Close Combat Marines / Combat Mission Shock Force Comparison (Part 3)

Combat Mission Shock Force features a powerful and easy to use map editor. It took me two hours or so to to imitate the Close Combat Marines map. Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to create a 1:1 replica. Although this could be done to a certain extent, it could be labor intensive.

Here is an aerial view of the CMSF map, viewing towards the south-east (image is clickable).


A few minor things to mention at this point:

1. Roads in CMSF can only be laid out at 0, 45, 90, 125, 180, 225 and 270 degrees. Creating a curved road like the one in the CMM map (see previous post) cannot be done in the out-of-the-box CMSF engine. I think there are a couple of mods somewhere that allow this, but for the time being, I'll just use the stock roads.
   
2. In the CMM map, the river bed cuts through the terrain and thus can be used as a concealed approach. Since there are no water tiles in the CMSF engine, I faked this small stream as a relatively narrow, rock-covered cut in the terrain. I think that the tactical value of the stream is preserved in the CMSF map.
3. There is a wire fence at the east extreme of the CMM map. There are no wire fences featured in CMSF, so I used a tall wall instead. It is more cosmetic than anything, to create a certain impression for the player that he is fighting east of the airport. I don't think this shortcoming of the CMSF engine has any tactical impact in the gameplay of this scenario.
   

One obvious advantage of CMSF over CMM is that the former places the player in a 3D environment. Some tactical considerations like fields of fire, good defensive positions or concealed approaches are more easily grasped in the CMSF engine than in CMM. For example, take a look at the following view of the map (looking south from the access street of the airport).




In the next installment I will add troops to the scenario and edit the computer opponent.