if tank traps are a thing, then Belgian gates, then trip mines, then small foxholes, then quick trenches etc. If they're placed pre-game like you suggested, then what about concrete fortifications?

At what point does letting the player pop down thing cross Eugen's macro micro threshold? At what point does placeable fortification encourage turtling and not maneuvering? How would fortification be made so players would sometimes actually attacking it instead of just calling all the arty and air strikes on it?

Having just mines would be like if the game focused on infantry, but you also get 1 tank, just 1 type, and then 1 anti tank gun to take it out.
It's just something that needs to be done separately with full effort, or not at all.

 

[Killertomato]

Having just mines would be like if the game focused on infantry, but you also get 1 tank, just 1 type, and then 1 anti tank gun to take it out.
It's just something that needs to be done separately with full effort, or not at all.

Why? They can just have minefields no problem.

 

[UltimateIdiot]

As I said in another thread, I think anti-tank mines would be a great addition to the game, and make infantry-gameplay much more fun and diverse. Anti-tank mines of the period were also not as powerful as modern mines, and more often simply blew up the track of the lead vehicle than actually destroyed it. This can be represented in the game with a mobility crit and a stun. They were used often to protect anti-tank gun emplacements from tank charges, or immobilize tanks for a good shot by either an AT-gun or handheld AT-weapons.

Still, they shouldn't be cheap or numerous enough to be spammable, so that you don't end up having to take half a deck of combat engineering solutions just to be able to attack through the enemy's minefields. They should also be able to harm your own vehicles (perhaps not friendly ones, I could see that leading to griefing), so that you actually have to think about deploying them. For ex. you could use them to protect a weakly defended flank, or delay an enemy advance so that you can retreat in good order.

There's also plenty of options for clearing mines, ranging from vehicles and bangalore charges or Goliaths, to the simple engineer with with an ordinary bayonet.

With how Eugen did Wargame, I'm gonna hazard a guess to say that they do not have it in the game, in which case I think they should wait until at least after release and then either do a full expansion on fortifications and fortress busters, or never touch it with a 10 feet stick.

Thing with mines is, the most significant gameplay impact isn't just about the mines themselves, its about being able to put things on the ground.
If you have mines, then barbed wire should be a thing, if barbed wire is a thing, then tank traps should be a thing, if tank traps are a thing, then Belgian gates, then trip mines, then small foxholes, then quick trenches etc. If they're placed pre-game like you suggested, then what about concrete fortifications?

At what point does letting the player pop down thing cross Eugen's macro micro threshold? At what point does placeable fortification encourage turtling and not maneuvering? How would fortification be made so players would sometimes actually attacking it instead of just calling all the arty and air strikes on it?

Having just mines would be like if the game focused on infantry, but you also get 1 tank, just 1 type, and then 1 anti tank gun to take it out.
It's just something that needs to be done separately with full effort, or not at all.

I don't mind mines or shallow trenches, or even barbed wire (as all infantry squads of the time would have had wire cutters with them), but fortifications much heavier than that usually take so much time and resources to construct that the game simply doesn't reflect that. We're talking about a meeting engagement type of match, not prepared defenses.

Field fortifications like shell scrapes and emergency minefields weren't an exception, but the norm for the time, and don't take long at all to deploy.

 

[Fonz]

Why? They can just have minefields no problem.

Well if we have mines, why don't we have tank traps, or barbed wire? Those 2 are arguable as common as if not more than mines, and much more of a tactical thing which Eugen is going for.

I'm not saying mines are bad or they shouldn't be in the game, just that static fortifications in general introduces such a drastic change in game dynamics for a game at this tactical level that it's best if they either a) spend a whole expansion on it way after release or b)never add it in as a thing.

 

[Thonar]

With how Eugen did Wargame, I'm gonna hazard a guess to say that they do not have it in the game, in which case I think they should wait until at least after release and then either do a full expansion on fortifications and fortress busters, or never touch it with a 10 feet stick.

Thing with mines is, the most significant gameplay impact isn't just about the mines themselves, its about being able to put things on the ground.
If you have mines, then barbed wire should be a thing, if barbed wire is a thing, then tank traps should be a thing, if tank traps are a thing, then Belgian gates, then trip mines, then small foxholes, then quick trenches etc. If they're placed pre-game like you suggested, then what about concrete fortifications?

At what point does letting the player pop down thing cross Eugen's macro micro threshold? At what point does placeable fortification encourage turtling and not maneuvering? How would fortification be made so players would sometimes actually attacking it instead of just calling all the arty and air strikes on it?

