Simple Question regarding Maps

[MarkSheppard]

Apologies if this has been asked before, I did a quick search with the forum software and didn't find it.

Do the height levels in SP mean anything? e.g is height "10" approximately 10 meters; 20 = 20m and so on?

Thanks in advance!

[DRG]

....read the introduction on the first page of the game guide... ( it's amazing what you'll find there.....)

[MarkSheppard]

Thanks for putting up with my stupid question.

[DRG]

It's not a "stupid question" but we do wonder sometimes why we bothered with a game guide..

[Exiled Penguin]

TBH the map levels are "whatever suits", on some of my maps I had to use steps of 30 m, on others all levels are by 10 m etc. The only guideline is "that the map looks pretty" :)

[Mobhack]

The original SP had but 3 levels, so 3 was a big hill, 1 a shallow one.

We extended that to 15 levels, but its still a case of 1 is low, 15 the highest/biggest hill.

Also, any water feature (like streams) will always be -1 or less height, so a stream through a hill is always in a steep "gorge". That one cannot be changed in the SP universe as the test for water features is <0 height.

A hill unit is 5 height units IIRC, and so terrain with height less than that is like small ridges and so on, that can be seen over by units. A hill needs the unit to be up on it to see over it.

Therefore on one map, 15 may be your "alps" and 0 the plains below. Many game-made maps are filled with terrain to 1 or maybe 2 levels, so that river valleys are in decent "dug-out" river valleys "below" the base terrain height, etc.

Think of it being rather like the old wooden (or PVC ceiling tiles) painted green that you used to have in the props cupboard of the tabletop wargames club, along with green felt cloth areas for woods that you sprinkled tree models onto, and grey ditto that you placed 1/300 model buildings on as a "built up area". Those you slapped down on your 6 foot by 4 foot flat ("level 0") green-painted wooden baseboards. Roads were straight cuts of grey cardboard, and rivers were wiggly cuts of the same stiff card. Hedges were green-painted pipe cleaner, or unpainted for field walls.

Add model soldiers, players, rule books and a zillion dice and you were good to go.

So. like the wargames table of yore, an SP map is representative of the terrain, and not a geographer's ultra-accurate scaled sand-table rendition of the terrain like you might find in a Geography department at a University.

Andy