Google Earth as a wargame aid

[voltigeur]

Does anyone else see Google Earth as a great game aid?

For a couple of years I have been using google maps to get the contours of areas where I want to play out battles. Then when 3d came out I was able to virtually stand on the battle field. I can see proportions see the roll and slope of hills and get a great feel for how the ground is laid out.

I'm starting to use this for terrain modeling.

Does anyone else use this and what have your results been?

[BattlerBritain]

Funny you should say about Google Maps.

Lately I've been toying with other ways to make some gaming maps, and hex maps as well, and make them look 'realistic'. I've been wanting to make some hex maps of specific areas of West Germany for a moderns game based on a hex boardgame.

My latest idea is to just use Satellite maps from say, Google maps, and using the view height when the scale shows 50m to take various screenshots of the intended map area.

Then print out onto A4 paper and it gives a scale about 3inches to 150m, so nice big hexes for putting miniatures and counters on. You can tell the terrain type in the hex just by looking at the real terrain, going for the most pre-dominant terrain type.

I was also going to use a hex-grid painted onto a clear perspex sheet that would just lay over the printed out map, with the A4 sheets trimmed and taped together.

Trouble is even for a smallish area it'd still take a lot of sheets to cover the area. So a lot of printing.

But the other advantages of Google Maps are endless. The 3D elevation view and Line-of-Sight tracker is amazing at getting the lie of the land (hills etc). I even tested it on an area around Prokhorovka near Kursk and using the modern satellite images You could almost see the 88 shells flying!

And Google Street View is a blast. I was even peering between hedges in Normandy with that one!

Amazing - just amazing.

[voltigeur]

My latest idea is to just use Satellite maps from say, Google maps, and using the view height when the scale shows 50m to take various screenshots of the intended map area.

The biggest problem I have had with using Satellite imagry is that hills are hard to see and judging their porportions is a real pain. The 3d view is a great aid but I find myself in the terrain portion first. The terrain gives you a topograghical view (simplified) so you know basically what you are looking at.

The only thing I don't like about the 3d viewer is you are stuck on one scale and I'm not sure what scale that is. But then again I take some artistic license with my terrain.

As a climber I have gone to mountains where I have actually been and I'm amazed at how accurate the views are.

My latest idea is to just use Satellite maps from say, Google maps, and using the view height when the scale shows 50m to take various screenshots of the intended map area.

How do you control the scale? I set google for 1 inch = 1KM and when I use the Snip-it tool it changes the image size on its own. Makes it hard to line up different screen shots.

[BattlerBritain]

Well I've been mixing Google Earth and the online Google Maps.

I find that Google Earth is just about impossible to get an accurate scale with as I can only get it to alter scale via an Altitude setting, unless I'm using it wrong (probably?). So I tend to use Google Earth for just the 3D and Line-of-sight stuff, which is still great.

But I've been using Google Maps to get the scale right by using the Google Maps fixed Zoom In/Zoom out levels. I then use the Google StreetView to get the eye-level view of the terrain. StreetView is simply amzing!

[voltigeur]

I'll have to try street view in Europe. Very interesting here. Funny when you are getting directions from omeone and you are telling them what you are seeing on their street, and you haven't even left the house yet.

I have noticed that hills look steeper and more predominant in google maps than they really are and that is what the 3d is good for. The satellite tends to flatten out the features so I use all 3 to interpret what I'm looking at.

[BattlerBritain]

I was doing some research for a battle a relative of mine was in in Normandy. His unit were defending a ridge (Perrier Ridge) just north of the Vire-Vassy highway. I decided to try Google Maps and see what it had.

On selecting the Vire-Vassy highway and then clicking the little-man icon on the Zoom bar my mouse turned into an orange man when over the highway, showing that there was StreetView coverage of that area.

I clicked the highway and instantly was looking east towards Vassy with hedges and little roads to the side. Panning round to the north by using the mouse I was presented with a view that the German attacker would have had of the ridge. Fan-bl**dy-tastic!

Only trouble was the StreetView cover didn't go up this little road up the hill. Aaah well - can't have everything.

The Google StreetView cover is getting pretty good in the UK and is expanding in Europe. I know that even NZ has good cover as my wife tried out seeing where her sister lived in Christchurch. You could even tell the house numbers! It's just like walking down the road.

[HKurban]

I use it, but not so much for the game boards. More for research. Since my game is an "twenty minutes into the future" speculative scenario I can't rely on any existing battlefields, so I end up using the system to "scope out" potential battlefields that might be the setting for World War III.

[voltigeur]

My research is for WW3 as well. I have used Google to look over map out and fully understand the Fulda and Hoff gaps for NATO vs Warpac. And small consulates for 80 USMC scenarios.

I have looked up some WW2 battlefields and you do have to be careful and do some adjusting. For example Foy Belgium is a lot bigger now than it was in 1944.

Have also virtually spied on Afganistan.

I will admit tho it makes me feel like a sleazy peeping tom

[sultanbev]

I used Google earth recently to recreate a battlefield on the Guetemalan-Honduras western border, took 3 hours to set up the terrain, but was a good game. We then left the battlefield up and used it later for a 1960s French-West German game!

What struck me was how much the terrain varied even within a kilometre, something to think about when setting up general tank battles.

Mark

[sultanbev]

I used Google earth recently to recreate a battlefield on the Guetemalan-Honduras western border, took 3 hours to set up the terrain, but was a good game. We then left the battlefield up and used it later for a 1960s French-West German game!

What struck me was how much the terrain varied even within a kilometre, something to think about when setting up general tank battles.

Mark

[Luca]

I found a very interesting map. It is the map of Bohemia and Moravia of the middle of XIX century. Unfortunatelly is not wel suited for a micro armour game, it could be best used by Napoleonic players.

Check the site www.mapy.cz select on the upper left side of the screen 'dalsi mapy' (other maps), and select the 'historicka mapa 1836-58'

With the exception of the bigger cities, the villages and the countryside didn't changed that much until the XX century. Just imagine a dense railway sistem, some factories and airfields close to the cities, and a highway connecting Prague with Brno.

Does someone know of similar maps of germany, france and low countries of the thirties?

[Theodore]

I found some really good pics along the Iran/Iraq border, helps show the mix of terrain and buildings if nothing else.

What is really cool is that in a lot of areas you can still see the trenches and fighting positions.