Having just mines would be like if the game focused on infantry, but you also get 1 tank, just 1 type, and then 1 anti tank gun to take it out.
It's just something that needs to be done separately with full effort, or not at all.

I do not see it this way.
1. As I said: mines allow concentration of forces on another point.

2. Mines are an asset on battalion level and above, which is exactly the scale we are talking about, when speaking of a Wargamesque game. Unlike Barbed wire which is more a company/ platoon asset and more suitable to games like Men-of-War. Also, except for WWI, there are usually no several hundred meters of barbed wire laying out as a field.
Fixed fortification like concrete bunkers are also assets on a higher scale and cannot be constructed/ placed in a size/ amount/ in time to have an effect on the battle when looking on the time-scale a battle takes places when looking on a wargamesque game (a single day). Thus they seem to be out of question except maybe for certain maps as on-map-buildings.

 

[Fortes241]

Please no mines.
Everyone would play def.

If u hold a City (with some Tanks, anti Tank guns, anti aircraft and some inf) and u have a Mix of anti Tank and anti inf. Mines in front of the City, no one would capture it.

With every attack u would lose a lot of units.

 

[Mister Maf]

Please no mines.
Everyone would play def.

If u hold a City (with some Tanks, anti Tank guns, anti aircraft and some inf) and u have a Mix of anti Tank and anti inf. Mines in front of the City, no one would capture it.

With every attack u would lose a lot of units.

This. Anything that makes it easier to turtle up is bad.

 

[Karelian]

Only if we'll get a new attack/defend-type gamemode.

 

[Thonar]

When someone "turtles up" in a city, you can bypass him with the frontline-mechanic and all his forces are wasted on an unimportant place.
Unlike in Wargame there is mostly no need to attack a certain objective.

But like in Wargame players will start to try to defend the whole frontline with all of their units and will start to waste all their points into these defensive lines without any kind of true maneuver warfare happening.

That's why mines are needed. They help to delay an enemy on certain points that are not really defended and thus free forces for an actual attacking gameplay. It is partly even a mind-game:
"I don't have forces in an area and must be prepared for an attack there->thus I need a certain amount of units there"... with mines these amounts of units are far smaller which frees up points for attacking-forces since the defense can be done by reserve forces.
This actually encourages maneuver-warfare.

Turtling up will fail with the frontline mechanic because a player which uses the mines only for delaying will have more forces to push through your defenses where you're not the strongest.

 

[Kampfkekskrieger]

I made a smiliar suggestion aboout fortifications! Its over here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-c-red-alert-1-2-with-fortifications.1002755/

If its technically or financially not doable, we have to play without mines, but all those things..

Thing with mines is, the most significant gameplay impact isn't just about the mines themselves, its about being able to put things on the ground.
If you have mines, then barbed wire should be a thing, if barbed wire is a thing, then tank traps should be a thing, if tank traps are a thing, then Belgian gates, then trip mines, then small foxholes, then quick trenches etc. If they're placed pre-game like you suggested, then what about concrete fortifications?

... are what makes a strategy game interesing, if the pizza is done right.
could also ask for 20 faction, 50 maps or a long campaing the same way (which I would prefer too!: a long and exciting campaign)

exactly that IS the trick to make a concept for a strategy game right.
I LOVE wargame, but I also love to see for example mines.

I stated C&C Red Alert which did only small sets of the different 'tactical opportunities', not many ships, but the game HAD ships for example. no matter if its done well or bad.
Especially for a multiplayer game with humans who can use it, that would be nice!

For a developer its something else, but for a player, why not state a wish that many people have maybe, even if they dont hope for being heared?

 

[UltimateIdiot]

Please no mines.
Everyone would play def.

If u hold a City (with some Tanks, anti Tank guns, anti aircraft and some inf) and u have a Mix of anti Tank and anti inf. Mines in front of the City, no one would capture it.

With every attack u would lose a lot of units.

The amount of mines available shouldn't be significant enough to do that though. Enough to help defend a weak flank or delay, not enough to make a strongpoint impregnable.

For ex. You can get a combat engineer unit with mines. Let's assume the basic engineers cost 20 points + 15 points for the mines + 10 points for a transport. That's 45 points, and you'd have an availability of two or three per card, and one card per deck. A single engineer unit can deploy a single minefield, so you'll need to call in another one if you want a second one. If you've limited INF slots, that'd make them an investment and reduce spamming them, no?

You could deploy them anywhere on the map on your own territory, but deploying them takes several minutes (1-5 minutes depending on how much they need to be balanced) and the engineer team doesn't get any cover bonuses while it's deploying them. This would make it suicidal to deploy them under enemy fire, as it is in real life. Deploying a minefield would give you a 5m x 10m long mine-obstacle, or just the width of a road, and a bit longer than an armored vehicle of the time. But if it's deployed poorly, you can just go around it.

They shouldn't be powerful. AT-mines of the time had enough explosives in them to blow up a track, but not enough to actually destroy a vehicle (unless it's a light vehicle, like a recon jeep or so). So your lead tank drives to a minefield - he's stunned and immobilized for a time, but not damaged. The main damage would be done by AT weapons of other sort.

They'd be, ideally, used to protect bottlenecks on a weak flank, stop a tank column in front of an AT-ambush, or delay a rush so you can retreat. They are and should be a support asset.

There would also be ways to spot them, say combat engineers or recon units passing close enough, as well as ways to clear them. Such as these:

Spoiler: Combat Engineering solutions

Or you can try to clear it with a good ol' artillery fire mission.

Look at it this way, if you've no problems with artillery or mortars, you shouldn't have a problem with mines. You can't see either before they shoot/blow up unless you look for them, both stun your units, both have limited availability. Except mines would (and should) be much rarer than either mortars or arty. And mines don't (hopefully) run away after you find them and try to put a HE shell into them.

 

[Alpha2518]

I think people here are forgetting two things. 1) Supply of mines is limited. Yes it's cheap to make them, but we are not looking at a unit constantly getting fresh mines.You have only so many mines too use. The only way around this would be to dig up your mines and place them somewhere else. The reason you'd need to dig up your mines would primarily be that they would kill your troops as well as the enemies.

So you have a minefield that you used to help stop an enemies advance and now you want too counter attack. Well now your mines are in the way. Either you could quickly blow them up which is what I would do, or take time too remove them, thus losing time, but you still have em for later.

2) Aside from mines placed anywhere at the start, mines should take a lot of time too emplace. Especially as the fields get bigger and denser. Which also uses more mines and is less for everywhere else you need mines.

 

[Kampfkekskrieger]

I dont say, that we have to use them, but why not discuss how they could be useful?
I see them in AR1(again), in C&C Generals (with a plane, ... but mines... and not the worst way to use them;also China), and Tiberium Wars had mines with the GDI IFV (I dont know the english coding), which was very very bad, but I used it to kill nod mots quite well.

I Agree with you:
The supply is limited, lets do as if this was some kind of wargame, you need a supply truck or so to resupply the vehicle, and a vehicle can make a wall of 1km for example by driving along that way with a 'move+laymines'-setup, a special command similar to attackmove.

Now you can spot the mines with recon vehicles (maybe with some delay, so they can still run into mines, if mindless driving), and the mining vehicle is fragile, so nothing for a already opened front.
It would be rather to secure CVs, which was difficult enough; not sure if Recon inf could surpass them with that setting though.
So +1 in a use case for defending flanks and CVs, which is very nasty, if you get backstepped.

Yes, laying mines can need some time and be costly like artillery, I dont care.
they should be able (there will be different types of mines, right?) to kill some APCs in front of towns, maybe light tanks, or some damage to infantry squads, but not a total kill with a wrong step, but maybe a warning not to go on, with a chance to retreat that squad. Small squads, 2 and 5 men would be killed maybe.
Some units then have a digging device, some dont. If bombs drop, or artillery shells, that should clear mines.
The worst thing, I see with mines, they might be too much of manual work, they should do their job rather automated, as soon they have designated a job, with a effective UI.

In the hot zones of a battlefield, mines could stop some ground rush maybe at the start, but ought rather be a place for inside woods, where you have your troops to clear mines (e.g. scouts), and in order to make mines not too defensive, spotted mines should be bypassed by the units, while revealed, that will not walk through it, then. And they could be shot at by everyone once spotted, so a least intend of attacking should have easy game with mines, even MGs might shoot at it, also from normal infantry.

Now, I just wanted to add the topic somehow.
If in a good way, it would be fun to play with I think.
As already mentioned, it would stop or delay rushes (exactly those things that some people call 'spam') and side ambushes, I think. That would be a point.

Edit:
1. Can you drop mines with a plane? exactly that would stop rushes or deny town captures Muhaha...
2. its something to improve still, I know, but with the right Ideas it could be a success.
Oh and 3. Fortification is EXACTLY the answer to the Spam-rush-topic in general, that wargame has!